CIRAL Pattern Language

Preface

This list contains patterns in various stages of completion -- all the way from just a title to a pattern in the Liberating Voices book. The idea is to use these patterns as an organizing strategy. The patterns, essentially, would form a “master plan” similar to that used by the University of Oregon. One of the most important aspects of the patterns, required by the project (we hypothesize) is the use of various facets. A preliminary list of these facets includes: Status (basically whether it’s adopted, preliminarily adopted, etc.), phase of life-cycle, category (perhaps), and other contextual information (e.g. used for home office).

Philosophy and Perspective

Ecosystem of Efforts (proposed)

Evergreen (and the community “outside” of Evergreen) engages in many activities that demonstrate and promote civic intelligence: we must think of CIRAL as a symbiotic entity.

Community (CIRAL / internal)

Inclusivity (proposed)

We are consciously opening up participation for Evergreen students, Evergreen faculty and staff, as well as community members and students around the world.

Capacity (CIRAL and beyond)

Capacity Bootstrapping (proposed)

Our capacity will always (of course) be finite. But we can build on what we have and increase it gradually over time through reflection, experiment, experience, dedication and creativity.

==== Strategic Capacity (34) ==== Leadership Development (proposed) ==== Metacognition (proposed)

Asset Mapping (proposed)

How can we work together if don’t know what we have to work with? This applies to our work within CIRAL and to our collaborations with the community.

Collaborative Scheduling / Default Meetings (proposed)

Our meetings don’t have to be the same every time but they don’t have to be different either: 30 minutes for faculty time then 60 for student time -- unless we decide differently.

Relationships (CIRAL & others)

Social Dominance Attenuation (4)

Covenants Covenants help codify the relationships of the various participants including rights and obligations.

Diverse Portfolio A diverse portfolio helps provide evidence for comparative research. It also raises that chance that there is something for everybody. Diversity of size, approach, duration, focus, etc.

Dynamic Leadership We recognize the roles of leadership while acknowledging that leadership must not be absolute or persistent: thus dynamic leadership is needed in which leadership changes and evolves.

Document Template If we think through what types of information we’ll need, we can design templates that provide a similar look and feel for the lab. It will also make our retrieval job easier.

Focus and Activity Clusters The simplest way to bring people together is around common interest and projects. We’re calling them clusters and how they form, act, and are evaluated may change over time.

Generic Task List In addition to specific tasks we should always maintain a list of generic tasks so that people can feel secure that they’re contributing even when guidance is unclear or unavailable.

Ground Rules These include the guidelines we’ll use for the Lab and the ones that we’ll use when working with the community. It also must include the ones that Evergreen introduces, such as those about “human subjects”, privacy, research, and intellectual property – among others.

In-House Projects Our in-house projects can increase our ability to work on collaborative ones with the community.

Inclusivity We are consciously opening up participation for Evergreen students, Evergreen faculty and staff, as well as community members and students around the world.

Institutional Memory Done thoughtfully today, CIRAL participants in the future can easily obtain the information they’ll need tomorrow. “Smart memory” development promotes “smart information retrieval”

Leadership Development

Leadership, much as the ability to support or follow, is of value and has rights and responsibilities. While we believe that everyone can -- and should -- lead, we believe that leadership skills can be improved through practice and reflection.

Liaisons Rather than have nobody or everybody talking to nobody or everybody, we appoint -- at least informally -- liaisons, who, as part of their job, carry information back and forth between groups.

Marketing While we refuse to engage in the less savory aspects of marketing, we fail if we don’t do our marketing properly.

Metacognition We improve our thinking by thinking about it and by changing it as necessary.

Partnership Life Cycle Like any relationship, from dating to scientific collaboration, there is a natural life cycle. To the extent that we acknowledge this, the higher the likelihood that we are successful.

Pattern Language Master Plan A pattern language has the potential to represent our shared vision from launching the CIRAL project to its development and maintenance and beyond.

Project Life Cycle As with other things that are created or that otherwise live, projects have life cycles. The fact that different things are done during different phases of life informs our project work. Research and Reflection Because this is a research – as well as action – project, the research (and reflection) aspect of it must always be present.