Wikiversity:Developing Wikiversity through action research/About

Developing Wikiversity through action research is a collaborative research project to facilitate and assess the development of Wikiversity through action research.

What is Wikiversity, and how does it work?
This project is fundamentally about exploring answers to these questions. Wikiversity is a repository of learning materials, a resource for self-study, a space for collaboration, a space in which to learn collaboratively, a space to explore about learning, a space to learn about teaching, etc. So, how does Wikiversity do all this - "how" in the sense of "by what means" - and, crucially, "by what values"..

There will have to be more specific questions too - about what we (individually/collectively) want to change and/or achieve in working on Wikiversity.

But possibly, in its largest sense, the question this project will address is "Why Wikiversity?" In other words: why does Wikiversity exist, and what does its existence mean for the world of education, and/or for you, and/or for me?

Why use action research?
Action research could be an appropriate methodology for researching Wikiversity, because of the inherently collaborative nature of both. Both work through the participation of a community, and both are inherently driven by change. Also, action research can (some would say, should) be organised in such a way to improve the lives (or, at least, understandings) of the participants, as well as the environment/context of research - however, the extent to which this is actually enacted and facilitated in practice is up to the participants.

What does this project hope to achieve?
This is fundamentally up to the people who participate in this research project. Participants of this project need to identify what they would like to explore/change in Wikiversity, and how, and generally set the long and short-term goals of the project.

Who can participate in this project?
Anyone can participate. You can participate by adding points to be discussed, points of action, points of comment etc. You may remain anonymous (though it may help inter-communication if you make yourself known and sign your posts). Participation in this project does not mean that you take any more responsibility than what you explicitly agree to (in other words, you will not be forced to do any work, answer any question etc if you do not want to). Fundamentally your participation is entirely voluntary - but, hopefully, much appreciated.

What will be the outcomes of this project?
One intended outcome of this project is a PhD thesis. (Comment from Cormaggio: I want to make this explicit from the beginning, however I don't want to lay personal claim to the research process, as it is genuinely meant to be a fundamentally collaborative activity - see User:Cormaggio/My? research.)

This project will hopefully generate data and analysis about Wikiversity that will be useful to the community as resource to learn from.