The Lab Themes

The big outcome today are the lab themes. The themes are set, the description still in draft mode.

(insert drumroll)The Themes(/remove drumroll)

Advocacy Lab
The Advocacy Lab provides an opportunity for you to engage with real world problems in the context of community engagement and social issues. You will work in interdisciplinary teams to investigate problems and issues which matter to communities. The lab is an opportunity to facilitate your engagement with sustainable and responsible practice in the communication and media industries.

Critical and creative thinking will be used to enhance your disciplinary knowledge. This course offers you a deep level of engagement with social problems; you may work with community groups, not-for-profit organizations, or industry on real-world problems.

This is a lab where you are able to use your media and communication abilities to transform your, and others, understanding of ethical questions to empower and make a difference.

Slow Lab
The Slow Lab provides an opportunity for you to undertake speculative research and making around the concept of the ‘slow’. You will work in interdisciplinary teams to define, sketch, elaborate upon, unpack and describe how the recent idea of the ‘slow’ may be relevant to media and communication in terms of theory and practice.

This concept of the slow has arisen in reaction to the increased velocity and intensification of contemporary media, communication, manufacturing and consumption. It is concerned with sustainability and the romantic restoration of the ‘human’ within what some characterise as the ‘in’ or ‘posthuman’ of a contemporary knowledge society. You will interrogate the concept of slowness in this lab.

This is a lab where the slow movement will be appropriated to think about slow media, slow technology, and slow communication. You will use your media and communication abilities to consider the role and relevance of the slow in relation to a problem of your choice.

UnFiction Lab
The UnFiction Lab provides a space to investigate, critique and undertake studies in non fiction theory, practice and form. You will work in interdisciplinary teams to deepen your understanding of key issues in factual, documentary and nonfiction research. These issues may include the relation of fiction to nonfiction, the place of creativity and invention in nonfiction, the ethics of documentary, and asks where nonfiction occurs and why.

What is an Honours Lab?

Thanks to Russell Kerr:

What is an Honours Research Lab?
A Research Lab is a transformative space that facilitates dynamic work through the relations between the diverse individuals involved; these interactions produce innovative and creative solutions to key problems in media and communication.

The Research Lab can be thought of as being a creative studio space; part design studio; part kindergarten; part conversation; part laboratory. As a participant of a Research Lab you can expect to give a voice to an identified issue or theme, you will collaborate with team members in a participatory experience, and you will produce research outcomes of relevance to your future career.

You can expect an intensive collaborative environment that expands your understanding of a given subject. You will employ a range of complex skills and research activities to create new solutions in response to a research problem.

Outcomes of the Research Lab will be as diverse as the participants’ skillsets and experiences, they will be interdisciplinary. Your outcomes will be relevant to the research problem and be appropriate to your personal understanding and exploration of the issue or theme you have engaged with. The outcome you create may be different from your own disciplinary practice.

Honours encourages you to approach media and communication research as a disruptive, informed and transformational practice. The laboratory, from the point of view of your disciplinary experience and learning, will be seriously playful, liminal and enabling.

Selection and Honours

In the planning day workshop today (Jeremy Parker, Adrian Miles, Rachel Wilson, Russell Kerr, Cathy Greenfield) we worked out selection processes for honours. We will be seeking a minimum distinction average in your final year (70% or better) and then there will be a supplementary form, which will ask:

• Please rank your preference for the 3 research labs.
• Please briefly describe why you have these preferences.
• Please use make a list of 10 words to describe yourself as a student.
• Please use make a list of 10 words to describe the problems that matter to you.
• (Optional) Is there any material of yours that you would like us to see? Please provide URLs.

Good Questions

Questions that have arisen:

• If you wouldn’t call it a lab, what would you call it?
• How would you design the experience so that the lab model, etc becomes self sustaining/defining
• What has to happen to reach a tipping point for the students to ‘get’ this model? Staff?
• What does a 21st century honours mean, or require?
• What do you think the pitch for this is?

Some Visitors and an Opportunity

This is from Laurene Vaughan, not sure of what exactly this day will entail.

As part of our ground work for the new honours and master of design narratives development, we have organised (through Loupe research funds) for Anne Burdick, Chair of the Graduate Media Design program at the Art Centre College of Design (California – http://www.artcenter.edu/mdp/) and Cameron Tonkinwise, Chair, Design Thinking and Sustainability, School of Design Strategies, Parsons (http://www.newschool.edu/facultyexperts/faculty.aspx?id=23672) to come and be part of a one day workshop exploring:

Educating the future media, communication and design practitioner.

This will happen on October 22. We are hoping to organise some lunchtime presentations by Anne and Cameron on the developments and challenges they have been facing in this space for the School and broader community. We also thought it would be appropriate for them to meet you, if it is possible with your diaries.

The times for the workshop so far are: 10 – 3.30pm with 60 -90min of presentations in the middle of the day.

Sketch Notes Second Planning Day

Quick sketch notes following the second planning day. Perhaps the most striking experience of the day for me was that outcomes did not really move us forward, but they replayed quite plainly the same processes and conversations that the working group have had over the last six months.

In the introduction to the day I talked about how one of the outcomes of the day was to disseminate what the working group has been up to. So it was for us to get stuff out and spoken about, positively or negatively, and for some conversations to happen afterwards to help get information out there. So in terms of information there is hoped to be a centrifugal flow out. I also pointed out that like committees and working groups in general you develop an internal understanding and dialogue, what you might think of as a sort of idiolect of common assumptions and understandings. But this can mean that your assumptions disappear and you can lose sight of what matters, of what is problematic, of what needs attention, more thick description and detail. So one of the outcomes of the day is to get outside perspectives so we can see what needs attention, resourcing, and so on. Finally, the day is very much about process and we are not to spend time solving problems, arguing about fine detail. If you think there is a problem, write it down or tell us and we can capture it. If there is something good, ditto. Just park the problems and move on. It is the working group’s job to work out what to do with the issues, problems, concerns, possibilities, ideas and innovations that we collect.

Key question: What will make this laboratory/studio model work?

So, the moving forward. A rationale for the planning day was that we had done a lot of thinking in the working group and had reached a position where it felt like we were making big decisions, and that rather than just us making these decisions, we needed to take them out of the working group and to others for a) critique (are we on the right track? where, how? what other things/paths/tracks have we missed or need to be considered?) and b) to provide some thick description and body to the ideas so that what is the current skeleton of a program structure and some ideas about curriculum and what matters can be solidified and, well, fleshed out. While the material gathered and generated has not been collated yet, I don’t think this happened. What we did get was a lot of material and thick description around where the difficult parts of the program structure are, and what those problems actually look like. This did closely align with the working group, and so the relation of the studio to the supervisor and to the individual research practice is one such point. As is the role of the communication orientated subject. As is the actual role and activity within the studios. From our point of view this was quite affirming as it is a bit like convergent evolution where two different groups started from partly different points and arrived at very similar outcomes. This suggests that not only are we right in identifying the sticky or lumpy bits, but also that we need to spend a lot of time, relatively speaking, in explaining and contextualising these things.

As a consequence the planning day did not really take where the working group had gotten to and then expand on that. This, in retrospect, was partly my fault. I suspect the original schedule, where things like honours research was discussed before the studio scenario exercise, may have been more productive simply because as academics there was a lot they had and wanted to say about research. Getting this out and recognised, and then asking via the scenarios how this would happen in the studios, might have given a bit more context, for many struggled with the process orientated nature of the activity. Secondly, while I tried to be careful in using terms as only placeholders, and that they could be called anything, by describing the studios as studios (even though I routinely also called them a lab), and that they would have a leader or manager, saw nearly everyone treat them as studios with managers, where a manager was an administrative and not really an academic role. If I had simply called them research labs, with research directors, then I think things would have changed quite dramatically. This at least tells us how we need to name them.

These are the notes I made from each of the working table groups as they reported back. Red are problems. Green are good bits, brown direct quotes

Some Key Observations (not necessarily clear for others or before the day)

• The studio/lab model is key to the structure and experience of the program for staff and students, and in terms of framing research as an activity and practice. The opportunity to participate in these labs is the reason why you would apply for this program.
• Have a think about all those ways the program can innovate, for example having an Open Access curriculum – how can we do this? Why?
• We need a set of values for the program, these are not the graduate attributes, but these values do inform, justify and orientate the program
• Where should these laboratories happen (may sound obvious, but it certainly wasn’t to the participants)
• What sorts of participatory partnerships could there be (industry, Salford, individual companies)?
• Should it be a hub or centre of innovation/invention? What does that actually mean? What would it look like?
• We might need to progressively develop the studio/lab model over time, so first ones are set and predetermined in advance, to ensure they work, have key staff in place, and then see what knowledge, skills and resources are needed to then run new ones
• Just brain storming: one attached to screen hub, one to communications and social advocacy, one to Asian media, one on social media? What’s missing?
• Honours research: PhD requires qualitative change in disciplinary understanding from the point of view of the discipline. In the research outcome is a qualitative change in the student’s understanding of the discipline from the point of view of the student
• Staff development, or perhaps just existing, working labs, is needed so staff can understand what a research lab is
• Why should methods in honours have to be the only methods subject for students going on to HDR? Does thinking about that differently let us treat the methods subject differently? (And isn’t it the existence of honours – that is a thesis or project – and not the methods subject that means you do not need to do another methods subject in HDR?)
• Should applicants have to demonstrate some understanding already of the studio theme? Or perhaps this is not how we get students into honours but how we get them into specific studios?
• If the thesis/project and exegesis forms the examinable component does it matter if this is different to what the studio is? What does this constrain? What does this enable?

Second Planning Day 2

Had an honours working group meeting today and we workshopped, rejigged and generally hacked the proposed schedule for the second planning day. The tools we need for the day are:

• lots of post it notes
• white board markers
• cameras
• scenario sheets
• textas, sharpies and coloured markers
• scissors
• tape
• A3 and A4 paper

The new schedule is:

Date: July 14
Time: 10am to 4pm.
Venue: Building 9, room 9.2.17 TBC

(This is not a decision making day but to help inform thinking and provide input to the development of the honours program.)

Bachelor of Media and Communication ([nnn]) (Hons)
[Media, Journalism, Public Relations, Advertising, Professional Communication, Communication Design, Creative Media]

[10:00 - 10:30]

• introductions
• outline of honours structure
• outline of the key outcomes sought from the day

[10:30 - 13:00]

Things to remember: idea is for four studio/labs, 10 students per studio. Supervision is not happening in labs, labs are about projects, supervision is about individual research practice/scholarship.

studio – laboratory scenario (more details available)

• develop project scenarios (10 minutes)
• define personas (20 minutes)
• develop contexts (20 minutes)
• develop and mark up (on timelines) implementation (30 minutes)

Introduce this with outline/discussion/speculations about what the lab/studio might or could be – themes, existing projects. Imagine there be a lab director and a separate supervisor. And these are some of the seeding questions/prompts to answer and think with;

• what is the role of the supervisor? The studio leader?
• what sorts of learning activities and assessment outcomes should could there be?
• what should could research be in honours? In this studio/lab model?
• what sorts of outcomes should could be expected?
• how should could these studios/labs and their outcomes relate to the school?
• what do you need to know to run a studio/lab?
• what resources do you need to run a studio/lab?
• what does a student need to know?
• should could studio/labs be thematically defined/themed?
• should could studio/labs be defined by projects? Both projects and themes?

At the end of all this each group will report back

[13:00 - 13:30]

Lunch (provided) and presentation about honours at University of Salford

[13:45 - 16:00]

Working in small groups, each group will deal with one of the following. Please make dot points, and each group will report back at the end:

• LEARNING: what learning activities and assessments should could there be in honours?
• GRADUATE ATTRIBUTES: what qualities are needed to do honours? What qualities would honours develop? What qualities should could honours develop?
• METHODS: how can the research methods subject contribute to and support the studio/labs and their outcomes? How can the methods subject be relevant to all the disciplines? What would make the methods subject different from existing ones so that it can be taught?
• MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION FUTURES: what sorts of things should could a subject like this include? What or how might it be different to the sorts of honours communication courses that are offered elsewhere?

Lunch Guest

The second honours planning day looks like it will have a guest participant. Dr. Andrew Cooper, from the Faculty of Arts, Media and Social Sciences, University of Salford, is dropping by RMIT. So he’s going to participate for a while in the planning day, and also over lunch give us an overview of the honours programs in the faculty at Salford. Exchanges in honours would be a very nice thing to be able to offer.

Scenario Model for the Second Planning Day

So, after the meeting I sat down with Jeremy Y to revisit the thinking around scenarios. Very valuable insights for me about the use of scenarios, and Jeremy also has great models and experience about how to do this so that you get outcomes. The structure of the day is good. The morning is more abstract thinking which can then be used to inform and influence the sorts of thinking, activities and outcomes we get from the afternoon sessions. The scenario driven activities, which revolve around the studio/lab aspect of honours, segues nicely into thinking about the methods and communication theory subjects that are involved. This way these subjects can be thought of as helping to enable the studio/laboratory model, and are not merely an adjunct that are then experienced as outside of, or just sitting alongside of, the rest of honours.

btw, drawing credits to Jeremy Yuille.

So, brief notes.

PROJECTS
Define projects first, as this helps ground the personas and the contexts discussions. I think this will also help with a lot of the people involved in the planning day because they will, generally, have had little experience of these sorts of activities, so grounding it in a more concrete context is good. To do this invite everyone to just brainstorm or imagine possible projects, real, imagined. These go on post it notes and get put up on wall. They can be grouped around common themes or methods. Each group (a group will be defined by table size, given the classrooms we’re using, probably 6 to a group) will select one project as the basis for the next steps.

PERSONAS
As a group make a list of the people who might be particpants and the key actors involved in the project. Academics, students, research subjects, partners (industry, community, cultural groups), anyone who this project might impact on. This could include the research community too. Then work in pairs to make these people concrete, give them a persona. Name them. What sort of car do they drive (do they drive), favourite colour? What sort of music do they like? Any pets. Favourite author and what book made the biggest difference to them? Why are they involved and what do they hope to achieve because of their involvement?

CONTEXTS
Now, take these people, in this project, and think about where it would happen. What areas does it involve? Where would it have impact? These might be places, industry practices, knowledge domains. It is also, literally, where it would take place. In a classroom (what sort), in an office, in a home?

IMPLEMENTATION
Finally, how would you achieve this? What do you think your personas need to be able to do this? What problems and questions arise for you?

Then we can use a timeline for the year and do a two part process using this. The time lines can be up on the wall and used by each group, again with post it notes (different colours would be useful to help easily identify information). The first step is to note, more or less as bullet points, what might happen, who might be involved, what might be made (outcomes), and what gets assessed (and perhaps by who?). Stick this above the timeline, obviously using the timeline to put when things are likely to happen.

Under the timeline document all things you think you might need to achieve this. Resources, people, students, information, knowledge, skills. What things? What are they? This will then segue into the final two parts of the afternoon session which deal with the two required coursework components of the honours model.

Planning Day 2 Working Guide

The aim of the second planning day is to develop and use some scenarios to help get a sense of how to implement the program. This is to help inform how program guides need to be written, and also the sorts of auxiliary activities, information and processes that may be necessary for it to work. The heart of the new program is the move to themed research studios or labs. But what is this in practice? How do you teach this? Why? There are also some things that you might describe as ‘core’ values that a program needs to have (graduate attributes for example). Rather than write these from within the working group the planning day is an effort to get broader input into these. Hopefully this will increase ownership and involvement within the honours program. It could also go completely pear shaped where the lists and values generated are reactive, old skool and too industrial to let the program be the innovative and creative re-creation of an honours program that it ought to be.

Below is the working outline of the day’s schedule. This is a first draft, about to be gone over intensively by the working group, and it will also be given a working over by the Dean and the day’s facilitator, who has a lot of experience in these sorts of things. If you want it as a pdf, then knock your socks off.

Why we are having a planning day?

• more involvement and investment in honours
• more involvement and investment in decision making around the new program
• consultation from outside the working group
• to help get ownership of the idea and role of what honours is and can/should do

Key outcomes we need from the day:

• graduate attributes
• learning and teaching attributes: outline/mapping/discussion/maybe consensus of key values to inform curriculum development and pedagogy
• research attributes (not sure what this is or if needed?)

The course structure is fixed at this point. It is the skeleton we have to work with. The aim of the planning day is to begin to flesh this out. At the moment it is a) full time only and b) there is no mid year entry. What we want to achieve today is to work out what ideas, principles and ideals should inform how we develop the program content? Why?

MORNING

SCAFFOLDING

(this discussion sets up the things that happen after lunch)
Discuss each of these to introduce them, then work in groups to develop responses. These collated with any discussion to them that may be necessary. There will be a voting process (2 or 3 votes each participant) for each of these three categories to help filter the outcomes.
What are the graduate attributes for honours?

• what should honours graduates be able to do?
• what qualities should they exhibit?
• what are the opportunities for graduates?

What is the learning and teaching vision for honours?

what learning and teaching principles should inform honours?
should this inform all of honours?
should honours support and allow for a diversity of learning styles?
should honours support and allow for a diversity of assessment outcomes?
should this diversity be student directed? How much?

What is the research vision for honours?

what is research in honours? 
what sorts of research could be done?
what sorts of research should be done? 
what outcomes should be supported?

The object here is to produce a list or cloud, discuss and debate. And to then use a simple voting system to rank them. I think it should be clear that this is a consultation and discussion process but nothing is fixed, ie this will inform thinking but just because some particular thing gets voted number one today, it may not remain so.

AFTERNOON

SCENARIOS

(these discussions are to make clear problems and what needs to be in place and understood to be able to deliver this program, they invite participants to role play as a way to move from the abstraction of the morning to concrete activities)

STUDIOS/LABS For Staff: what sorts of things do projects need to be? What sorts of outcomes could or should they produce or provide for? What do I have to do to manage a project? What might I do in the three hours a week for the year that my project has?
For Students: Why would I participate in a project? What would it be like to participate in a project? Describe what sorts of research you might do, what might you make or do?
[Other notes I made: You are an academic within the school and you have a project that you can see would be relevant for an honours studio. What do you imagine this studio-lab to be? What would it be like to run one?
What do you think you would want to know to be able to teach or run one of these studio–labs?
What do you think you would like to do in one? What sorts of things do you think it would do? What sorts of things would you be doing? 
What is the relationship between the studio, the studio leader, and the student’s supervisor? ]
What do you imagine a student would do in a studio, what do you think this experience would be like? 
Why would I want to participate in this?

RESEARCH METHODS If you were a student what do you think you would like to learn in a methods subject?
How would you like to to learn this? 
As an academic what do you think research is? How have you learnt to do it?

MEDIA AND COMMUNICATION HISTORIES AND FUTURES Imagine you are teaching this subject, would what you like it to be, for you?
Imagine you are a design student, what would this subject be for you?
Imagine you are a journalism student, what would this subject be for you? 
Imagine you are a creative writing student, what would this subject be for you?
[what is role of theory? What is role of practice? What is doing in these contexts?]