Week 1

During week 1 of our course we have learned about the many different aspects of collaboration within the online environment. Three different articles have allowed us to see first hand how we as humans adapt to this online environment in terms of how we present ourselves to form a functional online community. The article, "What is Collaboration Anyway," discusses the problem with finding a true definition with the word, "collaboration." This is because the term is often misused with a broad definition. Many think the definition of collaboration is very simple, but the word is actually much more complex. Because collaboration is such an overused term, we tend to forget that with collaboration there is a need for goals and intentions. Without goals and intentions collaboration cannot be met. To help me better understand the text, it was really helpful to see the Steven Colbert segment where he changed facts on Wikipedia elephant article. Without his goals and intentions behind the collaboration of getting his followers involved, it would not have been considered collaboration. Knowing the concepts behind the definition of collaboration helps me better understand what is needed for collaboration in online communities. 

The article, " Social Network Nextdoor Moves to Block Racial Profiling Online," discusses the problems of accidental racial profiling within online communities. Nextdoor, a neighborhood watch website, is striving to put an end to racial profiling that happens within their site. With this they have changed their rules of reporting a crime within a neighborhood. For instance, if someone wanted to report a crime and they knew the race of the person they saw, they would also have to list other descriptors such as hair color, type of shoes, or even what clothes they were wearing in order to derive from racial profiling. This article was very insightful about how many people don't think about what they are posting and how it can be hurtful to others. It reminds us that we need to be mindful of the people on the other side of the screen in order to better our online communities and in this case to be more helpful detecting a criminal. 

Lastly, the article, " Collective Intelligence, Mankind's emerging world in cyberspace," discusses what collective intelligence really is. According to the reading, collective intelligence is distributed, enhanced, coordinated in real time, and it results in a mobilization of skills. This means that collective intelligence cannot happen without the content being distributed with acknowledgement of the content. The content must be in real time and after identifying the key skills we will be able to correctly understand collective intelligence. Just as collaboration, collective intelligence needs intention and it is something that is both cultural and context based. Knowing this it has been much easier to understand the definition of collective intelligence. Here is where you can view a video that gives a better explanation of the positives that collective intelligence provides to online communities (Ted Talk ).With this, I have taken away that there is much more that comes from these "simple" definitions. They are much more complex than we could have ever imagined and knowing how to look at them with all the components that create these definitions makes these words much easier to understand the online world.