Progress Report 2: Model Authoritative VS. Model Democratic
Progress Report 2
1. Model Authoritative vs. Model Democratic
2. Jon Mai and Ariel Aguilar
3. We're researching Model Democratic versus Model Authoritative methodologies of design and applying what we're learning to the real world. We are surrounded by examples of both: the lecture model of learning versus the Socratic seminar of many recitations, going to Facebook and networking or applying to a job on Monster.com, and many more examples. Moving forward, the decision to use Model Authoritative or Model Democratic can severely impact any organization that seeks to communicate information to the world around them. We seek to understand the benefits and potential downfalls of each model, and apply them to a real world scenario, potentially aiding an organization that we believe strongly about to increase their presence and impact on the world.
4. Model Democratic, Model Authoritative, Design Methodologies, Human Centered Design
5. Our goal is to come to enough of an understanding of the differences and benefits of both designs to effectively communicate why an organization would want to change their web presence and have strong reasoning behind our positions. Our understanding of the problem has changed as we've realized that both methodologies have their strengths, and Model Democratic is not always the preferable model (even if it makes a strong case to be). The abstract of the problem is very large, and we're seeking to find ways to apply it in such a manner as to be able to make specific recommendations. It's extremely interesting to us because we understand the abstract concepts, but if we can make it personal and help an organization that we feel strongly about, we'll be able to more effectively choose between the two models in our own lives.
6. Our methodology will be to create a comprehensive report on Model Democratic versus Model Authoritative and come to very specific and persuasive conclusions about when each should be used and why. Then we'll analyze a website from an organization that we feel strongly about, and use our conclusions to send them a report on how they could make their web presence more effective and draw more people to their product/service. We'll then see how they respond, and while doubtful that they'll implement any specific changes during the scope of the class, we'll have a chance to see how our ideas are perceived and how effective our arguments are, while potentially creating an effect in the real world. We will also submit our results to Wikipedia. While it won't achieve any specific goal, we'll have the opportunity to participate in a Model Democratic website and make a contribution to the user community as a whole, because we feel strongly about the subject.
7. Our work is not unique; there have been several papers written on the subject of Model Authoritative and Model Democratic, even if they don't call them by name. However, we believe our work will be important and interesting because we are applying it to an organization which may never even have heard of the subject and we'll be able to make a tangible impact on the world from the classroom setting. If we receive feedback in time for the final presentation, we'll be able to show how our arguments were received, and gives us a jumping off point to handle rebuttals to our work. We believe the purpose of the classroom is to expand knowledge, and we'll be doing that with the paper, but it is also to expand experience, which we'll receive in a real world setting. The Model Democratic is the quintessential ideal of the course, in which we attempt to cater to the user's needs and find an environment in which they can truly grow and understand concepts more completely, and even begin to create these environments for themselves. We're taking this base concept of the course and applying it to the real world.
8. Our individual contributions have been largely contributions from the group as a whole. As Eric probably told you, he's having some personal problems and is unable to help us with the project going forward, but his ideas and work have been invaluable and we're sorry to see him go. We've met several times to work on the week to week projects and had brainstorming and research sessions about the final project during these meetings. We have had to modify the project a couple of times to meet expectations for the course, and may even have to modify it after our presentation, but the core of the work has come from us working together as a group. Going forward, Jon and Ariel are planning on working together on the research and paper, as well as choosing an organization and the Wikipedia page, so the project will continue to embody our group as a whole rather than a group of individuals, as we started the semester doing.
9. A major piece of our research is the paper “Democratizing Design: New Challenges and Opportunities for Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning” by our own Professor Fischer, and is the jumping off point for all of our research. Another helpful, if not scholarly site, is an article on www.money-zine.com about the different kinds of leadership and what works well in an organization. This gives us a view into how the community that is not computer science based views the democratic and authoritative models, as well as several others. Another article, by Cornelius Holtorf at Stanford, gives us a much better understanding of what the Democratic Model truly represents and helps us with some of the persuasive elements of our proposal, from yet another perspective, the archaeological point of view. Another article in Business Week points toward a blog that asks “does Wikipedia need editors?”. This is a perfect example of how the public can perceive Model Democratic. We found another scholarly article, from Ramesh Jain at the University of California, that will be extremely valuable when we go about truly explaining human centered computing and how it relates to our subject. We still have much research to do, but that illustrates a few of our sources and where we're basing our information around. We've found that Model Democratic really fits with the themes of the class, and there's a strong case to be made that everything should move in this direction, but there are also the nay-sayers. We've got the theoretical down, and we think the thing that we need most now is quantitative data, and we'll have to find it before we can write a truly persuasive paper.
10. Our ideas going forward are to apply our current research to the planned research, as well as choosing a site and brainstorming ideas to change it. We're hoping to send out the paper to the organization a week before the final project presentation in order to give them adequate time to respond, but we'll have to see moving forward if that time line changes. The Wikipedia Page will probably take place right before the final project presentation, when we have the best understanding of our concepts. Therefore, we have a lot of work to do over Thanksgiving Break!
11. Fischer, G. 2009. Democratizing design: New Challenges and Opportunities for Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning. Proceedings of CSCL, 282-286.
http://www.money-zine.com/Career-Development/Leadership-Skill/Situational-Leadership/
