A growing number of UMass faculty, staff and students — including many affiliated with CPPA — are working in partnership with academics from around the globe to establish what they’re calling the Workshop in the Study of Knowledge Commons. The group meets informally to talk about ways to influence the common good through open-access information and media; open-education initiatives; open-source software systems; and open-source hardware.
CPPA participants include Associate Professor Charles Schweik (environmental conservation and public policy); Assistant Professor Martha Fuentes-Bautista (communication and public policy); Dwi Elfrida (MPPA ’13); Kevin Moforte (MPPA ’13); and Diego Canabarro (visiting fellow with the National Center for Digital Government). Other campus participants come from the Du Bois Library and the departments of anthropology, communication and physics. The workshop structure, which emphasizes students and faculty co-producing with no real hierarchy, is in tribute to Schweik’s doctoral advisor, Lin Ostrom, who co-founded the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis at Indiana University.
If you would like to participate in the UMass Workshop on the Study of Knowledge Commons, please email Schweik.