Version 21 May 2009.
Course homepage: http://faculty.washington.edu/jtenenbg/courses/tgh303/s09/
Class location: CP103
Class times: T/Th 10:15-12:20pm
Instructor info:
Josh Tenenberg
Cherry Parkes 335
jtenenbg@u.washington.edu
(253)692-4521
Office Hours: T/Th 12:20-1:30pm (except when there are UWT Executive Council meetings) and by appointment
People rely upon a great variety of shared resources for sustenance, social connectedness, and meaning. Examples span the range from traditional commons, such as fisheries and forests, to newer commons, such as scientific research and the Internet. This course takes the following questions as its focus: given the diversity of commons and people, what social institutions do social groups develop to govern their shared commons? Which governance structures promote sustained resource use in the long-term, and which have led to resource degradation and collapse? How do groups deal with the conflict between individual self-interest and the interest of the collective? What theoretical tools can we bring to bear on these questions? And how can we artfully craft institutions for the sustainable management of our commons, both traditional and new? The sustainability of shared natural and human-designed resource systems is not simply a bio-physical or technological problem. Our survival as a species and the sustainability of these systems depends on our ability to govern ourselves and to cooperate for individual and collective benefit.
This course is designed to appeal to students in all of UWT's degree programs. The course is global in taking a comparative view from different locales across the globe, examining commons within a variety of specific cultures. These include forests in rural villages in Switzerland, groundwater in the LA basin, and fisheries in Sri Lanka. In revealing the commonalities and differences among institutional arrangements, the comparative view highlights the degrees of freedom in which creative human artisanship has been brought to bear on crucial social arrangements. We will also examine commons that are global in scope, such as sealing, open ocean fishing, and digital commons enabled by the Internet.
Because of the diversity and complexity of the issues that we will examine, this course will necessarily draw on a wide range of disciplines (particularly in the social sciences) including political science, history, economics, law, and philosophy, among others. Each discipline brings particular methods to bear that can serve as powerful levers for developing understanding into commons governance. In addition, each discipline brings theoretical understandings that will serve as tools for analysis: about individual and collective human behavior, evolutionary development, and the inter-relatedness of bio-physical, cultural, and institutional factors in the governance of resource systems in specific places at specific times.
This is a 5-credit undergraduate honors level course. As such, it will require a considerable amount from you in terms of time, energy, and commitment. I consider the following an estimate of the minimal amount of time that this course will require each week: 4.5 hours of class attendance, 4 hours for reading and summaries, 6 hours for working on the term paper, all totaling 14.5 hours.
Each assignment is to be handed in no later than the start of class on the specified due date. Late assignments will not be accepted. It is recommended that you turn in something rather than nothing, even if it is incomplete. With due cause, exceptions to this policy will need to be negotiated with the instructor; emergency documentation may be required and/or late penalties may be given, depending upon the circumstances.
The assignments are as follows. The percentages indicated below are the grade weightings for the final grade calculation associated with each assessment. Each assignment is described in more detail below.
Each week there will be readings assigned, as indicated in the accompanying schedule, which should be considered part of the syllabus. Associated with each reading is a writing. Your writing on readings will be due by the start of the first class session of each calendar week (i.e. Tuesday), except for the first week of classes. Place all readings into a single file in "doc" (not docx) format, and hand it in via CollectIt.
For each reading, you will write two paragraphs of not less than five sentences each that summarizes the reading. This summary is descriptive rather than interpretive and will be focused on providing an overview of the contents of the article, not your reaction to it. Focus on the main themes in order of importance ("the central thesis is that long-sustained Commons share specific `design principles'"), rather than slavishly sticking to the order of the author's presentation ("first she talks about game theory, then she applies it to the case of small groups in one-shot social dilemmas, then she applies it to repeated games").
After the summary, regardless of the number of readings, you should then add another one to two paragraphs that answer the following questions:
The point of these writings is not simply mechanical; rather, it is to reinforce the importance of reflecting upon the ideas in the readings. These readings represent accumulated cultural knowledge. By understanding what past experts have already learned allows you to leverage some of the effort that they have already expended in learning about how to do understand commons governance. Thus, my judgement in grading these readings concerns the extent to which it appears that you have read and reflected upon the readings.
Once during the quarter, each of you will work in a group of 2 or 3 to prepare a set of questions related to that week's readings and to facilitate discussion in class. I will assign groups randomly, and it is your responsibility to meet prior to Tuesday of the week for which you are assigned. Your group must bring to class at least six substantial discussion questions related to the readings. You will hand these in hardcopy, with the names of the group members. In addition, each member of the group will hand these in softcopy on CollectIt (using "doc" format) by the start of class on Tuesday.
Here are the detailed requirements that you will use to construct these, and that I will use for their evaluation:
Write between one-half and one-page about yourself: who you are, what are your passions, what you see yourself doing five years after graduating. Also, optionally (but so that I can better learn your names and remember you in the future if you contact me) please include a photograph of yourself as a separate file. Please hand this in via CollectIt.
You will develop your term paper throughout the entire term, handing it in at intervals of 2 to 3 weeks each. You will write about a Commons or a collective action situation, either one in which you are involved or one that you are interested in. The action situation can be local or global, and can involve a traditional or new Commons. All versions will be in "doc" format and handed in electronically using CollectIt. The file name for each version should include your name and the version number (e.g. "Tenenberg-v1.doc"). Each version after the first will be a complete essay, i.e. it will have an introduction, body, and conclusion. This is in constrast to thinking of these as "drafts" with notes like "expand this section" and "to be completed."
On the day that version one is due, you will discuss it during class with 2 or 3 of your classmates. Please take notes from this discussion. Based on your notes, recollections, and reflections, update your version one (which you should put into a file called "yourname-v1-update.doc") by: 1) writing a paragraph or two that summarizes what you learned from the discussion, and 2) makes changes (using Word's track changes) to your version one that reflects what you learned from the discussion. Turn this in as indicated in the schedule using CollectIt.
On the day in which version 2 of the term paper is due, you will distribute your paper to 3 other students in the class (to be assigned). For version 2, you will have one class session in which to read the papers that you receive, and write a brief review. Use the following review form. Bring in one hardcopy of each review on the due date (for the author), and make sure to hand in the reviews electronically as well. On the day in which the reviews are due, you will work in a group with your reviewers (who will also be the people whose papers you reviewed) to listen to and help one another refine your writing and ideas. Electronic copies will not be handed in for this assignment.
Reviews of version 3 papers will proceed in the same way, but, given their increased length, you will have an additional class session to write the review.
The last two weeks of the term will be used for presentations of papers, and each student will be assigned to a time slot during this time.
The audience for these presentations will be the instructor and the other students of this course. This means that you can assume that your listeners have an understanding of the language, concepts, and readings that we have used and studied over the term. The primary purpose of the presentations is to share the work that you have all been doing with one another.
Each presenter timeslot will be 25 minutes, and the presenter should speak for ten to fifteen minutes of this. Feel free to use any supporting media (a script, powerpoint, a short handout, notes on the whiteboard, or none of these) that you believe will help your listener.
The presentation will be graded "no pass", "low pass", or "high pass". A "no pass" will be given if you do not present your work. A "high pass" will be given if you attend both days of classes (barring a documented emergency), and you discuss most or all of the key content decided upon by the class in advance. A "low pass" will be given otherwise (e.g. if one or more of the class sessions is missed, if the presentation does not contain the agreed upon content).
Unless otherwise specified, each assignment will receive an integer score between 0 and 4, inclusive. Your grade on each assignment will be a weighted sum of the grade on each part. Your final grade for the course will be calculated by taking the weighted sum of grades on all work that you have handed in, and rounding to the closest 1/10th. That is, multiply each score that you receive by the weight of the assignment, add these together, then round to the nearest 0.1. The correspondence between numeric grades and letter grades (i.e., A, B, C, etc.) can be found in the UW University Handbook, v.4, Ch.11.
The University of Washington Tacoma is committed to making physical facilities and instructional programs accessible to students with disabilities. Disability Support Services (DSS) functions as the focal point for coordination of services for students with disabilities. In compliance with Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, any enrolled student at UW Tacoma who has an appropriately documented physical, emotional, or mental disability that "substantially limits one or more major life activities [including walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning and working]," is eligible for services from DSS. If you are wondering if you may be eligible for accommodations on our campus, please contact the DSS reception desk at 692-4522, or visit http://www.tacoma.washington.edu/studentaffairs/SHW/dss_about.cfm/.
Health insurance is available to students at (relative) low group rates. Open enrollment for student health insurance is usually only within the first few days of the quarter. For more information, see: http://www.tacoma.washington.edu/studentaffairs/SHW/shw_insurance.cfm
The Center for Teaching, Learning & Technology offers academic and technical support for students at all levels of expertise - review, upper division, graduate and TA. For your writing, reading, study skills and public speaking needs, please make an appointment online at www.tacoma.washington.edu/ctlt/ or visit KEY 202. For your Math needs,assistance is available on a drop-in basis, Monday Thursday, hours to be posted. For multimedia or video projects, please visit the Multimedia Lab located in MAT 251. For student software training, please register at www.tacoma.washington.edu/CTLT/training/student/index2.cfm
I have established a course mailing list for course-related discussion, to which everyone in the class will be a member. The email list name is in the Email section of the course homepage. Please also read my policy on email list use prior to posting.
Thanks to Matthew Kelley (in Urban Studies at UWT) for his discussion facilitation questions and for his sharing his weekly reading guides, both of which I have adopted and adapted.
Thanks as well to Howard Rheingold, for his writings on "Technologies of Cooperation" in Smart Mobs that put me on to the large amount of theory associated with commons governance and its relationship to technology. I have also benefitted from conversations with Howard, which always leave me wanting more. I am also indebted to Andrea Saveri at the Institute for the future, for her including me in the discussions around mapping the new commons at the IFTF in April, 2006. Thanks to Sally Fincher, my long-term collaborator, for taking my enthusiasm for all things Commons seriously, and helping me putting these ideas into concrete practice in the Disciplinary Commons that we are stewarding.