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TB872: Meta-narrative for my systemic inquiry

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

Note: this is a post reflecting on one of the modules of my MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice. You can see all of the related posts in this category.

A futuristic digital landscape where traditional academic buildings are connected by glowing data streams to a central digital hub.

As I’ve already touched upon, my systemic inquiry for my next assessments in this module focuses on WAO has recently started with the Digital Credentials Consortium (DCC) around the adoption of their technology to promote Verifiable Credentials (VCs) in Higher Education (HE).

I’ve been asked to create a ‘meta-narrative’ which is a way of explaining the various narratives within this specific context. It’s the overarching story which provides the backdrop for my inquiry, helping me to understand and explain the complexity of the situation. It includes historical, cultural, political, and social factors that shape the context. These don’t occur in isolation, but rather in terms of the structures, processes, and relationships which form the current state of the system.

This meta-narrative should offer some insights into the dominant beliefs, values, and assumptions, that drive actions and interactions within the system. It should also explore the potential for change within the systems, including leverage points which could influence systemic transformation. Of course, it should also acknowledge the that there are multiple perspectives and experiences, so other stakeholders may have divergent views on the system and its issues.

Oh, and I’ve only got 300 words. Here goes…

According to their website, the mission of the DCC “is to create a trusted, distributed, and shared infrastructure that will become the standard for issuing, storing, displaying, and verifying academic credentials, digitally”. This must be understood in terms of several shifts within society, education, and academia itself, as well as over a decade of history around digital credentials.

The DCC website focuses on the “renewed urgency” of “the question of trusted verification and authentication of learning”. Where does this urgency originate? Why is it “renewed”? Is it due to the explosion of ‘microcredentials‘, which themselves can be seen as a reaction to, and reconceptualisation of, Open Badges?

From my perspective, I’d argue that HE is largely in crisis due to several related forces. Some of these are within the control of the sector, but many are outside it. The first is neoliberalism, the second is individualism, and the third is technology.

Venn diagram: Neoliberalism, Individualism, Technology (all within a circle labelled 'Pandemic as accelerant')

Neoliberalism is, in short, the belief that ‘market forces’ are the best way of ensuring personal liberty. Individualism is the related idea that self-reliance and personal independence are paramount virtues. Technology is the application of science, especially in terms of industrial or commercial objectives. Trends in all three areas have been accelerated due to the Covid pandemic, especially in the HE sector as teaching, learning, and assessment had to move entirely online. This has given a new impetus to digital credentialing.

There are people, including members of WAO and staff at DCC included, who work on digital credentials for utopian reasons. For example, an attempt to use them as a way to arrive at a more holistic Open Recognition which allows talents, skills and aspirations to be recognised in ways that can be labelled and defined by individuals, communities, and territories. We imagine a world where everyone is issuing digital credentials to one another.

However, as Stafford Beer noted repeatedly, the purpose of a system is what it does. One could argue that the purpose of HE is survival in a hostile market environment and to provide a means of social reproduction. The latter allows HE institutions to continue to sit at the centre of the credentialing landscape and continue to have hegemonic power. At times, these two purposes may be at odds with one another: for example with HE institutions diversifying their offerings through a range of different ‘sized’ credentials, which could devalue their degrees.

It is into this neoliberal, individualised, technology-infused world that the DCC operates in its promotion of VCs. There are registrars of institutions who are motivated to move slowly, and preserve the reputation of their institution. There are vendors and IT departments who would like to adopt VCs for commercial or technological reasons. And there are funders with different agendas, who seek to either mitigate problems, or accelerate them to achieve a future state.

A chaotic system of digital credentials does not benefit the current major stakeholders in the HE landscape. Their main product, degrees, have an established authority and ‘currency’ in the market. However, they are aware that students (financial considerations), employers (changes in working practices), and competitors (increasing opportunities) are itching for change.

This is therefore a huge opportunity for the DCC. If they can help birth a VC ecosystem based on trusted, open source technology, then the HE sector has the opportunity to diversify the credentials they offer while not being ‘disrupted’ out of existence by commercial vendors. They can also do this under the banner of social equity: widening access to education and achievement.

Well, that’s 561 words, but it will do for now. If I wanted to spend longer, I’d give a bit more context, talk about the regulatory environment HE institutions sit within, and discuss their technical readiness to adopt VC technologies. But I’ll leave if there.

Image: DALL-E 3

TB872: Regression and recursion

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

Note: this is a post reflecting on one of the modules of my MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice. You can see all of the related posts in this category.

The image depicts a scene with three individuals, each with a thought bubble. Person 1 (P1) on the left, Person 2 (P2) on the right, and Person 3 (P3) in the center. P1 and P2 are standing while P3 is in a thoughtful pose, possibly crouching or sitting. P1's thought bubble shows a "Hierarchical model" consisting of a typical organizational chart with boxes connected in a tree structure. This represents a traditional approach to organization, where each box likely represents different roles or departments in a hierarchy. P2's thought bubble displays a "Recursive model," which contains circles within a larger circle, each with arrows pointing clockwise. This suggests a system where components are nested within each other, continuously influencing one another in a cycle. The central figure (P3) is surrounded by thought bubbles from both P1 and P2, indicating that they are considering both hierarchical and recursive models. This may suggest that P3 is in the process of synthesizing these two perspectives or models. The overall scene suggests a discussion or contemplation of different models or systems of organization, with each person contributing a distinct viewpoint. The circular boundary that encapsulates P1, P2, and P3 suggests a boundary of a system or a domain where these interactions and thought processes are taking place.

One of my favourite artists is Will Holland, aka Quantic. Here are the lyrics for his track ‘Infinite Regression’ from the album The Fifth Exotic, which quotes Dr Hasslein in Escape From The Planet of the Apes:

Here is the painting of a landscape
But the artist who painted that picture says
– Something is missing. What is it?
It is I myself who was a part of the landscape I painted
So he mentally takes a step backward
– or ‘regresses’ — and paints…

…a picture of the artist painting
A picture of the landscape
And still something is missing. And that
Something is still his real self
Painting the second picture. So he
‘regresses’ further and paints a third…

…a picture of the artist painting a
Picture of the artist painting a
Picture of the landscape. And because
Something is still missing, he paints a
Fourth and fifth picture…

…until there is a picture of
The artist painting a picture of the
Artist painting a picture of the
Artist painting a picture of the
Artist painting the landscape

So infinite regression is–

–It is the moment when our artist
Having regressed to the point of
Infinity, himself becomes a part
Of the picture he has painted and
Is both the Observer and the observed

Regression and recursion are two related, but distinct concepts. They have defined meanings in mathematics, but for the sake of my purposes here, in a systems thinking context, I’m going to define them in the following way:

  • Regression — used to analyse relationships within a system for the purposes of identifying how variables influence each other. Regression can imply a system’s reversion to a prior state, often viewed as a (strategic) retreat to stability. It’s also possible to use regression techniques to examine historical patterns to predict future system states.
  • Recursion — a process where the system’s outputs loop back as inputs, creating continuous feedback cycles. Recursion helps us understand the dynamic nature of systems: learning and adaptation occur through iterative feedback loops that shape and are shaped by the system itself.

So while regression in systems thinking looks for relationships and patterns to predict or explain, recursion involves a process where the system’s past or current output becomes an input in a self-referential manner.

The image at the top of this post from the TB872 course materials shows how different practitioners can have different frameworks and models that affect how they understand situations. This reminds me a bit of the book Images of Organization by Gareth Morgan, which I studied as part of my Ed.D. I’ve often used that as a touchstone when consulting, as it’s a useful reminder that people can conceptualise of the organisation within which they work in very different ways.

For example, I remember being told by someone that a new Principal that came into the Academy in which I was working was “very hierarchical”. I saw that as a massive red flag, as it seemed anathema to a learning organisation. That’s not to say that double-loop and triple-loop learning can’t happen within hierarchical organisations, it’s just that it’s the exception rather than the norm.

By reflecting on what we are doing as practitioners, we can achieve higher-order thinking, abstracting away from the specifics of the situation to understand what it is that we do when we do what we do.

TB872: Learning contract and preparing for first assessment

Posted on by Doug Belshaw

Note: this is a post reflecting on one of the modules of my MSc in Systems Thinking in Practice. You can see all of the related posts in this category.

The final thing I need to do before working on TMA01 (i.e. my first tutor-marked assignment) is to complete a learning contract. The things I’ve worked on so far build towards the assignment, so it’s like a coral reef, with my learning and understanding building up through accretion.

Screenshot of table entitled 'Focus for systemic change through my learning'
(tap to enlarge)

The above table is based on a template made available in the module resources section. It covers the elements of the PFMS heuristic, asking which of them I’m focused on. It’s a worthwhile thing to do, although oddly framed as a ‘learning contract’ (that framing seems to be a dead metaphor along the same lines as a ‘skills passport’)

The table is to be completed in the first instance by ranking your current priority (nil, low, medium, high) against the possible sites for change in the left-hand column. Do one entry per line and use a Y (yes) or N (no) to indicate your current priorities. You can make this framework more illuminating by adding short notes to key cells explaining your priorities.

When you have completed [the table] use it to make some preliminary notes about the sorts of changes you would like to see as a result of having studied the module.

As you can see by the way I’ve completed the table, I’m really interested in all of it. Although I’m not specifically doing this MSc (and therefore this module) for work, I do expect Systems Thinking to be an important part of the way I interact with clients and networks I’m part of, going forward.

I haven’t adapted the table as I don’t have any ‘reporting requirements’, such as justifying my organisation’s spend on my fees (as I’m self-funding it), nor do I have to prove/demonstrate the impact of my learning to my boss (as I don’t have one).

Part 1 of the module closes with a fantastic quotation from Stafford Beer, which I hadn’t come across before, so I’m going to share it here:

It is not the living, breathing human being who resists change in [their] very soul. The problem is that the institutions in which we humans have our stake resist change (…) The power has remained where it resided. (…) Every time we hear that a possible solution simply cannot be done, we may be sure on general scientific grounds that it can. Every time we hear that a solution is not economic, we ought to ask: “for whom?”- since it’s people, just people who will have to pay. Every time we hear that proposal will destroy society as we know it, we should have the courage to say: “Thank God, at last.” And whenever we hear that it will destroy our freedom we should be very cautious indeed. (…) This is the simplest method that the powerful have to cling to power: to convince people that any other concession of that power would be unsafe.”

Beer, S. (1974) Designing freedom. Toronto: CBC Learning Systems.

I won’t be sharing my TMA01 assessment submission, for obvious reasons, but given that it will be based on what I’ve already shared here, you’re not missing out! I have to do things like: update and comment on my trajectory diagram, assess my systems literacy, and share/explain the above learning contract. The main part of it (45%), however, is to use the PFMS heuristic to reflect upon and explain an example of my current or past practice.

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