Catherine Lombardozzi has blogged about Collaborative Inquiry, a topic I’ve been skirting for  a while with terms like: learning networks, un-conference, collective intelligence, distributed decision making, distributed cognition or connectivism.  I think this basic idea is a natural part of web 2.0 thinking that is collaborative in its core nature. I also think it is a way to tap into the knowledge flows associated with Hagel’s Power of Pull thinking and is also just a good way to address knowledge areas that are in flux as opposed to stable and well established.  Less and less of our practices are stable today and this is a natural way to gain knowledge and direction.

To extend this idea I’ve been thinking about why you would want to choose a collaborative research structure over a more traditional set up, and I’ve put my ideas into this concept map.  It’s not a finished product; just beginning thoughts.

A Comparison of Individual and Collaborative Research