About
This site is set up to create a community of people interested in collective intelligence. We have no specific aim in mind other than for these people to interact with each other, inspire each other, collaborate and so forth. We are working towards the future scenarios described in the Foreword of the handbook. The last scenario is still over 20 years ahead of, but there is a lot of work to do. We encourage you to participate in this work. More specifically, we invite you to contribute to
- research - if you are an (academic) researcher, you may already be working on this topic. We are working towards a "science of simulation of collective intelligence" and are interested in hearing from you. We are convinced that there are many researchers working within this area, but there is little to no interaction. Maybe because it involves so many different disciplines, maybe something else. Let's get together and find out.
- practice - what goes for research, goes for practice as well. We believe that there are many practitioners of collective intelligence out there, but with minimal interaction. The handbook contains descriptions of approximately 30 case studies, ranging from primate dominance interactions to grid computing. To our knowledge, this is the first time that these cases have been put together. There are many more case studies out there, so let's starting putting them together.
- methodology - the best way to go forward in a new area is to systematically analyse and research any relevant objects of interest. The handbook includes some pointers for a methodology for researching collective intelligence, based on the scientific method. We find it very important to include such a systematic approach early on, in order to enable easier sharing of results, coming to a common terminology, and to obtain valid research results. However, it is far from complete - we need you to think with us about furthering it.
Thus, take the handbook as a starting point and make the best of it:
go create blogs, wikis, websites, organise workshops, conferences and so on, about what collective intelligence is according to you, why it is interesting, how to analyse it, how to use it, and so forth.
Who is behind sci-sci?
Let me spend 2 or 3 lines on introducing myself. My name is Martijn Schut and I am assistant professor Selforganisation and Organisational Dynamics at the Department of Computer Science, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Together with colleagues I organised the DECOI-2006 summerschool in Amsterdam. This site kind of grew out of the enthousiasm that I observed by the participants of the summerschool. As a professor, I teach courses on Selforganising Systems, Organisational Dynamics and Advanced Selforganisation. For the latter, I use the sci-sci handbook as course reader. Google me if you want to know more.
Licensing
You may have noticed the (cc) symbols on this site. This is a specific form of copyright which enables us to tell you how to use the materials on this site (including the handbook). The license says that
- you are allowed to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work, but
- you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor, and
- you may not use this work for commercial purposes, and
- you may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
With respect to the latter (build upon this work), I do encourage you to use the materials in your research and thus, in that way, build on it. You are not allowed to publish the material as is and say it is yours. You can click on the (cc) logo to read the complete legal blurb.
Contact
You can contact me by email: schut@cs.vu.nl.
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