Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Network Weaving for Equitable Wellbeing

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This is an introduction to networks that begins "Networks are collections of nodes and links' and continues just fine until it €list the principles of "is a healthy network". Here the authors demonstrate conclusively (to my mind) that they very much misunderstand what a network is. Here's the introduction to that section: "A healthy network is one that is able to achieve its collective purpose/core functions, while also addressing the interests of its members..." No. Networks don't have core purposes. Any agency exhibited by a network is an emergent property, a result of individual actions and interactions. The authors are merging the properties of a system, which is designed to serve a specific purpose, and a network, which grows and evolves through the individual actions of its members. They are not the same.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 30, 2024 2:04 p.m.

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