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    dwsmith e-mailed ago | link | on: Do you want to keep model.report? Please reply to this post if you do.

    Hi Benjamin

    Well I can see the dilemma - I am a recent reader - I think Jane Searles introduced me but it would be self-indulgent of me to urge you to save the site because I am not an active poster. I do value the work you have done and from it have created my own store of articles. I am now retired and so not a practitioner but I am still active in promoting systems thinking wherever I am in conversation and many of the articles you bring to attention are forwarded to my grandchildren in confirmation that there is an alternative view of the world and that I am not alone in protesting.

    So I do hope you can save the site and I hope you get sufficient support from others who like myself read and digest but are not so active in posting

    Kind regards

    David

    +447852886259

    On 31 December 2017 at 13:34, antlerboy-benjamintaylor < antlerboy-benjamintaylor@model.report> wrote:

    Hey all

    Scott, who runs model.report, has had some data problems. The site is a hassle for him and therefore, he proposed to Gene Bellinger and myself that he delete it. That’s the reason for the ‘model report is deprecated’ message that you may see if you come to the site.

    Natually, Gene (who sees, I think, the creative power of destruction) is in favour of deleting the site - he makes the point there are c200 users and <12 active posters, which I agree, in the scale of the internet, is small potatoes. He deleted his own account and therefore his c200 posts and responses on here some time ago.

    Natually, I, who am somewhat resistant to destruction, and have invested quite a bit of time building this as a repository of all forms of systems thinking, would like to keep the site. I’m prepared to find some ways to help with that effort (financial, organisational, whatever) if it helps.

    So, while I would like to keep the site regardless, Gene has challenged me to prove that others want to keep it to. So, if you do, please respond!

    cheers

    Benjamin

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    1. 2
      dwsmith e-mailed ago | link | on: Studying University as Social Systems Using the Viable System Model: mApp and Semantic Web Technologies at the Industrial University of Santander

      Hi antlerboy-benjamintaylor

      Best of luck - excuse me for being amused - University managers have no idea what a social system is (in terms of systems thinking) - they are very much command and control and are so hierarchical and extreme top down decisions makers, one just needs to observe the student evaluation of their university experience to see how bad the situation is in the UK and from contacts elsewhere it seems this is universal.

      I suspect you would need to run a workshop to even explain systems thinking /complexity before there could be an exchange of meaning even at a superficial level.

      If you find one in the UK which is the exception please let me know because I have a designed MSc programme ready to go ☺

      Kind regards

      David D W Smith

      +447852886259

      On 1 August 2017 at 12:22, antlerboy-benjamintaylor < antlerboy-benjamintaylor@model.report> wrote:

      Studying University as Social Systems Using the Viable System Model: mApp and Semantic Web Technologies at the Industrial University of Santander

      “The purpose of this paper is to build on Systemic and Organizational Cybernetics (OC) through the Beer’s Viable System Model (VSM) in order to study university analyzing them as social systems. A representation of the self-assessment process is provided through a model that allows university decision markers to diagnose or design information systems for self-evaluation process of graduate programs. The developed systemic framework could offer practical guidelines for decision makers in public or private universities in applying the concepts of organizational and systemic cybernetics in order to strengthen the viability of postgraduate programs and to perform processes for self-evaluation in collective decisions. This research also presents a case study carried out at the Industrial University of Santander, in Bucaramanga, Colombia.”

      …continues in original link…

      Via: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14779633. 2017.1291147?scroll=top&needAccess=true

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      1. 1
        antlerboy-benjamintaylor ago | link

        David, welcome to model.report!

        I can’t disagree - and my limited recent experience of universities general does fit along these lines. However, I must refer you to the Open University, one of the UK’s proudest achievements, and a place where they not only teach systems thinking (and very well, by all accounts), they are also kind enough to invite real recognised systems thinkers, and me, to talk to their internal change network :-)

        1. 1
          dwsmith ago | link

          Hi Benjamin,

          Thank you for the welcome to model report - it is not new to me but this is the first time I have said anything LOL.

          Yes I know about the OU Systems Thinking course and I don’t include the OU in the comment I made. I perceive the OU as different from the general University organisation because the focus is more on providing a resource for learning rather than teaching content.

          I know that Hull Univ had some contact with the late Russell Ackoff and included sessions on ST Also Lancaster seemed to have something going on with Complexity with a Professor Robert Geyer - I think in the research dept.

          I know he and Samir Rihani did some work together and concluded with a book.

          Dr Samir Rihani had a book published around 2002 “Complex Systems Theory - and Development Practice” which influenced the work I was doing in Ethopia.

          Professor Robert Geyer and Dr Samir Rihani and co-authored a book ; Complexity and Public Policy: A New Approach to 21st Century Politics, Policy and Society (Geyer, R. & Rihani, S. 2010 London: Routledge. 224 p)

      1. dwsmith ago | link | on: Studying University as Social Systems Using the Viable System Model: mApp and Semantic Web Technologies at the Industrial University of Santander

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