Socio-technical relations in the creation of an interest-driven open course

Abstract

The aim of this article is to present the findings from a small exploratory case study of an open course on cyberpunk literature conducted at the Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU), an online grassroots organisation that runs non-accredited courses. Employing actor network theory to inform an ethnographic-inductive approach, the case study sought to understand the performative effects of technologies on the creation of forms of learning and forms of presence in a setting of peer-based learning. The research data included observation of discussions in an online forum and chats, course participants' blogs and P2PU's organisational documentation. Three main findings emerged from a thematic analysis: (1) the participatory role of technology in the course was characterised by the use of an array of different open source and free tools, most of which were not integrated within the P2PU platform - and this fluid technological space arguably led to a decentralised network; (2) people with different backgrounds affiliated around their common passion for the cyberpunk literature and the artefacts associated with it; and (3) knowledge was distributed and dispersed across many different people and artefacts, bringing about a shift from the subject-authority pattern of relations generally associated with teacher-led education to the agential pattern of relations associated with peer-led education, in which the course organiser and participants can have the same level of influence.