When

Patience

Patience plays well with all things, but chiefly with self discovery and self creation. 9x9.CLOH.Org aims to embrace with patience and courage as we consider our own imperfections.

Housekeeping

Faculty meetings are going to happen on-line and in person. Some faculty meetings can start in the fall of 2002. However, most of the faculties are going to form in an organic way and may not come together until winter break.

We expect to have at least nine members on each faculty. As a faculty is forming, we'll be sure to call for meetings and networking opportunities.

Prune

Even in areas where hierarchies work well, the trees of knowledge can easily get "bushy" or "stringy." In computer-science terms, the searching advantage of a tree is the log(N) search time it gives us; if the tree isn't well formed, this advantage goes away.

The 9x9 process is an evolution. The tree needs to be given some time to grow. However, adjustments must be considered. The heavy work of care for the 9x9 tree is with the faculty. Each department as well as the overall council of department leaders needs to have a voice and a vote on these matters so deliberate action can be taken with support and democracy applications.

When it is time to prune, the community needs to examine the relationships between items. As courses start, the fit may be fuzzy and unbalanced. One course might be important to another, but the second may not be that relevant to the first. In one context, two courses may be strongly related; in others, they may be totally irrelevant to each other. This tree can't expect to evolve nor begin in a perfect fashion.

9x9 and OSS: constantly gaining credibility

It takes time to build toolsets and mature projects. And even after there are viable attempts at an open source project, it takes time for that project to become sufficiently feature-rich and some of the rough edges to be smoothed enough that people will use it.

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