Intro

action-learning journeys (ALJs) are a complex system. a case-study serves the purpose of communicating the particular nature of a given action-learning journey as well as the outcomes and what they mean for the communities involved. there are multiple forms of data being created throughout, at varying levels of detail and abstraction. therefore, a case-study is continually being created throughout and is itself a lived process. similarly, publishing a case-study is therefore also an ongoing process - continually making available more data from the action-learning.

however, there are also certain procedures, such as running an analysis on a dataset, editing filming footage, conducting closure interviews, and collecting final contributions from teams, that are discrete and need to be done before the case-study can be considered complete. in that sense, the case-study can be considered officially “published” once these main items have all been added, and the end result is shared far and wide: social media, personal networks, and targeting institutions with a clear purpose such as attracting funding for a future ALJ or engaging communities of potential subscribers who’d like to learn about what’s involved in working on those systems.

a case-study is a living account of the work of evolving systems. subscriptions can…

1. start before a case-study is considered officially published, seeing more of the organising process real-time, and
2. can continue after an intensive ends and after a case-study is considered officially published, whilst teams and hubs continue deepening the work.

almost all tooling being leveraged to develop a case-study, especially the docs and custom integrations, are ongoing. the idea is for the audience to choose to subscribe to a given hub’s ALJ as and when suits them. action-learning journeys are about creating a space of radical experimentation. subscriptions to case-studies are the means for gaining access to real-time action-learning.

Curation

as a reminder, a case-study is comprised of four interrelated layers, with increasingly fine-grained data:

1. Curation - the most polished, and also the most abstracted. see prisma.events 
2. Archive - more complete, and also more raw and rugged. see docs.prisma.events 
3. Integrations - custom applications serving specific transformations.
4. Aspects - practice-currencies. lowest-level detail, leveraging accounts of peer-to-peer interactions

these layers each address different qualities of communicating action-learning. the curation is the most-accessible and most engaging, intended to be a doorway into the whole world of systems created within an ALJ, all aligning around the purpose of working on the essence of place.

in that sense, the curation is likely to be the last layer addressed for an ALJ, as it draws upon the lower layers’ data to create a credible storytelling of an unlikely occurrence.

curation (n.)

late 14c., curacioun, “curing of disease, restoration to health,” from Old French curacion “treatment of illness,” from Latin curationem (nominative curatio), “a taking care, attention, management,” especially “medical attention,” noun of action from past-participle stem of curare “to cure”. ref 

Given the etymology above, to what is care being given with the curation? The audience’s attention, or the data? Perhaps, both. Curations can be thought of as giving the participation, and the data generated as a result, the storytelling platform it deserves. Curations are about creating examples of system transformation. They are about demonstrating alternative futures being lived into, inspiring hope, and educating their readers on what is required to bring about the start of whole-system transition pathways.