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Welcome foresight educators, students, researchers and advocates!
This wiki is part of the Foresight Education and Research Network (FERN), a work and discussion community for foresight/futurres students, faculty, alums, and others working to improve and expand postsecondary futures studies courses globally. Interested in improving futures education? Please join our group above!
FERN is affiliated with Shaping Tomorrow's Foresight Network (STFN). Both FERN the Global Futures Network (a community-edited directory of futures networks, people, orgs, and resources) are projects of the ASF nonprofit.
Feel free to edit pages, make new pages, leave comments and have discussions in the threads section at the bottom of any page in this wiki. Your ideas will be read and incorporated.
We'll add other FS development activities here in the future. At present we are working on the following projects (see Navigation to the left for project pages):
1. Compiling lists of Futures Studies Frameworks (the models and practices used by those who do foresight work).
2. Finding all known Futures Studies Educators globally.
3. Finding and supporting all available Low-Residency Futures Studies / Strategic Foresight PhD options, both formal and informal, and:
4. Learning how to set up an Open Access Futures Journal for futures/foresight pubs, and educating futurists publishing in current futures journals (most are closed access) how to do OA publication (self-archiving) for the global community.
What You Can Do - Next Steps
History
This wiki was initiated after a conversation in July 2007 between myself and Garry Golden. After completing my MS in Futures Studies at the U. Houston under Dr. Peter Bishop in 2007, I developed a residential undergraduate futures studies course for the University of Advancing Technology (UAT) in Phoenix, AZ. This course, Foresight Development (see our open access, CC-licensed course wiki), is part of UAT's core curriculum. Our nonprofit, ASF, pitched UAT on the idea that, as with Tamkang U in Taiwan, all their students should have to satisfy not only history and current events but at least one futures GE course in order to receive a modern undergraduate degree. After some deliberation they agreed and to date the course has been well received by students as a core offering.
ASF seeks to replicate this success at other institutions of higher education globally in coming years. We'd like to work with you to to do the same at your local universities. We are also convinced that having quality low-residency PhD credentialing options available to futurists who are interested in teaching FS courses in areas of professional interest, at top universities on a part-time basis is one practical way to improve foresight culture in the modern university. See Low-Residency Futures PhD in (left column) Navigation bar for more on presently known low-residency PhD options.
Thanks for joining this community, and I look forward to meeting you in the future.
John Smart,
President, Acceleration Studies Foundation
This wiki is part of the Foresight Education and Research Network (FERN), a work and discussion community for foresight/futurres students, faculty, alums, and others working to improve and expand postsecondary futures studies courses globally. Interested in improving futures education? Please join our group above!
FERN is affiliated with Shaping Tomorrow's Foresight Network (STFN). Both FERN the Global Futures Network (a community-edited directory of futures networks, people, orgs, and resources) are projects of the ASF nonprofit.
Feel free to edit pages, make new pages, leave comments and have discussions in the threads section at the bottom of any page in this wiki. Your ideas will be read and incorporated.
We'll add other FS development activities here in the future. At present we are working on the following projects (see Navigation to the left for project pages):
1. Compiling lists of Futures Studies Frameworks (the models and practices used by those who do foresight work).
2. Finding all known Futures Studies Educators globally.
3. Finding and supporting all available Low-Residency Futures Studies / Strategic Foresight PhD options, both formal and informal, and:
4. Learning how to set up an Open Access Futures Journal for futures/foresight pubs, and educating futurists publishing in current futures journals (most are closed access) how to do OA publication (self-archiving) for the global community.
What You Can Do - Next Steps
- Invite academic and professional futurists that you know who are interested in futures studies development to join this wiki.
- As any of us get info of use to our community, we encourage you to add it here, on one of the existing pages, on a new page (create your own) or in comments at the bottom of any page. We'll let you know by email if there are any upcoming conference calls for any who might be interested in working on projects on this wiki.
History
This wiki was initiated after a conversation in July 2007 between myself and Garry Golden. After completing my MS in Futures Studies at the U. Houston under Dr. Peter Bishop in 2007, I developed a residential undergraduate futures studies course for the University of Advancing Technology (UAT) in Phoenix, AZ. This course, Foresight Development (see our open access, CC-licensed course wiki), is part of UAT's core curriculum. Our nonprofit, ASF, pitched UAT on the idea that, as with Tamkang U in Taiwan, all their students should have to satisfy not only history and current events but at least one futures GE course in order to receive a modern undergraduate degree. After some deliberation they agreed and to date the course has been well received by students as a core offering.
ASF seeks to replicate this success at other institutions of higher education globally in coming years. We'd like to work with you to to do the same at your local universities. We are also convinced that having quality low-residency PhD credentialing options available to futurists who are interested in teaching FS courses in areas of professional interest, at top universities on a part-time basis is one practical way to improve foresight culture in the modern university. See Low-Residency Futures PhD in (left column) Navigation bar for more on presently known low-residency PhD options.
Thanks for joining this community, and I look forward to meeting you in the future.
John Smart,
President, Acceleration Studies Foundation
Latest page update: made by JohnMSmart
, Jul 18 2008, 3:34 PM EDT
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Edited by JohnMSmart
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(Showing the last 5 of 9 - view all)
| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | |
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| JohnMSmart | Futures Texts (JS for Simeon Spearman) | 6 | Feb 16 2008, 3:08 AM EST by MarcusAnthony | |
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Thread started: Feb 7 2008, 6:03 PM EST
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I may be getting ahead of myself, but I thought I would mention an idea that's been floating around in my head: perhaps we should look into the possibility of creating a futures studies textbook (or curriculum) that could be put under a Creative Commons license so that they could be disseminated, reused, and translated without concern over copyright issues. One candidate project to either become engaged with, or model such a project after, would be the Global Text Project (http://www.globaltext.org). They seem to be focused on business text books and creating some texts on scenario planning, strategic planning, or visionary leadership could help the futures community assist in the Global Text Project and also increase our visibility in developing countries (and get them exposed to futures concepts more quickly).
Another possibility is http://cxn.org, where educators can create education "modules" that can be pieced together to create an entire course. This could be a more granular way of getting futures thinking in front of educators by creating a "Futures of [insert academic subject here]" that could be promoted as a good final module for courses. It would also allow futurists to create "modules" that could later be pieced together for an entire course, instead of trying to create an entire course wholesale. Basically I think that putting more futures content under Creative Commons licenses could make it easier for futures thinking to creep its way into education organically as the futures community organizes to play a greater role in academia/primary education. Thoughts? Simeon Spearman |
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| andersj | Just identifying myself | 2 | Feb 3 2008, 5:39 PM EST by JohnMSmart | |
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Thread started: Sep 24 2007, 6:33 PM EDT
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Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. The last comment - A great idea - was posted by me, Janna Anderson. I'm an assistant professor at Elon University in North Carolina, US, and I also do research on the future of the internet for the Pew Internet Project under a special contract.
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| lablogga | Program partnering with UC Berkeley? | 2 | Jan 11 2008, 7:50 PM EST by JohnMSmart | |
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Thread started: Oct 23 2007, 10:31 AM EDT
Watch
Dean Tom Campbell of Berkeley's Haas business school may be open to hearing about the program and a potential partnering. I will be looking into this in Jan.; creating a concise pitch for a meeting and obtaining a meeting. Please contact me or post a note here if you would like to participate in creating the proposal.
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| jaygary | Theory base of futures studies | 0 | Oct 2 2007, 4:14 PM EDT by jaygary | |
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Thread started: Oct 2 2007, 4:14 PM EDT
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John, Gary G, and friends. I have a paper under revision on the unique role of middle range analysis to develop theory in strategic foresight-- ie. how leaders, organizations and collectivities engage the future. I presented on this at WFS 2007, arguing that a research PhD in futures should focus on theory building and theory testing; beyond just applied research. This takes some rigor in quantitative (multivariate data analysis) and at times, some robust capacity in qualitative, depending on the stage of the theory. We need better theory in futures, interlocking with theory from various disciplines. We have philosophy, framework and methods but are missing the 2nd rung up on the ladder--theory. So in our discussions, let's talk about what kind of PhD --Jay Gary, http://www.regent.edu/global
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| lablogga | Feedback | 0 | Sep 26 2007, 9:15 AM EDT by lablogga | |
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Thread started: Sep 26 2007, 9:15 AM EDT
Watch
I would love to see a potential PhD program partnered with or affiliated with a US University if possible, for example UC Berkeley.
Leeds Met's Second Life sim: http://slurl.com/secondlife/LeedsMet%20FAS/147/155/30/ could be used to facilitate the distance learning. I am definitely interested in being a potential enrollee. |
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(Showing the last 5 of 9 - view all)