We are coming to the end of a four-week, online excursion in sport informatics and analytics in #UCSIA15.
Wikipedia suggests an excursion is “a trip by a group of people, usually made for leisure, education, or physical purposes”. I like the idea that it “is often an adjunct to a longer journey …”.
During the four weeks, 133 people chose to place a pin on our community map hosted by ZeeMaps.
The map reminds me of my early attempts to learn about countries, their capital cities and their flags. My interest in the sociology of knowledge has led me to think about the learning environments of those who placed pins on the maps … and those who did not.
This is where the journey metaphor comes in for me.
I think we have been able to share some substantive knowledge in the four-weeks but I hope too we have started to explore the journey each of us will make in connected communities of practice.
Darrell Cobner, in his thoughtful and thought-provoking reflection on week 4 of the course, quotes Patrick Willer (2015) on social collaboration:
technology can help us build global connections, combine ideas of many different individuals and give those ideas proper time to incubate. This incubation time is necessary for the idea to develop into a concept that one day hope to call a stroke of genius.
I am fascinated by what our community can produce together. One of the highlights for me in the course has been Mladen Jovanovic‘s sharing of his R analysis of shared AFL data:
AFL game GPS stats analytics workbook | Complementary Training http://t.co/6nnG4HI8JG @520507 #UCSIA15 #SportScience #rstats #DataScience
— Mladen Jovanović (@Physical_Prep) March 14, 2015
The possibility that we might work together and support the flourishing of sport informatics and analytics is for me a great example of what Chris Messina described today as a journey in negative space. This space “is the impossible cellophane layer that drapes the known world and is invisible to all but to the most perceptive minds”.
#UCSIA15 is a self-consciously modest excursion in sport informatics and analytics. The content is eclectic and mindful (reverential) of the remarkable expertise that is growing in this interdisciplinary endeavour not represented (but hinted at) in the course.
It is the start of a journey that I believe has enormous potential.
Photo Credit
(Nationaal Archief, no known copyright restrictions)
