OpenCohort

=OpenCohort=

This is Rick's idea so I hope he will write a lot here. And what I am understanding of the concept open cohort is this... Open cohort is a virtual space and set of online tools that support flexible distributed collaboration. OC will be scalable for small and large, short and long term projects. OC will enable non-hierarchical roles and relationships - shared or shifting ownership and membership. OC will be open source, encouraging collective improvement of its tool set and functionality.

Most online tools assume a hierarchical relationship among team members. For instance moodle has admins, teachers, and students. While google docs allow for share edit privileges, ownership is still important and impacts members. Doodle is egalitarian but has a single purpose. Wikis are the closest to the open cohort concept because members can be organizers and be in complete control. Wikis are also extremely powerful and scalable. And yet they are limited to an asynchronous mostly text based form.