This is the first newsletter of the University of Colorado Conflict Information Consortium,* the organization behind our two, more widely-known conflict knowledge base projects:
We want to start by reminding you about the many information resources that are available to support your training, education, and personal reference needs. The updated listing of these resources is found at the end of this newsletter for both Beyond Intractability and CRInfo.
Newsletter Contents
- Teaching and Learning with Conflict Information Consortium Systems –- A review of the many free learning materials that are available through Consortium systems.
- Semiannual Fundraising Drive –- A request for your help in obtaining the financial support that we need to continue to offer the systems as a free public resource.
 New Sponsor Program -- Modeled after National Public Radio's "Underwriter" programs, our new sponsor program will provide those who support Consortium systems with a prominent acknowledgment and link on our soon-to-be-redesigned Web pages.
- FEATURE STORY The Structure of and Theory Behind Consortium Information Systems -- An explanation of why Consortium information systems are structured as they are, and why we believe that they can play such an important role in efforts to promote more constructive approaches to conflict.
- Next-generation CETR Systems -- Information on how you can partner with the Consortium to produce conflict education and training resources focused on the specific needs of your constituents.
- Conflict Frontiers -- A collaborative effort to advance the field in ways which better address especially difficult conflict challenges and better promote the adoption of solutions to common problems.
- Consortium Courses and Instructional Materials -- Online courses (both for-credit and not-for-credit) offered through the Consortium and the University of Colorado, as well as learning materials available for use by instructors elsewhere.
- Stop Fighting -- A seven-step tutorial for people involved in relationship conflicts.
- DETAILED LISTING Beyond Intractability available resources and information access tools.
- DETAILED LISTING CRInfo available resources and information access tools.
Teaching and Learning with Consortium Systems
Teaching and learning with Consortium materials from Beyond Intractability and CRInfo offers numerous advantages over conventional primary and supplemental textbooks:
- Low-Cost -- Consortium materials are freely available (though we do strongly encourage students using the systems to donate 10% to 20% of what they would have expected to pay for a comparable text).
- Support for Easy Mid-Course Adjustments -- The instant accessibility of Web-based materials allows instructors to easily make mid-course syllabus adjustments in response to changing student needs and interests. There is also no need to order books in advance or readjust your syllabus because of delivery problems.
- Extensive Coverage -- The thousands of pages of material available through the Consortium include generally accessible overview materials on over 500 topics, as well as more in-depth information on each topic. Available materials are capable of providing strong support for almost any conflict-related class.
- Multi-threaded Instruction -- With Consortium systems, instructors can easily allow students to effectively pursue independent paths of study -- essentially creating a number of sub-courses within their larger course. Consortium internal cross-links and search and browsing systems make it easy for students to find the quality information they need to successfully work with a higher degree of independence.
- Support for Multiple Learning Styles / Needs -- Consortium systems use a wide array of materials to explain conflict topics to system users. Available materials include: 1) essays focused on the practical theory needed to sensibly approach hundreds of conflict topics; 2) over a hundred hours of online audio, featuring more than 70 leading conflict scholars and practitioners telling their personal stories about working in the field; 3) informative and inspirational articles describing "real world" efforts to deal with conflict problems, including links to the latest conflict news on more than 70 topics; and 4) numerous exercises and other learning materials. Student feedback suggests that students prefer Beyond Intractability articles to standard textbooks, as the articles are generally succinct, easy to understand, and of practical relevance.
More detailed listings of available resources can be found at the end of this newsletter for both Beyond Intractability and CRInfo.
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Semiannual Fundraising Drive
As you may know, the Hewlett Foundation funded the creation -- but not the long-term operation -- of Consortium systems. For operational support, we now rely on donations from system users and Consortium sponsors (see next section). In addition to requests for general support, we are asking those who can afford it to contribute 10% to 20% of what they would have expected to pay for a conventional text or book that would have provided comparable information. Our goal, which we were able to meet during our last fundraising drive, was to raise the funds needed to continue to be able to maintain and operate the core system as a free public resource. Please contribute what you can. Tax-deductible contributions to Consortium programs can be made online through the Beyond Intractability or CRInfo accounts with the University of Colorado Foundation.
Affordable reprint rights are also available for those wishing to publish copyrighted Consortium materials. For more detailed information, contact the Consortium through Beyond Intractability or CRInfo.
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New Sponsor Program
As part of our move to a user/contributor-based system, the Consortium will soon initiate a "sponsor" program modeled after National Public Radio's underwriter program. Under our program, organizations that make significant contributions to the Consortium will be prominently acknowledged on one or more of our websites (as applicable). Acknowledgments will also be featured on a new rotating banner on the "right-hand column" section of our Web pages. These sections will include brief messages from our sponsors, plus links to any Web page that sponsors might designate. We see this as a classic win-win partnership, in which our sponsors are able to provide a valuable service to the field while also reaching the over 100,000 different people who use Consortium systems each month. For more detailed information, contact the Consortium through Beyond Intractability or CRInfo.
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Feature Story
The Structure of Consortium Systems
Consortium websites are visited by 90,000-120,000 different people each month.
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As you may have noticed, the Conflict Research Consortium has changed its name to the Conflict Information Consortium. Guy and Heidi Burgess, the co-directors, think that the new name better reflects the Consortium's primary activity -- the provision of conflict information to diverse audiences. With its primary focus on difficult and intractable conflicts, the Consortium has, since its inception in 1988, used rapidly-advancing information technologies to provide people from all walks of life with the information that they need in order to deal with conflicts more constructively. The Consortium sees such efforts to enhance and mobilize the skills of the general population as critical to efforts to deal with complex, society-wide conflicts.
Promoting Constructive Approaches to Conflict
All Consortium websites are based on the realization that costly, destructive conflicts are everywhere: family disputes, community conflict, sectarian tensions, unsuccessful business negotiations, labor strife, civil and international war, genocide, terrorism, and, conceivably, catastrophic conflict involving weapons of mass destruction. Destructive conflict dynamics also contribute to our chronic inability to sensibly deal with a broad range of other problems such as crime, poverty, disease, environmental degradation, and economic revitalization.
More than 10,000 external Web pages link to Consortium websites.
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Conflict is also inevitable and, in fact, desirable. It is a major driver behind the processes of positive social change. It is through conflict processes that people are able to oppose activities that they believe are unwise and unjust. The challenge is to promote constructive conflict while also limiting its destructiveness.
Conflict Learning and Information Systems
Consortium systems were created under grants from the Hewlett Foundation totaling over $2.5 million. Contributions from system users, the University of Colorado, and funders of other Consortium projects maintain these systems.
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The course of conflict is determined by the cumulative actions of everyone involved. This includes people at all social levels in the full range of formal and informal conflict roles. This means that there is a society-wide need for materials that help people from all walks of life improve their conflict skills.
To help meet this need, the Conflict Information Consortium has produced an increasingly sophisticated series of Web-based, conflict information systems designed to support formal and informal education and training programs, as well as provide reference materials for use by individual citizens and those working to advance the field.
While there is obviously a need for new ideas and continuing research, we believe there is an even greater need for programs which increase the utilization of existing knowledge about superior conflict-handling techniques which are well-developed, understood, and tested. Unfortunately, most people lack this knowledge and, as a result, either rely on destructive, conflict-as-usual practices or try, often unsuccessfully, to "reinvent the wheel."
Our goal is to provide increasingly efficient learning and information systems that provide people with the information that they need, when they need it, from sources that they can trust, in a format they can understand, and at a price they can afford.
Consortium content was created from the contributions of over 300 people from around the world.
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More specifically, our goal is to develop systems which are:
- Resistant to information overload with succinct, "make-a-difference" information easily found;
- Quickly and easily accessible by individuals with different types of computer systems and network connections;
- Trustworthy, offering conflict advice from recognized experts that really works;
- Affordable (preferably free);
- Relevant to user-specific conflict problems;
- Realistically applicable in the user's conflict role;
- Appropriate to user personalities, skills, and learning styles;
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Attractively presented in ways which can reasonably compete with other information sources;
- Understandable by users with differing backgrounds and vocabularies (and languages); and
- Comprehensive, with access to information on all potentially-viable options.
While we have yet to reach these ambitious goals, each succeeding generation of Consortium information systems brings us one step closer.
For more information see: Theoretical Foundations: Conflict and the Role of Information Systems and Consortium Information Infrastructure
User Comments
- Fabulous new version of the site! Great work!! I found it much more accessible.
- ...I was really impressed that such invaluable material [is] available to me for free. I am with the Truth Commission of Liberia.
- I think this website [Stop Fighting] provided a useful, simple, and straightforward method of dealing with conflicts.
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I'm sure it's an enormous challenge to manage the info posted on the site...You are doing that extremely well. The site is a terrific resource.
- I want to congratulate you for all the contributions you make to the conflict resolution field... I am...working for the Colombian Campaign to Ban Landmines.
- [I am] researching on conflicts and peace building in Rwanda. I think I can learn enormously from your online programs.
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I am working as a researcher in the area of mediation and conflict studies, and it is remarkable how often I end up back at your splendid website.
- I have found the quality and depth of insight in the recommendations you provide, so generously, to be exceptional.
- Here in Australia, I am currently doing some diagnostic work for a large organization with critical people issues... and I needed a fresh perspective.
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Your web site was a tremendous help for me in teaching a new course here at the American University in Bulgaria.
- Wow, beyondintractability.org is just amazing. A high-quality and timely system for teaching about conflict. I'm studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
- Many thanks for this wonderful resource - it is amazing and will be very useful in our postgraduate programs at the University of South Australia.
- Wow! What an important site! I am a Canadian Certified Counselor.
- To my mind, this is the most comprehensive site on conflict, and certainly one of the easiest to navigate. Christchurch, New Zealand.
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Our affordable, new CETR Systems overcome the limitations inherent in Beyond Intractability's free, general reference format. CETR creates easy-to-understand materials focused on helping clients and their constituents overcome their unique conflict challenges. If you work with an organization that provides or needs to provide conflict resolution training to large numbers of people, we would enjoy an opportunity to explore potential partnerships based on our CETR technologies. -- More Info
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Our Conflict Frontiers project starts by recognizing that destructive and potentially catastrophic intractable conflict represents as serious a threat to human welfare as global warming, and that it deserves (but is not receiving) the same level of attention. If you want to help encourage efforts to address this problem, please join and/or help support this project. -- More Info
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Our continually-expanding collection of educational resources offers students an extensive array of research materials as well as online, for-credit and not-for-credit, college-level courses. These and other materials also provide support for teachers and trainers. -- Courses -- Teaching Materials
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Stop Fighting is an online tutorial designed to serve the practical needs of people involved in relationship conflicts. A seven-step tutorial helps users identify and evaluate options for dealing with different aspects of their conflict. -- Go to Stop Fighting
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Knowledge Base Contents
Information Access Tools
For users who know what they are looking for:
- Search: Simple and advanced searching of Beyond Intractability database materials.
- Special Searches: Customized searches of organizations and websites external to the resource databases of Beyond Intractability and its partner site, CRInfo.
For users who would appreciate a few suggestions:
- Browse: "Virtual" bookshelves and complete lists of resources.
- Diagnostic Checklists: Checklists offering advice and "things to think about."
- User Guides: Special editions focused on specific user group needs.
For users who are looking for instructor guidance:
For instructors looking for teaching materials:
- Educational Resources: Teaching guides, build-your-own-text, exercises (including role plays and simulations).
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Available Information
Information Access Options
For users who know what they are looking for:
- Search: Simple and advanced searching of CRInfo database materials.
- Special Searches: Customized searches of organizations and websites external to the CRInfo resource databases.
For users who would appreciate a few suggestions:
For users who are looking for instructor guidance:
For instructors looking for teaching materials:
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