The Open Collaboration Lab is a hub for the study and practice of collaboration as it pertains to procedural art and algorithmic processes at California College of the Arts. This project emerges out of CCA’s Science and Math area of the Critical Studies program and extends divisional learning outcomes around problem solving, quantitative reasoning and evidence based learning across the college. The Open Collaboration Lab seeks to foster collaborations across programs, within classes and over time, which in turn facilitate new modes of learning, new kinds of cultural capital in the classroom, and new forms of feedback between student and teacher. Through collaboration, students produce work they could not produce on their own, and come to feel part of something bigger than themselves. As well, the Open Collaboration Lab directly addresses the college-wide learning outcome for collaboration.

The Open Collaboration Lab is committed to developing new courses and new units within existing courses, as well as structured sessions outside of courses for students of different disciplines to exchange ideas and methods. The OCL emphasizes collaborative problem solving in ongoing, cross-disciplinary projects. Research is at the center of this initiative; a driving principle of the OCL is to understand what is meant by collaboration, how we learn and problem solve when we collaborate, and what kinds of environments are conducive to collaborative labor.

The Open Collaboration Lab is supported by a grant from Intel, a CCA Curricular Development Grant, as well as funding from the CCA Humanities and Sciences department.