Panarchy chart: a fictional example

Stochastic Parrots and Beyond · adapted from Liberating Structures

A completed Panarchy chart for a fictional department. The content is invented for teaching.
Modified

15 October 2026

ImportantFictional example

The department, the notes, and the priorities are invented for teaching. Do not copy the levels: your group discovers its own.

What the example shows

The chart on page 2 shows a completed Panarchy chart after the vote.

  • Priority 1, department level: nobody owns the guidance on AI use. A fast level waits for a slow one.
  • Priority 2, university level: the licensed chatbot has no documentation of its training data, so disclosures stay vague.
  • Priority 3, vendor level: license terms restrict what users can document.
  • Upward: a disclosure template from the department can become university policy.
  • Downward: a legal duty to document training data supports stricter procurement.
NoteLiberating Structures

The structures and illustrations used in this session are adapted under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 from the original work of Keith McCandless, Henri Lipmanowicz and Nancy White found at www.liberatingstructures.com and the Liberating Structures Fieldbook (2026). Licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. The drawing is original. No Liberating Structures icons are used.

PDF ·This handout: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Stochastic Parrots and Beyond, Laura Wagner and Moritz Mähr.

Completed fictional Panarchy chart with five levels, from bottom to top: my research project, research group or department, university, model vendors and industry, regulation and society. Notes in each level name influences, for example no disclosure template, no owner for AI guidance, a licensed chatbot without data documentation, licenses that restrict documentation, and the EU AI Act duty to publish a training data summary. Three notes carry the numbers 1 to 3 as priorities. One arrow shows a department template that becomes university policy. Another arrow shows that a duty to document supports procurement.

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