Transcript Exploiting The Social Aspects Of Web 2.0 In HE Institutions

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/seminars/nottingham-2008-04/
Exploiting The Social Aspects Of
Web 2.0 In HE Institutions
IWR Information
Professional
of the Year
About This Talk
How should the institution respond to the opportunities
and challenges posed by Web 2.0?
Web 2.0 has been described as a ‘disruptive
technology’ which challenges previous assumptions.
The notion of the ‘network as a platform’ and the
excitement over social networks requires institutions to
think deeply about how to respond.
Brian Kelly, UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, UK
Resources bookmarked using the ‘nottingham-2008-04' tag
UKOLN is supported by:
by-nc-sa
This work is licensed under a
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
2.0 licence (but note caveat)
Contents
2
Introduction
• About the speaker
Amplified Events
• Personal case study
To be covered
Web 2.0
• The network as platform
• Openness and trust
• Social aspects
What’s To Be Done?
• Reconceptualising the purposes
Additional
• Understanding risks and benefits
topics
• Risk assessment & management
• Sharing and learning
Conclusions
Introduction
3
About The Speaker
Brian Kelly:
• UK Web Focus: a national Web advisory post
• Works at UKOLN – a national centre of expertise
in digital information management, located at the
University of Bath, UK
• Funded by JISC and MLA to support UK’s higher
and further education & cultural heritage sectors
• Involved in the Web since January 1993
• Active in promoting best practices for Web 2.0
Introduction
Another View of Me
My life in recent times
Jan-Apr 2008
35 talks from
Jan-Dec 2007
This remote app comes for free
4
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/presentations
And My Blog
OpenDOAR mentioned
5
Introduction
6
RSS feed available: for
syndication or adding on your
device (PC, PDA, phone, ..)
Amplified Events
7
Amplified Events
WiFi networks + increasing ownership of laptops +
consumer products (MP3 recorders, digital cameras,
video cameras, iPhones & Nokia N95s, …) + easy-touse applications =
• productivity gains
• richer & deeper leaning
• new opportunities
• …
Or:
• confusion
• information overload
• unsustainable fads
• Wasted time and effort
Which?
Amplified Events
Photography Is An Issue
http://efoundations.typepad.com/
efoundations/2007/11/jisc-cetis-conf.html
8
We’re taking photos at
events & sharing them on
Flickr, Facebook, …:
• Builds community
• Shared experiences
• Shared memories
• It’s fun
• …
But what about:
• Data protection
• Privacy
• Embarrassment
• …
How should we respond?
Amplified Events
9
Possibly A Big Issue
A recent item
published on BBC
News Web site
(17 April 2008)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7351252.stm
Amplified Events
10
Possibly A Big Issue
A recent item
published on BBC
News Web site
(17 April 2008)
Is photography
not only an issue
for our sector in
our context, but
have legal
implications?
Do we need:
• Formal
agreements
• Model T&Cs
•…
Amplified Events
What I Do
My approach (note IANAL):
• Be open
• Clarify what I mean by this:
 CC licence on materials (title slides, handouts,
on Slideshare, …)
 CC licence on talk
 Permission to video / record / video
 Warning that licence may be rescinded if
disasters happen!
• Invitation to others to take a similar approach
Approach described at Stargazing conf, Edinburgh Univ, Nov 2006.
“Legal issues are important” said Charlotte Waelde “and Brian’s
demonstrated lightweight ways of addressing such issues” 
11
Amplified Events
12
When I’m An Organiser
Approaches taken at recent “amplified events”:
• IWMW 3-day events since 2006
• Exploiting Potential of Wikis and Exploiting
Potential of Blogs & SNs 1-day workshops
We:
• Notified speakers that event would be videoed &
broadcast & sought permission
• Provided guidelines for session chairs: informing
audience of remote audience, repeating
permissions from speakers
• …
Being open about issues has proved fine (so far)
Amplified Events
When I’m In The Audience
Participant at Oxford Beyond Digital Natives conf, April:
• Asked speaker for permission to record:
 OKish, but reconfirm after talk. Subsequent request not to
publish – no problem
• Asked fellow debates for permission – fine
• Student panel. No opportunity to seek prior
permission so videoed 10 mins & then told them:
 Students were happy
 Two students were 6th formers
 Sought them (all) out & gave card and asked for
agreement (they need to opt in)
 Organiser & participant asked me not to publish /
told me it was illegal; head’s permission needed; …
 No email received, so video not published
What should be done? Are there lightweight approaches?
13
Amplified Events
What If Things Go Wrong?
Speaker doesn’t want to be recorded?
Things go wrong in live presentation?
Speaker changes mind afterwards?
Father Jack is in the audience?
Gun-toting member of audience goes beserk?
14
Amplified Events
15
What If Things Go Wrong?
Speaker doesn’t want to be recorded?
• That’s fine (and avoid pressuring speaker)
Things go wrong in live presentation?
• Accept it: that’s life & audience normally supportive
Speaker changes mind afterwards?
• That’s fine – use of lightweight approaches help
Father Jack is in the audience?
• Don’t worry, it probably won’t happen. And accept it
if it does.
Gun-toting member of audience goes beserk?
• Don’t worry, it probably won’t happen.
Amplified Events
16
What More Can Be Done
More can be done to enhance Amplified Events:
• Photos will be uploaded to closed area of Flickr
for a week, before photos made public
• Learning from experiences on live chat, back
channels, etc. at events
• Managing the physical space – noisy typists and
geeks to left of lecture theatres (where power
sockets are located)
• Understanding our own personal preferences to
avoid information overload:
• Taking responsibilities: mastering applications;
knowing how to disable sound on laptops; how to
configure WiFi; …
Jumping The Shark
‘Jumping the shark’ – the moment
a popular TV series is passed its
peak
17
Some questions:
• Which Web
applications are
depicted?
• What are the
implications of
blue’s decline
• Will red be
tomorrow’s
winner?
• What should we
make of purple?
• How should we
respond to such
consideration?
Jumping The Shark?
18
Some responses:
• Web server
software (data
from Netcraft)
• Have you
predicted
Apache’s demise?
• Does the future lie
We need to be able to spot and
with Microsoft?
prepare responses to trends.
But let’s not use trends to reinforce • What should we
make of Google’s
prejudices?
emergence?
Web 2.0
The Web 2.0 Picture
Gartner hyper curve
Rising expectations
VLE
CMS
Service plateau
PLE
Web 2
Early
adopters
19
Chasm
Enterprise
Failure to go beyond developers
software
& early adopters (cf Gopher)
Large
Need for:
budgets
• Advocacy
Trough
…
• Listening to users
of despair
• Learning from experiences
• Addressing concerns
We need to look at ways of
• Deployment strategies jumping the chasm, minimising
• …
inflated expectations &
avoiding despair
Web 2.0
Challenges of Web 2.0
What Is Web 2.0?
Marketing term (derived from observing 'patterns') rather
than technical standards - “an attitude not a technology”
Web2MemeMap, Tim O’Reilly,
20 2005
Characteristics Of Web 2.0
• Network as platform
• Always beta
• Clean URIs
• Remix and mash-ups
 Syndication (RSS)
• Architecture of participation
 Blogs & Wikis
 Social networking
 Social tagging
(folksonomies)
• Trust and openness
Network as Platform
21
Sustainability Problems
Web 2.0
• It’s another bubble
• The companies aren’t sustainable
Initial Response
What’s the odd one out:
• UMIST
• Lotus
• WebCT
• Yahoo!
Network as Platform
22
Sustainability Problems
Web 2.0
• It’s another bubble
• The companies aren’t sustainable
Initial Response
What’s the odd one out:
• UMIST
• Lotus
• WebCT
• Yahoo!
Answer:
• UMIST was taken over by Manchester University
• Lotus was taken over by IBM
• WebCT as taken over by Blackboard
• Yahoo! hasn’t been taken over (yet)
Lesson: IT companies and public sector institutions may
also not be sustainable. This is not a new issues
Network as Platform
23
Slideshare Example
I use Slideshare to (a) maximise exposure to my ideas
(b) solicit feedback (c) allow content to be easily
embedded elsewhere and (d) measure impact
Note evidence
which shows
impact of
presentation.
This wouldn’t
have happened
otherwise
Slideshare Example (2)
What happens if
Slideshare goes down –
and it has happened!
Does this demonstrate
that you can’t trust
externally-hosted
services?
24
Slideshare Example (2)
What happens if
Slideshare goes down –
and it has happened!
Does this demonstrate
that you can’t trust
externally-hosted
services?
But local services also go
down – as this example
from the Open University
shows
25
Slideshare Example (2)
What happens if
Slideshare goes down –
and it has happened!
Does this demonstrate
that you can’t trust
externally-hosted
services?
But local services also go
down – as this example
from the Open University
shows
And note prompt
response from
Slideshare
26
Performance Problems
It’s not just Slideshare & the OU:
downtime, DOS attacks, … can
happen to all services
We need to understand reasons why:
• Skype unavailable (Microsoft OS
upgrades)
• BUCS air conditioning failure
And explore ways of (a) identifying
problems and (b) minimising risks
Can we really think that problems will only happen ‘out
there’ and that our servers will be available 24x7x365?
27
Spotting Possible Problems
Are there ways of
spotting potentially
flaky services?
• Netcraft server
uptime statistics
28
Network as Platform
29
Spotting Possible Problems
Are there ways of
spotting potentially
flaky services?
• Netcraft server
uptime statistics
• whois++ service
(partly available via
Google – see Phil
Bradley’s post)
Spotting Possible Problems
Are there ways of
spotting potentially
flaky services?
• Netcraft server
uptime statistics
• whois++ service
(partly available via
Google – see Phil
Bradley’s post)
• Company profiles,
statistics, etc. from
Techcrunch,
Wikipedia, etc
30
Spotting Possible Problems
Are there ways of
spotting potentially
flaky services?
• Netcraft server
uptime statistics
• whois++ service
(partly available via
Google – see Phil
Bradley’s post)
• Company profiles,
statistics, etc. from
Techcrunch,
Wikipedia, etc
31
Network as Platform
32
It’s The Way We Use Services
What do the following have in common?
• Paper
• PDF
• An iPhone (partly) • Facebook (partly)
but not Twitter
Network as Platform
33
It’s The Way We Use Services
What do the following have in common?
• Paper
• PDF
• An iPhone (partly)
• Facebook (partly)
but not Twitter
Answers
They are all popular
We can regard them all as destinations rather than a
part of a workflow
The data can:
• Be created there & not be usable elsewhere
• Be created elsewhere and views there
Network as Platform
34
Accessibility and Web 2.0
Common response “It’s AJAX; it’s inaccessible”
But:
• Is this using accessibility as a way of stifling change?
• Is assertion backed up by evidence?
• Is it using WCAG 1.0 as ‘evidence’ of inaccessibility?
Note:
• Acceptance of failures of WCAG 1.0 to response to
innovation by WAI staff
• WGAG 2.0 and ARIA
W4A 2008 paper on “One Word, One Web .. But Great
Diversity”
• Facebook as tool which users may choose (PLE)
• Not providing podcasts may be the inaccessible option
Network as Platform
35
Avoiding Walled Gardens
The dichotomy:
• Don’t use Facebook, it’s a walled-garden
• Don’t use Slideshare, you might lose your
data
• Do use Facebook and Slideshare, it’s
where the users are & they seem to like it
A resolution:
• Have master copy in managed and
reusable environment
• Use remote service as an interface
(possibly part of a user’s PLE or PRE)
• Provide user education
Network as Platform
36
Slideshare Example
I use Slideshare to (a) maximise exposure to my ideas
(b) solicit feedback (c) allow content to be easily
embedded elsewhere and (d) measure impact
Note URI for
master provided
on slide & in the
metadata
And note
accessibility
benefits
Openness and Trust
Inappropriate User Content
Spam
Akismet has protected your site
from 195,127 spam comments.
Potential problems:
• Spam: comment
spam, link spam,
twitter follower spam,
tag spam, …
• Flame wars
• Illegal comments
• Rude words
• Uploading of
pornography, etc
My blog: initially lots of spam comment - but most stopped by
Akismet spam filter. And now only handful posted overnight
37
Openness and Trust
Uploading Dodgy Content
http://connect.educause.edu/blog
38
Twitterers noticed:
• Porn videos posted
to Educause blog
on Sun 20 April 
• Deleted a few hours
later 
Thoughts:
• Would email be
allowed if released
today? (most email
is spam).
• Need for rapid
response to
problems
Openness and Trust
39
Why Social Networks?
In the old days (eLib):
• Focus on standards & technical architectures
• We knew users would use our services (TINA)
• Trust focussed on JISC, libraries & institutions
We missed:
• Multiple providers of services, new business
models, …
• People as social beings
• Trusting our users
Social networks
40
What Can SNs Provide?
Potential benefits of social software:
• Maximising impact
• Engaging outside the institution/country
• Maximising dialogue & feedback
• Monitoring impact
• No new software to learn: I use Flickr for family
photos; why shouldn’t I use it for work/study?
• Facebook is where I ‘hang out’. Can’t I get my
reading lists there too?
• When my colleagues bookmark a resource; tag a
new resource; … I’ll be able to see it too
• …
Social Networks
41
Yes, Even Twitter!
What can micro-blogging
applications like Twitter provide?
(surely waste of time?):
• The shared water-cooler
moment
• Team working
• Instant help
• Break from mundane work
• Moan about trains
• Share excitement about
stuff that works
• …
But note it doesn’t have to be for everyone!
Openness and Trust
42
Information Overload
What if we’re too open, sharing
everything?
What if we’re too trusting,
thinking every tweet is valuable?
Need for:
• Better understanding of role
of tools, managing them, etc.
• Confidence to ‘throw things
away’
Surely this is nothing new?
Network as Platform
43
Key Questions (1)
Big question for future isn’t whether we provide blogs,
wikis, etc but how they are provided.
Do we:
1. Build alternatives to Slideshare, YouTube, etc, inhouse. We can be more responsive, we care
about our users and we’re more reliable!
2. Just use the remote services – they’re better,
more functional; and Web 2.0 sceptics are
typically just looking after their own jobs!
What do you think?
Which view are you more closely aligned with?
Key Questions (2)
On social software:
• Does it have to be for everyone?
• Who makes the decisions?
• Who is responsible if things go wrong?
• What’s the role of the institution in this:
• Provider of stable, reliable services to its
members?
• Temporary home for most, who will arrive with
services (email address, photos, etc.) and will
want to continue to use them at Uni and
afterwards?
44
Questions
Any questions
Note further slides available addressing
some of these issues
45
Network as Platform
46
A Blended Approach
We need:
• Mixed approach of in-house & external services
• Information literacy (new media literacy,
transliteracy)
• Clearer understanding of our purposes
• Sharing of experiences – successes & failures
• Risk assessment and risk management
strategies
• Application of risk approaches to in-house
services
• …
Deployment Challenges
The Challenges
Areas of concern:
Institutional inertia, vested interests, power
struggles, …
 Applicable for any significant change
Sustainability, reliability, interoperability
 The technical challenges
Privacy, copyright, …
 The ethical challenges
Finding time, finding resources, expertise, …
 The deployment challenges
See “Web 2.0: Addressing the Barriers to Implementation in a
Library Context” for example of barriers in a Library context
47
Deployment Challenges
48
Addressing The Concerns
Some approaches to addressing these
concerns:
• Risk assessment
• Data migration
• Being user-focussed
• Institutional transformation
• Working collaboratively
• Guidelines for use of social networking
services (e.g. Facebook)
Risk Assessment (1)
Risk
Assessment
Management
Loss of service (e.g.
company bankrupt,
closed down, ...)
Implications of sudden or
gradual loss of service
Use for non-critical
services; have
alternatives available ...
Data loss
Likelihood of data loss.
lack of export capabilities
Non-critical use; testing
of export, ....
Performance
problems or
unreliable service
Automated monitoring
…
Lack of
interoperability
User education
User education
See “Risk Assessment For Use Of Third Party Web 2.0 Services”
QA Focus briefing document
49
Risk Assessment (2)
50
51
University of Oxford
Risks Revisited
Are these risks scary?
Remember to include:
• Risks of doing nothing
• Risks associated with
using existing services
Case Study
Open Source Software
can also fail to be
sustainable. The
ROADS software was
developed in UK to
support academic
subject gateways – but
is now no longer
supported.
52
Deployment Challenges
53
Transforming IT Services
IT Services:
• They won’t let us innovate
• They get in the way
• They don’t understand learning
Does this ring bells?
Tradition role of IT Services:
• Focus on managing in-house services
• Prioritising scarce resources
• Minimising variability in order to maximise
benefits of support (“support software”)
Deployment Challenges
IT Services 2.0
IT Services 2.0:
• Term coined by Mark Sammons, Edinburgh Univ
• Idea revisited in plenary talk at UCISA 2008
Management Conference (myself & Andy Powell)
• Feedback from blogging IT Service managers
IT Services 2.0 – ongoing definitions
• Happy with use of in-house & 3rd party services
• Encourages peer-support
• Provides new media literacy
• Has a risk management approach
• Provides support in a era of richness of service
Overwhelming vote at UCISA 2008 not to ban social networking services.
IT Services are transforming themselves – but what about academics?
54
Embracing 3rd Party Services
What will happen when student
leave (as they do)?
Casey Leaver has documented
experiences in migrating her
blog from Warwick:
• The blog has been delete
• Not all data could be migrated
(pictures & comments are
also lost)
Thoughts: institutional blogs
aimed at staff; support provided
for students using 3rd party
blogs
55
Deployment Challenges
56
When Things Go Wrong
What would happen if a 3rd party service was taken
over by a porn company?
It has happened to me!
This embedded
code (which
converted RSS feed
to HTML) changed
to a porn Web cam!
Deployment Challenges
57
The Incident (1)
The Incident
• Email message received saying news page for
workshop contained embedded Web cam
What We Did
• Removed embedded code
• Contacted company
What We Found
• Company had failed to renew domain name
(credit card had expired & administrator was on
holiday)
• Domain name grabbed by porn company – but
retrieved within 24 hours
Deployment Challenges
58
The Incident (2)
What We Had Already Done
• A Risk Assessment page had already been created,
documenting use of 3rd party services
What We Learnt
• This was a records management issue
• It’s not new – Microsoft failed to renew HotMail domain
some time ago (also Australian Univ)
• It could happen with our hosted domains (e.g. EUfunded projects)
What We Concluded
• We need to share such experiences
• We need to be able to switch off services quickly if
problems occur
• We need to manage our domain name subscriptions
Risk Assessment
Risk assessment
summaries
provided for
events which
embed 3rd party
services
Audit kept of
incidents (1 to
date)
59
Data Migration
When useful
information is
stored on a 3rd
party wiki the
data is copied
to a managed
environment
60
Deployment Challenges
61
Transforming Ourselves
It’s not just about institutional inertia & IT Services
What about:
• The academics who don’t care for change
• The academics who jump on every new
bandwagon
• Those in between these extremes
There’s a need:
• To ensure enthusiasts reflect on mistakes &
lessons learnt
• To recognise that e-learning (2.0) may not be for
everyone
Deployment Challenges
62
Personal Audit
Personal audit:
• There’s a need for responsible Web 2.0
enthusiasts to carry out their own risk audit
Departmental audit:
• There’s a need for own risk audits for
services used by others (cf. my events)
Institutional audit:
• Should institutions (& funders) require selfassessment audits to protect their
investment?
Deployment Challenges
63
Vision For The Future
Where are we now?
• People are using externally-hosted Web
2.0 services
• But some are unhappy with this
Should we:
• Welcome the potential of Web 2.0
• Grudgingly accept that they will be used –
but expect this to last for a short term
• Attempt to ban or dissuade such usage
Revisiting The IE (nee DNER)
We had early visions
for the JISC DNER
I subsequently
developed my view
for how the DNER
might develop:
• Applications on the
Web e.g.
bookmarking
(del.icio.us!) and
word processing
tools (Writely!)
64
Deployment Challenges
65
Web 2.0 As A DNER Development
The DNER got a lot right:
• Networked services
• Lightweight standards
• Importance of RSS
• Trust (in the funded institutions)
What we missed, which Web 2.0 is providing:
• Commercial providers of services
• New business models (we were Old Labour)
• Lightweight development
• User-generated content (we thought it would be
the professionals)
• Trust – in the individuals
• The power of the network – services which get
better as more people use them
Deployment Challenges
Why HE? Why Now?
World is changing:
• Web 2.0, ubiquitous networks, mobile devices,
declining prices, increasing functionality
How should society respond to maximise potential?
• At school: starting point, but this will be
protected a environment
• At work: too late & employers will expect new
media literate graduates
• At university: ideal place for students to develop
skills & ethical values for the digital citizen
Staff & students will use 3rd party services in their social lives.
They need their own risk assessment / management skills.
Providing a 100% safe institutional environment will hinder this
66
Conclusions
To conclude:
• E-Learning 2.0 and Web 2.0 are here and
won’t go away
• Institutions need to engage with Web 2.0
• There are many issues which need to be
addressed
• Solutions are available
• Probably the most important is
collaborative working with one’s peers
67