A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Engaging Virtual Communities: Web 2.0 Brian Kelly, UKOLN, University of Bath Bath UKOLN is supported by: This work is licensed under a Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat) Resources bookmarked using ‘ cilip-cdg ' tag

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 2 About Me Brian Kelly: UK Web Focus: a national Web advisory post Based at UKOLN, a national centre of expertise in digital information management Located at the University of Bath Funded by MLA and JISC Involved in Web since Jan 1993 Currently advising on best practices for Web 2.0 Introduction

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 3 About You How many of you have heard of Web 2.0? How many of you have read content in a blog or wiki? How many of you publish a blog or have updated content in a wiki? How many have used MSN Messenger, Skype, …? Introduction

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 4 Contents Web 2.0 – What Is It? (Talking …) Blogs  Wikis RSS  Mashups Microformats  Comms tools Social networks  … Deployment Strategies (… doing) User focus Information literacy; staff development Risk assessment Safe experimentation

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 5 Let’s Do It Now! Let’s not just talk about Web 2.0 – let’s use it now (assuming WiFi network available!): Let’s Talk Go to and in box enter Let’s Share Resources Go to to access resources Discussion Lecture theatres being WiFied; pervasive networking being deployed  students with laptops will expect to use them  we need to gain experiences to establish best practices & manage possible problems Discussion Lecture theatres being WiFied; pervasive networking being deployed  students with laptops will expect to use them  we need to gain experiences to establish best practices & manage possible problems 2 Mar 2007

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 6 Web2MemeMap, Tim O’Reilly, 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 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 Web 2.0 What Is Web 2.0? Marketing term (derived from observing 'patterns') rather than technical standards - “an attitude not a technology” Web 2.0

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 7 Blogs The term ‘blog’ is well-known, but perhaps there’s a lack of awareness of the potential of blogs. There’s a need to: Explore how blogs can support business functions (support users, staff & organisation) There’s also a need for information professionals to: Understand blogging & related technologies (e.g. RSS, Technorati) Be able to find resources in the 'Blogosphere' Web 2.0 Openness Syndication Collaboration Key Characteristics blogs/marks/ blogs/marks/

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 8 Blogs & Marketing What happens: You’ve done some great research (not quite a cure for cancer!) You write a press release (job done?) press-releases/… press-releases/… Who is linking to & talking about this research (are they disagreeing?) The Nourishing Balance blog has commented on this (That’s great – or are they misinterpreting the findings?) makes-you-smarter-at-least-temporarily/ makes-you-smarter-at-least-temporarily/ Who needs to know about and use Web 2.0 apps from this example: PR & marketing; researchers; …

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 9 Blogs - Reading How do you keep informed of developments? Do you use a dedicated blog reader? Are you alerted of changes to key blogs? Do you focus on the content, and avoid the distractions of ads, etc. Web 2.0 Bloglines – a Web-based blog reader. You are informed of changes since you last viewed the page. BlogBridge – a desktop blog reader. You are informed of changes since you last viewed the page. Openness Syndication Collaboration

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 10 Blogs – Engaging With Users The ukwebfocus.wordpress. com blog provides: Comments option for all postings A realtime chat facility Benefits: Feedback on my thoughts and ideas Evaluation … /01/25/experiments-with-meebo/ /01/25/experiments-with-meebo/ Blogs aren’t just one-way publishing, but an implementation of Tim Berners-Lee’s vision of a collaborative Web See (and discuss) UK Web Focus blog post 25 Jan 2007 Blended blogging

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 11 Web 2.0 What Are They Saying About Us? Blogs are very interconnected with each other (bloggers discuss other’s blog postings). This can help to provide feedback; measure impact; engage in discussions; etc. You can also monitor what they are saying about your Web site. Find out what bloggers have been saying about your blog or your Web site – possibly minutes after they’ve said it. You can then take the praise – or issue a rebuttal in a timely fashion Criticism: this may be comment spam. This may be true for popular home pages, but not for many other pages

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 12 Finding Resources Technorati can help find blog articles, RSS feeds, etc. Technorati search for “SHERPA JISC" finds: 11 blog posting postings, most recent 196 day ago (nothing new since then?) Web 2.0 RSS Syndication What do users want: the home page and what people are saying today. Google & Technorati are valuable tools, so organisations should ensure that their Web site can be found in both. A search for “JISC” finds a posting from 6 hours ago Note you can receive RSS alerts of new search results search/sherpa+jisc search/sherpa+jisc

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 13 Social Networking Software (1) But what if: Students aren’t interested in university-provided blogging services? Students use commercial social networking services such as Facebook? Web 2.0 Should we: Make use of these environments (save money by not reinventing wheels) Inform students on integration of our information? Ignore? Note museums (Walker Art Center) are experimenting with Facebook 18 Feb 2007

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 14 Social Networking Software (2) What are they saying about your institution in social networking services, on blogs, …? Do you (and your departments) provide business intelligence services to find out what your users are saying about you? Do you have policies on rebuttal? university-of-nottingham-not-found/ university-of-nottingham-not-found/ tech-team-storms-student-underground/ tech-team-storms-student-underground/ BUCS set up a feedback page in Facebook - without being aware of this page!

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 15 Wikis Wikis – collaborative Web-based authoring tools I use Wikis for: Collaborative papers (avoiding ed MS Word file around) Web 2.0 Writely – Web-based word processor or Wiki? Does it matter, it does the job IWMW2006_Discussion_Group_Notes_for_Group_A IWMW2006_Discussion_Group_Notes_for_Group_A Note-taking at events Remember when notes were trapped in the non-interoperable world of flip charts & paper. This need no longer be the case. Social discussions at events IWMW2006_Information_About_Social_Aspects IWMW2006_Information_About_Social_Aspects Openness Syndication Collaboration

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 16 Wikipedia Wikipedia – a community- developed encyclopedia … and also a well-linked Web site, which boosts Google rankings Note created by Owen Massey in June Issues (philosophical): Should we be doing this? Who should create & maintain pages? Issues (practical): Who maintains this page? What else should be in Wikipedia related to the university’s key interests & expertise?

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 17 Sharing - Flickr Web 2.0 includes community-building You can help support your community- building by making it easy to share photos at events (e.g. this seminar) Simply suggest a tag e.g. ‘cilip ’ and encourage delegates to upload their photos with this tag Web ?w=all&q=iwmw2006&m=text ?w=all&q=iwmw2006&m=text iwmw2006/interesting/?page=6 iwmw2006/interesting/?page=6 Openness Network effect Syndication Collaboration

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 18 Web 2.0 Sharing – del.icio.us Another aspect of sharing is sharing bookmarks This can be used to: Manage your bookmarks Allow others to contribute resources Allow lists of bookmarks to be repurposed Carry out impact analysis Openness Network effect Syndication Collaboration Note also that the bookmarks can be embedded (‘mashed-up’) elsewhere

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 19 Sharing – Slides Slideshare.net: Repository for PowerPoint slides Find (and reuse) slideshows of interest (I like your Web 2.0 slideshow – so maybe I’ll like yours, or others that you like) Add comments, questions, etc. Use as planning, feedback, etc. Can assign Creative Commons rights

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 20 Web 2.0 Google Maps Mashups Google Map ‘mashup’ used for IWMW 2006 event: ~ 20 lines of JavaScript. Code taken from Googler Maps Web site and coordinates added workshops/webmaster-2006/maps/ More sophisticated mapping applications are being developed, such as Radius 5 at Northumbria Univ. Openness Mashup APIs

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 21 Web 2.0 Location Metadata Embedded location metadata can now by exploited by 3 rd party tools Openness Mashup Open source APIs Why don't all our organisation provide location data in this way? Note issues about quality of data & responsibilities for providing the data (e.g. is this the right address?) This service is based on the following HTML content: The Greasemap script processes this data as shown This service is based on the following HTML content: The Greasemap script processes this data as shown events/conferences/cilip-cdg / events/conferences/cilip-cdg /

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 22 Takeup Of New Technologies The Gartner curve Developers Rising expectations Trough of despair Service plateau Enterprise software Large budgets … Chasm Failure to go beyond developers & early adopters (cf Gopher) Need for: Advocacy Listening to users Addressing concerns Deployment strategies … Let’s now look at approaches for avoiding the chasm Early adopters

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 23 Beware The IT Fundamentalists We need to avoid simplistic solutions to the complexities: Open Standards Fundamentalist: we just need XML Open Source Fundamentalist: we just need Linux Vendor Fundamentalist: we must use next version of our enterprise system (and you must fit in with this) Accessibility Fundamentalist: we must do WAI WCAG User Fundamentalist: must do whatever users want Legal Fundamentalist: it breaches copyright, … Ownership Fundamentalist: must own everything we use Perfectionist: It doesn't do everything, so we'll do nothing Simplistic Developer: I've developed a perfect solution – I don't care if it doesn't run in the real world Web 2.0: It’s new; its cool! IT Services Barrier

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 24 The Librarian Fundamentalists Librarians: Think they know better than the user e.g. they don't like people using Google Scholar; they should use Web of Knowledge (who cares that users find it easier to use Google Scholar & finds references they need that way?) Think that users should be forced to learn Boolean searching & other formal search techniques because this is good for them (despite Sheffield's study). Don't want the users to search for themselves (cf folksonomies) because they won't get it right. They still want to classify the entire Web - despite the fact that users don't use their lists of Web links. Want services to be perfect before they release them to users. They are uneasy with the concept of 'forever beta' (they don't believe that users have the ability to figure things out themselves and work around the bugs). Library Barrier

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 25 Deployment Strategies Interested in using Web 2.0 in your organisation? Worried about corporate inertia, power struggles, etc? There’s a need for a deployment strategy: Addressing business needs Low-hanging fruits Encouraging the enthusiasts Gain experience of the browser tools – and see what you’re missing! Staff training & development Address areas you feel comfortable with Risk management strategy … Deployment Challenges

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 26 IWMW 2006 & Risk Management IWMW 2006 has taken a risk management approach to its evaluation of Web 2.0 technologies: Agreements: e.g. in the case of the Chatbot. Use of well-established services: Google & del.icio.us are well-established and have financial security. Notification: warnings that services could be lost. Engagement: with the user community: users actively engage in the evaluation of the services. Provision of alternative services: multiple OMPL tools. Use in non-mission critical areas: not for bookings! Long term experiences of services: usage stats Availability of alternative sources of data: e.g. standard Web server log files. Data export and aggregation: RSS feeds, aggregated in Suprglu, OPML viewers, etc. Deployment Strategy

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 27 All these FireFox extensions are available for free! Tools For Your Staff A simple approach for your organisation staff: provide Firefox to give a rich client environment: RSS Panel: immediate display and access to RSS feeds on pages Blogger Web Comments: immediate access to blog comments on pages Various bookmarklets: such as Webmaster tools Various sidebars: such as the Meebo chat tool

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 28 Conclusions To conclude: Web 2.0 is here and many people are using it Information professionals need to understand Web 2.0 to support their professional activities Information professionals can benefits from the social networking aspects of Web 2.0 Just do it!

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 29 Questions Any questions?