A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Embedding Use of the Social Web in Your Institution UKOLN is supported by: This work is licensed under a Attribution- NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat) Blog: Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK Twitter: About This talk reviews some of the barriers to effective use of Social Web services and suggests approaches to embedding its use. About This talk reviews some of the barriers to effective use of Social Web services and suggests approaches to embedding its use.

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Contents Challenges to embedding use of the Social Web: Motivation I’m unconvinced I don’t know where to start Institutional Barriers IT Services/Comms policies Sustainability/interoperability/legal/ … concerns Sustainability Barriers Metrics Managing closure Other Barriers To be identified in breakout groups 2 Outputs from today

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 3 The 1 – 9 – 90 Challenge Participation Inequality: Encouraging More Users to Contribute In most online communities, 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little, and 1% of users account for almost all the action. (Jakob Neilson, Oct 2006) Potential Benefits: Globalisation Cross-fertilisation Unexpected benefits Maximising impact Potential Dangers: Globalisation Mono-culture Unexpected dangers Loss of impact Remember that Social Web services improve as the numbers of users increase. The safe in-house solution may fail due to a lack of a sustainable community.

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Motivating Action Implementing Change Need champions – is that you? Are You Convinced? One aim of today – providing examples of benefits Need further convincing: read more examples (e.g. Where to Start? Too many opportunities! Suggestions:  Exploit personal or institutional interests/priorities  Don’t feel pressured into activities  Go for the low-hanging fruit 4 Motivation

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk The Personal RSS Reader Low-hanging fruit: Netvibes with tabs for: Your services Other people’s information about your services Key agencies in your area Your areas of interest 5 Motivation My personal Netvibes page Note Netvibes videos clips

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk The Public RSS Page Low-hanging fruit: Netvibes with public tabs for: Your services Other people’s information about your services Key agencies in your area Your areas of interest 6 Motivation My public Netvibes page

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Twitter Is An Option 7 Motivation Twitter can provide tangible benefits: Engaging in discussions at events Remote participation at events Finding our what they’re saying about you Note you don’t need to say what you had for breakfast!

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Understanding The Institutional Barriers What are the barriers? IT Services says no! Comms department says no! Legal department says no! What we need to do: Gain a better & more detailed understanding of concerns Seek to address concerns Move towards a more risk-taking culture 8 Institutional Barriers

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Examples of Barriers Some examples: Access to services blocked Access to services blocked at peak hours Responding: Gain an understanding of reasons why and develop response e.g. Service blocked at peak hours indicates a network bandwidth concern General block could be due to (a) access to illegal content; (b) staff wasting time; … 9 Institutional Barriers

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Subverting the Barriers Example: “Can’t have a wiki; user-generated content may include spelling mistakes. This will bring council into disrepute” Understanding Purpose: Wiki was to support teenager reading group Politics: Need to ensure council achieves its social inclusion & widening participation targets 10 Institutional Barriers

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk It’s Too Risky! 11 Institutional Barriers Story Council blocks Twitter due to “A squirrel could run rings around journalist” tweet (meant to be private message) Parallel message sent to list rather than individual. service suspended How To Respond Expect strange response and plan accordingly

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Have a (Lightweight) Policy Mosman Council (Australia) provides good example of a lightweight policy 12

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 13 Risk Management JISC infoNet Risk Management infoKit: “In education, as in any other environment, you can’t decide not to take risks: that simply isn’t an option in today’s world. All of us take risks and it’s a question of which risks we take” Examples of people who are likely to be adverse stakeholders: People who fear loss of their jobs People who will require re-training People who may be moved to a different department / team People.. required to commit resources to the project People who fear loss of control over a function or resources People who will have to do their job in a different way People who will have to carry out new or additional functions People who will have to use a new technology Institutional Barriers

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 14 Biases Subjective factors A Risks &Opportunities Framework “Time To Stop Doing and Start Thinking: A Framework For Exploiting Web 2.0 Services”, Museums & the Web 2009 conference Intended Purpose Benefits Risks Missed Opps. Costs Sharing experiences Learning from successes & failures Tackling biases … Critical friends Application to existing services Application to in-house development … Risk MInimisation Evidence

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 15 Using The Framework Community support Rapid feedback Justify ROI Org. brand Community- building Low? Twitter for individuals Organisational Fb Page Marketing events,… Large audiences Ownership, privacy, lock-in Marketing opportunity Low? Note personal biases! Use of approach in two scenarios: use of Twitter & Facebook Intended Purpose Benefits Risks Missed Opps. Costs Risk MInimisation Evidence

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Beyond The Pilot You’ve: Made use of Social Web services yourself Met like-minded colleagues and shared best practices Gathered anecdotes of the benefits Now you want to ensure: The services are sustainable The services will continue if you leave The services will continue if funding and political circumstances change 16 Sustainability

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Metrics “There are lies, damned lies and Web statistics” Dangers: Failure to grasp complexities (caching, false hits, robots, …) Inappropriate comparison 17 Rather than a single Web site usage statistics, there’s a need to understand a diversity of metrics

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Blog Statistics Blog statistics for UK Web Focus blog Average 250 visits/day in But how meaningful is this? What about: RSS readers? readers? The tension: desire to enhance end user experience through increased RSS takeup vs need to report on usage stats

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Statistics Remember that digital resources can now be accessed in a variety of ways: Web access RSS On Google … 19 Statistics on delivery of blog posts Sustainability

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Hidden Dangers “When Peregrines Come To Town” Derby Museum and Art Gallery provided v. popular Social Web services about nesting peregrine 20 “So great were webstats submitted under “Best Value Performance Indicators” the Audit Commission questioned their veracity. After much high level debate they declared our figures unsuitable for reflecting website usages by museums.”

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Tail Wagging the Dog 21 “It was suggested that this decision might put viability of the project into question. I feared this could be a case of the statistics-gathering tail wagging the audience-focussed dog. But common sense prevailed and we’ve since been fully supported in our work, especially so after being able to demonstrate that we draw many thousands more visitors into our main websites each summer and that our project contributes towards some of our authority’s Corporate Priorities, too” Institutional Barriers Note importance of stories rather then just number

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk But Statistics Can Be Useful Statistics can help to identify successful strategies for engaging with user communities e.g. potential of Twitter 22

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk But Statistics Can Be Useful 23 Statistics can help to identify successful strategies for engaging with user communities e.g. potential of Twitter 1,759 followers; 1,392 following 3,460 followers; 2,365 following 622 followers; 329 following 156 followers;132 following

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Termination of Services Individual (blog policies) 24 Sustainability Blog published by Aline Hayes, Assistant Director SLS/Director of Info Systems & Technology, Sheffield Hallam University

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Termination of Services Policies For This Blog This blog is hosted by Sheffield Hallam University, therefore the content of this blog belongs to them and remains theirs in the event that I either cease to contribute to this blog, or leave the University. Policies for the use of &inclusion of Twitter Feeds The content of any Twitter feed relates to a mix of work and personal matters. … Staff who choose to follow me on Twitter are assumed to be happy that I may follow them in return … I reserve the right to treat the Twitter id Aline_Hayes as mine & not the property of SHU 25 Sustainability Having a simple policy on your use of Social Web services can be beneficial to your users & clarify issues

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk It’s Not Just The Social Web What is the future for public sector services after the General Election? 26 Sustainability Observer, 6 Dec 2009 With expectation of decreased funding, surely now is the time to use the Cloud service?

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Culture Grid Collections Trust (CT) are developing the Culture Grid – an architecture for managing cultural resources whilst allowing integration with Social Web services 27 But what of the risks associated with the Culture Grid? There’s a need to apply a risk analysis to publicly- funded services too. Sustainability

A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Conclusions To conclude: The Social Web is here to stay The early mainstream users are demonstrating value and developing best practices There are risks – but these are risks which need to be assessed and managed There are also risks in doing nothing! 28

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