1. Technological Challenges Posed By Web 2.0
Technological Challenges Posed By Web 2.0
Acceptable Use Policy
Recording this talk, taking photographs, and discussions using blogs, instant messaging, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised. Also a Creative Commons licence for the talk and slides is available - as this can maximise impact of my ideas!
Brian Kelly, UKOLN,
University of Bath
Bath
Resources bookmarked using ‘fellows-conference-2007' tag
UKOLN is supported by:
This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat)

2. About The Speaker Introduction Brian Kelly:
UK Web Focus – an advisory post which provides advices on making effective use of the on Web (with focus on standards, emerging Web technologies)
Involved in Web work since January 1993
Focus on Web technologies and not e-learning!
About UKOLN:
National centre of expertise in digital information management
Based at the University of Bath
Funded by MLA and JISC to support the cultural heritage and higher/further education sectors

3. About This Introduction
Your context:
You’ve explored interesting e-learning issues in your project, including pedagogical & technical aspects
We’ll hear from several projects
Are you still relevant? Has Web 2.0:
Changed the rules
Changed users’ behaviours and expectations?
Redefined who the various service providers are?
And do we (as academic, developers, managers…):
Need to fund development work differently?
Need to deploy services differently?
Need to revisit our relevance?

4. Scenario Planning Web 2.0 wins Steady as she goes Web 2.0 backlash ???
Google/Yahoo … provide services
Social networks
Like today, only more so
Web 2.0 backlash
Web 2.0 fails
Student backlash
Revival of the VLE
???
Global Learning
Revival of UK eUniversity, on global scale

5. 1 Web 2.0 As Platform Web 2.0 is the platform for doing things
Assertions
Web 2.0 is the platform for doing things
Technical infrastructure now available (RSS, REST, URIs,…)
It’s in place now
It was designed (since 1990) to be global, scalable, … (Web 2.0 was Sir Tim’s original vision)
What’s the future for the application?
Google (and others) threatening MS
Web 2.0 will bring about the demise (radical transformation?) of the monolithic VLE – and the open source VLE

6. 2 Global Social Networks
Assertions
Web 2.0 made us aware of benefits of social networks (why did we miss it?):
Things that get better as numbers grow (Google link analysis algorithm)
Our social nature
Our diversity of social networks: school, work, play, professional, …
Experiences from Facebook (connections from school)
Social networking systems need a critical mass, Global is good; is a class, a department or a university too small?

7. 3 “Embrace Constraints”
Assertions
Traditional public sector IT development:
Standards defined (technical, accessibility, legal, …)
Technical architecture defined (fully interoperable with everything and use the latest TLA standards)
Well-funded programme call
Two/three year funded projects
Formal advisory groups, reporting structures, …
Results in:
Driving out innovation
Flawed services arriving too late
Let’s agree to ‘embrace constraints’ and provide a useful service quickly (cf Basecamp)

8. 4 Cost Effectiveness Assertions Challenge public sector norms:
Must be universally accessible
Must work on all platforms
Must work on legacy systems
Must be managed in-house
Tell me:
Why?
Does the best drive out the good?
Don’t you encounter the ‘IT Services barrier’ (Skype is evil, doesn’t use the right standards,…)
Have you costed Amazon S3 and EC2 (e.g. 2-click installation of Moodle for $9/month)?

9. 5 Live (slightly) Dangerously
Assertions
Can’t use social networks:
Data protection, privacy, …
Need to protect students from embarrassing themselves
It’s not what IT should be used for
It’s not what university is about
You’ll catch viruses
You’ll meet the wrong type of people
The data isn’t preserved
The data is preserved
Make IT blended; part of University life. It’s like student bars, accommodation, parties, …
Students may want the data to fade away
The ‘disposable application’

10. 6 Addressing Your Concerns
Assertions
But what about:
Risks of using 3rd party services
Sustainability
Quality assurance
Assessment
Changes to political, cultural & economic framework …
“Events, dear boy, events!” That’s life, and we’ve been though it before.

11. Summary What if: The VLE is dying?
Flickr & Facebook define students expectations for social networks?
The lightweight stuff wins over the masses; the slow-moving worthy stuff doesn’t get used?
Out-sourcing the infrastructure delivers benefits to the institution (cost-savings) and users (richer functionality (cf. TCD and Google Mail)
Web 2.0 today is like student life in 1960s
Everything I have said is completely wrong!
Will your project fit in with a changed environment?
Will it have the flexibility to respond to possible changes?

12. Questions
Any questions?