1. IWR Information Professional of the Year Resources bookmarked using the ‘ helf-200804 ' tag UKOLN is supported by: Institutional Implications of the Emergence of Social Software http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/seminars/helf-2008/ This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat) About This Talk Many educators are becoming excited about the potential of social software to support informal and formal learning, and the term e-learning 2.0 has been coined to describe such approaches. But how are institutions responding to the threats and opportunities which such developments provide? About This Talk Many educators are becoming excited about the potential of social software to support informal and formal learning, and the term e-learning 2.0 has been coined to describe such approaches. But how are institutions responding to the threats and opportunities which such developments provide? Brian Kelly, UKOLN, University of Bath, Bath, UK B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk

2. 2 Contents Introduction About the speaker About the talk Social Software Personal case study: example of use of social software Addressing the institutional barriers: Understanding risks and benefits Risk assessment & risk management Sharing and learning Conclusions

3. 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 Awarded prize for Information World Review’s Information professional of the year in Dec 2007 Introduction Note not actively involved in e-learning - but there are parallels with institutional implications for personal research environments (PREs)

4. 4 About This Talk Social networking software: You know about social networks eg. Facebook, Flickr, del.icio.us You’ve heard how these are used in an e-learning content You now that many ‘e-learning 2.0’ advocates are passionate about their vision But: You’ve some concerns or your colleagues may be sceptical You’re keen, but your institution is putting barriers in place Your keen, but you still have concerns This talk: Acknowledges that there are legitimate concerns Describes deployment strategies based on:  Advocacy, listening & refinement  Risk assessment & risk management  Engagement with your users & your peers Makes suggestions for future activities Introduction

5. 5 Social Software What do we mean by ‘social software’?  Collaborative software which facilitates team working?  That will be JISCMail mailing lists then?  Social networking software which include some notion of ‘friendship’?  Installation of Elgg open source social networking software at Universities of Brighton and Leeds, for example? These examples fail to illustrate the main challenges to institutions or cover users understanding of the term ‘social software’ or ‘social networks’ Introduction

6. 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 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” Introduction

7. 7 The Specifics No longer (?) institutional challenges: Allowing students to chat on IM Installing blogging & wiki software locally (resourcing & scheduling challenges) Main institutional challenges: Use of 3 rd party services: promoting, supporting, sustainability, liability, … Purposes of the services Do they deliver the goods: assessment, improvements, …? User perspective: will they use them, info. literacy, misuse, …? Introduction

8. 8 Using Social Software Case study: my most recent talk Background Invited speaker at NDAP 2008 conference in Taiwan, 18-20 Mar 2008 Three day conference with WiFi network Talk on Library 2.0: Opportunities and Challenges Talk (and pre- and post-activities) aimed to demonstrate benefits of social software Case Study Case study is intended to illustrate benefits and issues associated with use of SNS in a research context & to explore possible relevance to e-learning

9. 9 Blogging Many ideas given in talk had been written about in blog posts on UK Web Focus blog This provides an opportunity for: Readers to comment on & criticise ideas Conference participants to visits posts to see expanded discussions Note that blog posts are bookmarked to facilitate finding Case Study

10. 10 Slideshare Case Study Slideshare provides: Exposure of ideas to wide audience Tags to aid finding Bookmarking to make easier to use Option for embedding & reuse Annotation … Plans to sync audio with slides to create Slidecast. Note Intro to Fb Slidecast has had > 3,700 views & 302 downloads

11. 11 Creative Commons Licence Note that: Title slide contains a CC licence and a link to caveats On Slideshare the slides also have the CC licence The slides can also be (a) embedded & (b) downloaded CC licence granted for the talk (photos, audio & video) Case Study Benefits of such openness include (a) maximising impact of ideas (b) maximising access (c) minimising preservation barriers and (d) demonstrating commitment to openness

12. 12 Use of Video Video & sound recordings of talk made Intention is to: Sync with slides Upload to Google Video & services such as Zentation Reason: Maximise impact Allow use on podcast & vidcasts Assist reuse of slides by showing how they’ve been used Case Study Video of talk at NDAP 2008 conference not yet available. Using example from talk at UCISA conference

13. 13 Tagging Del.icio.us used to bookmark resources used in talk: Resources also embedded in Web page Tag ‘ndap-2008’ used If other speakers at event use same tag, the resource can be aggregated ‘ndap-2008’ tag also used in blog, Slideshare, … Case Study Was ‘ndap-2008’ the right tag to use? What if NDAP have other events in 2008? And NDAP is now called TELDAP.

14. 14 Talking Twitter: Used for reflecting on talks & sharing with others #hashtag used to aggregate related tweets Didn’t work well – too intrusive to Twitter followers. Other Twitterers only found on final day Case Study What to do next time: (a) explore other ways of using Twitter (b) use other micro-blogging tools or (c) use other IM tools (which may not be easily aggregated via tags or RSS) Jaiku: Alternative micro-blogging app also tried

15. 15 Opportunities & Challenges Why have I used social services in this way? Benefits have been explained Institutional software not relevant Benefits to others may be appreciated (for use by students, for supporting students or for supporters peers) What of the challenges to institutions? Risk in using services (Slideshare, del.icio.us, Google Video, Zentation, …) Fragmentation of discussions Legal issues IT Service barriers Case Study

16. 16 Engagement Strategy Barriers: Institutional inertia Vested interests, power struggles, … Sustainability, reliability, interoperability Privacy, copyright, … Addressing the barriers: Encouraging the enthusiasts Removing barriers Demonstrating benefits These approaches have already been taken and are continuing Deployment Challenges

17. 17 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 Deployment Challenges

18. 18 Deployment Challenges Reliability & Sustainability 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 Technical Issues Note URI for master copy on managed Web site is provided on slide & in the metadata

19. 19 Slideshare Example (2) What happens if Slideshare goes down – and it has happened! Does this demonstrate that you can’t trust externally-hosted services? Technical Issues But local services also go down – as this example from the Open University shows And note prompt response from Slideshare

20. 20 Use of Social Networks Social networks such as Facebook are used to discuss Library 2.0 issues Ethical Issues But: Aren’t they for social, not work, purposes What about the ownership issues and the dangers of mandating use of SN?

21. 21 User-Generated Content Portsmouth Library Teen wiki encourage user content But what if the content is: Inappropriate Difficult to read Has spelling mistakes Ethical Issues Will such concerns conflict with organisational policies related to the quality of its Web sites and editorial processes?

22. 22 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)

23. 23 Risk Assessment (1) See “Risk Assessment For Use Of Third Party Web 2.0 Services” QA Focus briefing document RiskAssessmentManagement 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 lossLikelihood 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

24. 24 Risk Assessment (2)

25. 25 University of Oxford

26. 26 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. 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.

27. 27 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”)

28. 28 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 & 3 rd 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?

29. 29 Embracing 3 rd 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 3 rd party blogs

30. 30 When Things Go Wrong What would happen if a 3 rd 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!

31. 31 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

32. 32 The Incident (2) What We Had Already Done A Risk Assessment page had already been created, documenting use of 3 rd 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. EU- funded 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

33. 33 Risk Assessment Risk assessment summaries provided for events which embed 3 rd party services Audit kept of incidents (1 to date)

34. 34 Data Migration When useful information is stored on a 3 rd party wiki the data is copied to a managed environment

35. 35 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

36. 36 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 self- assessment audits to protect their investment?

37. 37 Vision For The Future Where are we now? People are using social networking services But some are unhappy with this Should we: Welcome the potential of social networking services Grudgingly accept that they will be used – but expect this to last for a short term Attempt to ban or dissuade such usage

38. 38 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!)

39. 39 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

40. 40 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 3 rd party services in their social lives. They need their own risk assessment / management skills. Providing a 100% safe institutional environment will hinder this Staff & students will use 3 rd party services in their social lives. They need their own risk assessment / management skills. Providing a 100% safe institutional environment will hinder this

41. 41 Guidelines For SNs Facebook (for example): Popular “Provide data & services where users are” Development platform available But: “Facebook is evil” Data lock-in Users may not want to open up their social spaces Need to develop & share best guidelines: Fb as one (of many) interfaces; access decoupled from social links; master held elsewhere; ….

42. 42 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