responding to change and institutional challenges: what if web 2.0 really changes everything?

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Responding To Change And Institutional Challenges:What if Web 2.0 Really Changes Everything?Brian KellyUKOLNUniversity of BathBath, [email protected]

UKOLN is supported by:

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/cetis-2007/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/cetis-2007/

Acceptable Use PolicyRecording/broadcasting of this talk, taking photographs, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, blogs, SMS, video chat, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised.

Acceptable Use PolicyRecording/broadcasting of this talk, taking photographs, discussing the content using email, instant messaging, blogs, SMS, video chat, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised.

This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat)

Tag for session: ‘cetis-2007-conference-institutional-challenges’Tag for session: ‘cetis-2007-conference-institutional-challenges’


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The Scenario

For this session imagine:• You’re a small organisation with few developers

(and they tend to leave)• You’re a developer and you want to do interesting

development• You’re a user, and you want to make use of

technologies without being told by the IT Services crowd what you should do

• You’re a member of the Senior Management Team – and budget cuts are looming

How can Web 2.0 be used to support these scenarios?

Note after coffee you will explore the issues from a developer’s perspective

Note after coffee you will explore the issues from a developer’s perspective


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What If Web 2.0 Changes Everything?What you may expect:What If Web 2.0 Changes Everything?Web 2.0 is about:

• RSS, syndication• Blogs• Wikis• Cool interfaces – Ajax• Trusting your users• Yaddy, yaddy yada

Haven’t CETIS conference attendees being doing this for a long time? You know all this stuff!

Haven’t CETIS conference attendees being doing this for a long time? You know all this stuff!


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What If Web 2.0 Really Changes Everything?An alternative perspective:

What If Web 2.0 Really Changes Everything?

Web 2.0 is also about:• The network as the platform• Google, Yahoo, etc. as application providers• New business models (not just funded by

the taxpayer or subscription services)• The wisdom of crowds• ‘Embracing constraints’ and ‘good enough’

solutions

Would we welcome this or feel threatened?


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When Two Tribes Go To War

Recent (10 Nov 2007) post by Niall Schlater (OU) on concerns over the reliability of Slideshare …

..and response by Tony Hirst (OU) on concerns over the reliability of OU Intranet!


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When Two Tribes Go To WarSimilar disagreements are taking place at Leeds University.

Why bother, asks Nigel Bruce, from the IT Services department?

Lots of reasons, responds Melissa Highton, Staff Development in a talk at next week’s “Exploiting The Potential Of Blogs and Social Networks” workshop.


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Exploring These Tensions

Aims of today’s session is to explore these tensions:

• Why the diversity?• How do we respond?• Is there a single answer or do we need to

embrace the diversity?

Let’s explore the view of the keen Web 2.0ers


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The Real IEMartin Poulter, ILRT on Technologies For Resource Sharing:

• Embeddability• Services which can be

embedded provide benefits for all

• Wikipedia generates more traffic than HE Academy – so let’s be Wikipedia editors

• Let’s use 3rd party wikis• …

Note see Intute blog post about response to my recent talk

The challenges• Managing the risks• Branding? Who cares (really?)

The challenges• Managing the risks• Branding? Who cares (really?)

See <http://ancientgeeks.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/resource-sharing-in-academic-support/>


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Revisiting The IE (nee DNER)

We had the early visions for the JISC DNER, developed by Andy Powell

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!)


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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


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Why We Should All Use Web 2.0

What we used to think:• We’re in HE, and we have IT Services to provide

our IT needs (though we moan about them)• JISC builds on this to provide additional services

What we (should) now realise:• JISC & institutional services aren’t appropriate for:

Our family photos, our music, … Use by our friends and families For social networking

• We need our personal risk management strategies (for our family digital heirlooms)

• Institutions may feel a need to ensure students familiarise themselves with such services

• Academics are likely to make use of such services in any case


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Can’t We Just Do it In-house?

Surely all we need to do is:• Use Ajax to enhance our user interfaces• Provide the popular (and increasingly expected)

‘favourite’, ‘comment’, ‘message; … social networking features within our own services and managed environments

• We can then avoid the spam, porn, misuse, …But:

• Have we got the mindset, the development processes, …?

• Can we expect to compete with the global providers - remember home-grown operating systems?

• What about the 1-9-90 rule?


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The 1 – 9 – 90 ChallengeParticipation 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

There are dangers associated with going down this route, with developing alternative approaches and doing nothing

There are dangers associated with going down this route, with developing alternative approaches and doing nothing

Globalisation talk


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Why I’m A Fan of Slideshare

Slideshare:• Easy to upload slides• Can be embedded in Web

pages• Statistics provided

More importantly:• Annotation facility• Slides can be ‘favourited’• I can see my fans, and the

other slides they like• Amazon style “readers who

bought this book also liked these”

Would this level of popularity be possible on an institutional or even national repository?

Would this level of popularity be possible on an institutional or even national repository?

http://www.slideshare.net/lisbk/...http://www.slideshare.net/lisbk/...

Globalisation talk


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Open Development

Truly open development helps deliver sustainable open source applications, such as Apache (Ross Gardler, JISC OSS Watch)Open development can also help provide enhance quality of ideas and provide sustainable content, communities, …

Readers & contributors to UK Web Focus blog come from all over globe

Readers & contributors to UK Web Focus blog come from all over globe


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Is It Risky?

Scenario

What happens if a third party provider goes out of business?

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/londoninmaps/exhibition.html

http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/features/londoninmaps/exhibition.html

Application ElsewhereWhat will happen to our life savings if our bank goes out of business? Do we keep our money under the mattress?And note recent Guardian headline “Secret List of Universities Facing Collapse”

There’s a need for risk assessment, risk management, etc. But this also applies when you are developing software, procuring development work, etc.

There’s a need for risk assessment, risk management, etc. But this also applies when you are developing software, procuring development work, etc.

Globalisation talk


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Some facts

People are going to talk about you…… down the pub, in the local post office or on a social networking site or blog… they’ll still talk… they still say the same things…

The boundaries are blurred; it’s common to mix business/study with pleasure

Students don’t come into Uni and leave their personal lives at home…

… but neither do staff!!!

Slides from talk on “Put Yourself Out There” by Alison Wildish, Head of Web Services, Edge Hill University at UKOLN workshop on “Exploiting The Potential Of Blogs and Social Networks” on 26 Nov 2007.

Slides from talk on “Put Yourself Out There” by Alison Wildish, Head of Web Services, Edge Hill University at UKOLN workshop on “Exploiting The Potential Of Blogs and Social Networks” on 26 Nov 2007.


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Regardless of any institutional policy our students and staff will use social networking sitesImage courtesy of Wanderer and Wonderer on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/global-wandering/1171829609/


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Living In A Blended World

We’ve been through changing times before:

• Demise of mainframe • Growth of PCs

• Demise of Computer Board • Growth of Google

Need to engage:

• The stuff that just works

• Supporting distributed team working

Need to understand:

• The stuff that users use, place they go(e.g. Facebook, Slideshare, …)

Need to embed (it’s not surrender):

• Enhancing quality of 3rd party services

• Content in Wikipedia

Just do it


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Conclusions

• Times have changed• The simplicity of the past won’t return• We need to

Reflect on our past (successes and failures) Understand what makes successful services Engage with success Identify our (possibly new) roles

• If we do this, we can continue to thrive


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Discussion

Things to think about:• Is this a realistic vision?• Is this what people are thinking?• What are the problems?• Can the problems be managed?• …

D


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My Thoughts

Challenges

Legal issues

Sustainability

SLAs with students

Expectations

Refuseniks

In-house tensions, arguments

Service limitations

Multiple IDs

Change control

No strategic vision


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Questions

Any questions?

responding to change and institutional challenges: what if web 2.0 really changes everything?

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