Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting and All That

A centre of expertise in digital information management

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Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting and All That

Brian KellyUK Web FocusUKOLNUniversity of [email protected]

UKOLN is supported by:

http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/jisc-skills-update-2007-09/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/jisc-skills-update-2007-09/

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

Resources bookmarked using ‘jisc-skills-update-2007-09' tag Resources bookmarked using ‘jisc-skills-update-2007-09' tag

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


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Contents

• About The Speaker• Blogs• Wikis • Podcasting• And all that: Social Networks• Barriers

This talk provides a summary of the various Web 2.0 technologies I am using to enable me to do my job more effectively

This talk provides a summary of the various Web 2.0 technologies I am using to enable me to do my job more effectively


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About The Speaker

Brian Kelly:• UK Web Focus: a Web advisory post• Involved in Web since January 1993, when he

helped set up Web service at University of Leeds• Passionate about Web in 1993-4 (cf Gopher)• Equally passionate about Web 2.0 today

UKOLN:• A national centre of expertise in digital information

management• Funded by JISC and MLA to support the higher and

further education communities and the cultural heritage centre

• Located at the University of Bath


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The UK Web Focus blog is now one of my main channels for engagement with my user communities. This blog is available at the address ukwebfocus.wordpress.com.

The blog was very easy to set up, using the hosted Wordpress service. On average I post about 3 to 4 articles per week. As well as providing me with a valuable dissemination channel, the blog enables my user communities to respond to my posts.

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UK Web Focus blog is now one of my main channels for engagement with my user communities.Uses wordpress.com

UK Web Focus blog is now one of my main channels for engagement with my user communities.Uses wordpress.com


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When you are setting up a blog it can be important to clarify its scope (including the topics to be addressed in the blog), the target audience and the purpose of the blog and associated best practices for ensuring that the blog is fit for its purpose..

In my case, the blog is about the Web, including Web standards, Web innovations and best practices.

The target audience includes Web developers, practitioners and policy makers in the higher and further educational communities and the cultural heritage sector.

The purposes of the blog include dissemination, getting feedback and engaging with my users and ‘thinking aloud’.

Encouraging the blog readers to respond to postings helps to ensure that the content of the blog is appropriate for the target audience.

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Policies, scope, target audience & QA processes published shortly after launch:

“Dissemination, feedback & thinking out loud”

Policies, scope, target audience & QA processes published shortly after launch:

“Dissemination, feedback & thinking out loud”


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In addition various usage monitoring tools can also help to ensure that the blog is fulfilling its purpose. For example, I have used the Blotter tool which provides a graphical display of statistics from the Technorati service. I’m pleased to note that the UK Web Focus blog has seen a steady growth and, based on the Technorati statistics, is now ranked in the top 50,000 blogs. With a total of about 70 million blogs, this places the blog in the top 0.1%.

I have also found it useful to make comparisons with my peers – in my case I observe how I compare with the eFoundations blog provided by Eduserv, Scott Wilson’s blog at CETIS and the Talis blog service.

These are some simple techniques which can be used to monitor the effectiveness of a blog service. There is also a need to measure the impact, and not just usage, of a blog. This is an area I intend to address in future posts on my blog.

To conclude, I have found that the UK Web Focus blog provides a very effective means of engaging with my user communities. My only regret is that I didn’t set up a blog many years ago.

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Steady growth in popularity, feedback and indications of impact (“after reading your blog I decided to …”)

Steady growth in popularity, feedback and indications of impact (“after reading your blog I decided to …”)


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What Do The Readers Think?

Post inviting readers’ comments published on 28 August 2007.

SurveyMonkey survey tool used.

Brief feedback invited on:• Technical environment (platform, tool, …)• Feedback on the content:

The content Frequency of publication Length if postings Other comments


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Please give your views on the content of the UK Web Focus blog.


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Please give your views on the frequency of publication for articles on the UK Web Focus blog.


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Please give your views on the length of postings on the UK Web Focus blog.


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Feel free to give any other comments or suggestions.

Conclusions• Positive feedback• Need to decide whether to split into multiple blogs,

to better target UKOLN’s diverse audiences

Conclusions• Positive feedback• Need to decide whether to split into multiple blogs,

to better target UKOLN’s diverse audiences


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WikisI use blogs to document my thoughts on various issues.

In contrast I make use of wikis to enable participants at events I organise to share their thoughts and to participate actively at events.

I’ve used the Wetpaint wiki (available at www.wetpaint.com) to support quite a number of my events.

For example I used it for this year’s Institutional Web Management Workshop – the annual 3-day event organised by UKOLN. The workshop participants made use of the wiki prior to the event to make contact with fellow participants in arranging places to meet when they arrived at the venue, on the night before the event started.

Wik

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Wikis used for ~ 2 years. Main uses:

• Joint work• Support events

Wikis used for ~ 2 years. Main uses:

• Joint work• Support events


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The wiki was also used during the various discussion groups. A reporter for each of the discussion groups was provided with a page on the wiki to make notes of the discussions which took place and any recommendations which were made.

This had the advantage that notes weren’t trapped in the closed world of flipcharts. Instead the content could easily be reused and shared with a wider audience.

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Remember when notes from breakout groups were trapped in flip charts :-)

Remember when notes from breakout groups were trapped in flip charts :-)


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The wiki was also used after the event. It was used to provide feedback on various aspects of the workshops. In addition the wiki could be used to upload additional content related to the event. For example a number of videos of talks at the workshop were taken and subsequently made available.

As with many Web 2.0 services, the wiki provides an RSS feed, which enables changes made to the wiki to be easily accessed.

Wik

is

Note that blogs & wikis increasingly support additional tools.

Note that blogs & wikis increasingly support additional tools.


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For some time I’ve been using Slideshare repository service. My PowerPoint slides are available on the UKOLN Web site, but uploading a copy to Slideshare enables me to reach a wider audience and to provide additional functionality at no cost to myself – such as Slideshare’s annotation facility and the ability to embed the slideshow in Web pages, blogs, etc. The community aspect of Slideshare is also useful – I can see the users who ad my slides to their list of favourites, and then see other slideshows that they like or have produced themselves.

A new feature of Slideshare is the ability to embed a sound track with the slides, which can be synched with the slides. I’ve done this for this talk, so that as well as attending the live presentation or downloading the PowerPoints you can also listen to the multimedia presentation – which can also be easily embedded into Web pages and blogs.

And this sound track can be used in a Podcast – this is an RSS file which allows an MP3 file to be easily syndicated to MP3 players.

The software needed to do this is freely available – and I don’t even need to install software locally.

This allows me to get my ideas and thoughts out to a much larger audience that will attend the one-off live presentation of this talk.

Clearly this provides accessibility benefits, as well as minimising travel costs and my carbon footprint.

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2.0

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Slideshare has been used for several months:

• Maximise exposure

• Maximise feedback

• Embed slides

Slideshare has been used for several months:

• Maximise exposure

• Maximise feedback

• Embed slides


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I also provide access to my blog, my slides on Slideshare and information about what I’m doing and my interests using the Facebook social networking service.

This is useful as Facebook is so popular it can help me to reach new audiences.

And it is also useful in allowing me to keep in informal contact with my peers.

So

cial

Net

wo

rks

Social networks (e.g. Facebook) provide addition dissemination channels & benefits of network effect

Social networks (e.g. Facebook) provide addition dissemination channels & benefits of network effect


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Multimedia (1)

Slideshare + audio track = Slidecast

Benefits:• Accessibility

benefits• Training aid• …

Audio track + RSS feed = PodcastBenefits:

• Automatic syndication• Make key resources available in iTunes


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Multimedia (2)

Videos can be uploaded to various services (YouTube, Google Video, Vod:Pod, …) and easily embedded into blogs, Web pages, etc.

Mu

ltim

edia


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Multimedia (3)

Video can be synched with slides and uploaded to services such as Zentation and VCasmo (illustrated)

Mu

ltim

edia


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What About The Barriers?

Barriers you might face in adopting such technologies:

• Conservatism• Reliance on third party services• Legal issues e.g. privacy, security,

copyright, …• Finding time• Finding resources• Technical limitations• …

Bar

rier

s


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It’s A Walled GardenTechnical limitations:

• Long, application-specific URIs

• Changing URIs• Content duplication• Spam• …

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A2=ind0706&L=website-info-mgt&T=0&F=&S=&X=40A26C40166C54F05D&Y=b.kelly%40ukoln.ac.uk&P=155

Yes, JISCMail has its limitations – but it’s also popular with many users(and note email can deliver RSS feeds, blog posts, etc.)


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Let’s Build A Community


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Social networks (and blogs) aren’t for everyone. But if it’s not for you, why try to block it for those who can see benefits?

Social networks (and blogs) aren’t for everyone. But if it’s not for you, why try to block it for those who can see benefits?


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“It’s just a fashion”?

Should we be unfashionable (or elitist)?

Remember Web in 1993 and Web-enabling e-learning and other applications

While it’s fashionable, we can exploit it.

After the fashion can be the embedding Web 2.0: let’s do it, within a framework of:

• Exploring scenarios

• Risk assessment & risk management

• Embracing openness

• Being user-focussed


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Questions

Any questions?

A two minute video summarising why I blog and use wikis and social networks is available on YouTube (and embedded in various places)

Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting and All That

Technology

Transcript of Blogs, Wikis, Podcasting and All That