Main Articles: 'A Dublin Core Application Profile for Scholarly Works', Ariadne Issue 50

This paper, from Ariadne, describing a Dublin Core application for scholarly works is reiniscent of the work Jim Bowden and I carried out here in Emerald last year. At the time it felt a lonely process - Were we mad!?

I guess not. I hope this provokes some further developments and discussions; I for one will be taking another look at the work we did last year as a result.

 

technorati tags:Dublin, Core, metadata, DC, Scholarly, Publishing

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Comic for 03 Feb 2007

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An example of using video in an InTouch blog post. It's a little mesys but stick with it and you'll find it's not too much of a trial.

basically, find the url of the video you'd like to embed - in this example the url is 'http://www.youtube.com/v/6gmP4nk0EOE'

Then, wrap the url in this construction :
two curly brackets {{
then the statement 'video: '
then paste the url
close with two more curly brackets like so }}

This example illustrates how web 2.0 is different to the everyday web you grew up with. Highly recommended.

 

The video titled, "Web 2.0 ... The Machine is Us/ing Us" was created by Michael Wesch, an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. All I can say is, Michael Wesch thank you for producing this video, I found viewing it extremely enjoyable - well done!

 

 

Most librarians - in the UK, at least - would probably describe e-books as something that they are aware of, that have great potential, that their users do not know enough about, that their users may not use, and consequently that they, themselves, are unsure of. In short, despite the large collections available - and in place in libraries - e-books have not really 'bedded down'.

An article published in the Journal of the Medical Library Association [pdf] describes how, in the University of Pittsburgh, they have facilitated federated searching of their e-book collections. It seems to me that this suggests that, here at least, e-books are core to the library and that the library is committed to managing their collection to a significant extent. It may also suggest initial underuse, but it does demonstrate that it is not always easy for users to find what they want in the new and unfamiliar format. As they say, "Users need more efficient ways to access the content of a library’s e-book collection.".

That a library is expending considerable effort and funds to facilitate the acceptance of e-books certainly confirms the importance of the medium. Of course it is only one library, but I wonder if similar incentives are needed in UK academic libraries.Access to this article on e-books, and others published in 2007, can be found at IAL's Writings about e-book publishing, 2007 - including a pre-publication notice of an article from the UK SuperBook project, which reports on their initial, base-line survey of attitudes and use within University College London.

info NeoGnostic

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Google Tech Talks January 17, 2007

If you've enjoyed Hal's talks and emails on how economic theory can help make sense of  various financial phenomenon around us from the US real estate bubble to zero-coupon bonds; come listen to Prof. Waverman from the London Business School talk about how mobile technology can impact economic growth in emerging markets. His work was recently profiled in The Economist. Prof. Waverman visits Google in Mountain View courtesy of efforts by Yonca Brunini and Dennis Woodside from our EMEA offices.

Professor Waverman's research quantifiably demonstrates that communications networks form a key component of the infrastructure crucial to a nation's economic growth, joining the ranks of roads and electricity. In Friday's talk, we'll see promising signs that the explosion of mobile telephony across the developing world is shrinking the digital divide and providing real opportunity for economic growth in the world's poorest regions. Prepare to be impressed by research profiled in The Economist, wowed by ingenious and vital applications of mobile telephony, and challenged to make the world's information accessible and useful to those whose lives it could benefit the most.

 

I'm always interested in discovering how users might use InTouch to leverage the sharing and dissemination services of sites like TouTube and Google video in their blogs. This example demonstrates how Slideshare can be used by users to share their presentations with fellow community and InTouch memebers, friends and colleagues.

Slideshare has been called the Youtube of presentations so this should be fun...

 

...When I say fun, I guess I mean interesting, sort of.

This Slideshow talks about DC metadata in terms that we've looked at here in Emerald (and blogged about on InTouch) and how the model/framwework might serve as a basis for transforming content in SCORM conformant learning objects. I hope we can return to this subject sometime soon.

In the meantime enjoy the show and hopefully it inspires you to shaer some of your own materials. 

Similar to an earlier post which looked at how InTouch could bring in presentation type content from Slideshare, this post is simply linking to files stored in a person's Flickr account.

The photos could be of anything obviously - from a meeting or seminar through to an object that is being descibed and talked about and discussed on the InTouch platform by members.

This is not so worthy - it's a picture of my house.

There's a myth circulating, which I must admit I haven't done much to suprress that the foreground garden, delightful as it is, is ours. I must now confess it's not actually our garden. Our neighbour, Len, kindly allowed us take a snap from his garden so that ours could acquire a more pleasing aspect for the family album.

What was that about the camera never lies?

 

This month's LCB Big Question is What Questions Should We be Asking?

Clive Sheppard posted his response. Clive first questioned if we've run out of questions. The answer is "no" we haven't, but my personal belief is that part of our issue in learning and eLearning is the lack of focus on what our real problems are - what the real questions are. So, I truly think this is a worthy question. Clive also included some questions ...

• If I retired tomorrow would anyone notice?
• If e-learning had never been invented/conceived, would our clients/employers be better or worse off?
• Is my agenda (innovation, expression, technology, creativity, engagement, sharing or whatever it is) in tune with the objectives of my clients/employer or am I just fighting a rather dysfunctional crusade?
• Are most organisations so chaotic, disorganised, short-sighted, cynical, inefficient, incompetent and basically mad that trying to impose any order on this is just pointless?

While some of these big picture questions are important to think about, I guess I was hoping to see more questions along the lines of his third bullet. In other words, what I would hope to get are more practical questions - more along the lines of the question I heard at Jay's session at ASTD TK2007: "What and how can I use the concepts of informal learning to help new managers?" This raises a whole host of suggestions. And looking at those suggestions raises new questions.

I would love to see other "practical questions" - and Clive's third question is along those lines. In fact, somewhat our discussion of Quality vs. Speed and my post on What Client Wants goes along those lines. However, both of those discussions would have been better with the right question being asked up-front to help set context.

More on this soon...

According to Yahoo and Engadget, the French are leaping ahead, issuing 175,000 USB drives to Parisian high-schoolers next term.  Each one will be loaded with open-source software aimed at “further reducing the digital divide”.

With the Portable Apps movement maturing and providing some seriously cool tools, these USB sticks loaded with software will certainly help these lucky pupils in their studies.

“The sticks will probably contain the Firefox 2 Web browser,
Thunderbird e-mail client, an office productivity suite such as
OpenOffice.org 2, an audio and video player, and software for instant
messaging. [However,] the exact mix of software will be defined by the company that wins
the contract to supply the sticks, but will be open source, [a spokesman] said.”

While only a portion of students across Paris are receiving the USB sticks, if the program is successful, there is a possibility of expanding the implementation next year. 

Hmmm - This is suspiciously similar to the 'Emerald on the Go' concept we talked about here in the office only weeks ago...

...And come to mention it I haven't seen Arnuad for a while. 

I really like this post. From Henry Jenkins. Never again will it feel a futile exercise to post to these pages! Thanks Henry. 

Quote: We should not reduce the value of participatory culture to its products rather than its process. Consider, for a moment, all of the arts and creative writing classes being offered at schools around the world. Consider, for example, all of the school children being taught to produce pots. We don’t do this because we anticipate that very many of them are going to grow up to be professional potters. In fact, most of them are going to produce pots that look like lopsided lumps of clay only a mother could love (though it does say something about how we value culture that many of them do get cherished for decades). We do so because we see a value in the process of creating something, of learning to work with clay as a material, or what have you. There is a value in creating, in other words, quite apart from the value attached to what we create. And from that perspective, the expansion of who gets to create and share what they create with others is important even if none of us produces anything beyond the literary equivalent of a lopsided lump of clay that will be cherished by the intended recipient (whether Mom or the fan community) and nobody else. –Henry Jenkins

I'm currently partway through the 'Innovators Solution', the follow up to the 'Innovators Dilemma' and both by Clayton M. Christensen.

Well, it's a tremendous read and it has me thinking along new lines for a number of developments we have here in Emerald but also within the eLearning industry at large. 

Tony Karrer makes the point that much of the blogging, and perhaps the technology innovation too, is being conducted by new or recent entrants to the market, and that the large established vendors seem to be content with this? Tony asks why the big vendors aren't blogging too. It's a good question. Do they take the view that this [perceived] low end of the market is not worth defending?

If Clayton Christensen were to look at the elearning business how would he view the current shape and direction of the players? Perhaps he'd take the view that the major vendors, long term incumbents offering feature laden products sometimes at great expense are slugging it out between themselves and adopting a sustaining strategy? Would he then suggest that the innovative entrants - perhaps Elgg among them - are adopting a low-end disruptive strategy? 

How is this going to play out? 

Perhaps this post is the posting of the newly converted - I don't know.

I'd love to hear the views of the more business savvy among us. 

 

 

Latest figures from Ucas show a 6.4% rise in applications for the next academic year and a 25% increase in applications to Business and Management courses.

via Education Guardian

Paul Coyne :: Feeds

 

 

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 Golly, this feels familiar!

 

I just finished this book and it's a stunning read. I'm keeping hold of my copy so you'll have to buy your own.

How to Turn the Innovator’s Dilemma into the Innovator’s Solution

1. Target only those customers and markets that look unattractive to every established competitor. If an idea is sustaining (an improved version of an already available and popular product) relative to even a single competitor, the idea will not succeed as a disruption.
   
   
2. Try to compete against nonconsumption: customers who are currently unable to use currently available products at all, either because they can’t afford them or are too inexperienced to use them. These markets have the most potential because these customers will compare your product to having nothing at all, and so will be thrilled to buy it even if it’s inferior to currently available products.
   
   
3. If there are no nonconsumers available, explore the feasibility of a low-end disruption instead: customers who can’t use all the functionality they currently have to pay for and who won’t pay premium prices for upgraded products. If this isn’t possible either, and you’re not an industry incumbent, don’t invest in the idea.
   
   
4. When searching for ideas with disruptive potential, look for ways to help customers get done more conveniently and inexpensively what they are already trying to do. Don’t invent new problems for customers to solve—they won’t reprioritize what’s important in their lives just because your product is available.
   
   
5. Don’t segment markets according to readily available data such as product type, price point, or demographic category. Segment the market in ways that mirror the jobs that customers are trying to get done.
   
   
6. Watch the low end of the market for changes in the basis of competition—that’s where the new opportunities usually lie.
   
   
   
7. Focus on developing competencies where the money will be made in the future, not on the skills that made you successful in the past. Future profits will be made at the point in the value chain where the product or service is not yet good enough.
   
   
8. Don’t rely on your snap judgment about your firm’s core competencies when determining where a new venture should “live” and how it should be structured. The resources, processes, and values that allow your core business to thrive may well prevent great new ideas from succeeding.
   
   
9. Ensure that the channel companies that will distribute your new product also have the processes and values—the right methods and motivations—to enable success.
   
   
10. The managers in your organization who have most consistently delivered results in the past may be the least skilled at delivering success in new-growth businesses. When choosing the new management team for your venture, ensure they’ve already grappled with the same kinds of problems they’re likely to encounter as they guide your new venture.
    
    
11. Don’t assume that your initial strategy is the “right” strategy for a potential disruption. Create a plan to accelerate the emergence of a viable strategy in terms of products, customers, and applications—and don’t invest irrevocably in any strategy before there is evidence that it works.
    
    
12. Be impatient for profits, but patient for growth. Enduring years of substantial losses in the belief that it will help a new business become huge and profitable is a bad idea. Demanding early profitability will save years of losses that come from pursuing the wrong strategy for a long time—and help your team hit upon a truly viable strategy more quickly.
    
    
13. Keep your company growing while it is robust and profitable. Disruption requires a long runway before a steep ascent is possible. Waiting until corporate growth slows down often raises the pressure to grow very fast—which can lead to big and often fatal mistakes.
    

(Source: The Innovator’s Solution; Harvard Business School Press; 2003)

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I've recently had the pleasure of blogging on topics of eLearning, technology, collaboration and the pedagogical value of these tools with a number of people I've come to regard as the forward thinkers in this field over the last year.

So what? Well, my blogging until recently had been confined to me cutting and pasting other peoples comments, with a footnote along the lines of 'Yeah! What he said!".

That's not very edifying or interesting stuff, not even to me. Thing is, it's a critical step I think. Now, 10 months later I feel as if I've moved on bit. 10 MONTHS!!!

Still I don't believe that it was a waste of 10 months. I have developed much of my own thinking on these topics it's clear to me that what I cut and paste and what I did not cut and paste into this blog was important to me personally in my own development, if to nobody else in particular.

It's been suggested  that a blog,or the act of blogging is futile without feedback/comments and participation in something bigger or wider. That may be true, but only after the crucial personal learning and development phase that confers confidence, and a knowlege of the topography of the blogging landscape your looking to take part in. For most folk, for most of the time chewing on the various opinions, thoughts and viewpoints that the most experienced and confident of bloggers can post is enough. 

Perhaps after some personal processing, synthesis and thought and after acquiring some topographical knowledge one might venture an opinion of one's own or add their comments to anothers in the hope of a postive response [my thanks to Tony Karrer here].

After all of this it's possible that an individual will discover an entire world of experts, non-experts who will both support and challenge your views.

Conversations and dialogues like that - wow! If that's not personal and lifelong learning I don't know what is!

I'm no Stephen Downes so don't expect a blog post a minute, but when you have something to say, why not share it with us here! 

I blogged about this only recently - In defence of the crappy blog

Thanks again to Henry Jenkins. 

An article extracted from the Guardian.   Universities are finding that to get US levels of alumni giving, it's better to get US fundraisers to do the asking Jessica Shepherd Tuesday February 20, 2007 The Guardian The university fundraiser and college dean in Hollywood's 1996 blockbuster The Nutty Professor could hardly be a more dislikeable character. Strands of hair plastered across his forehead twinkle at the prospect of rich donors. And this is how many people still see those whose job it is to ask alumni to donate, says Mary Blair, director of development and alumni relations at the London School of Economics . "There's a distrust of people in fundraising," she says. "It is as if they think we possess magic powers to make their wallets fly out of their pockets. I could maybe talk you out of £20, but not out of £100,000. You have to want to give a sum like that." If some of the public are not on the side of fundraisers, the government is. Last week it announced that for every £2 an English university raises from alumni, philanthropists and businesses, it would give £1, up to a maximum of £2m a year for each institution. The scheme will start next year. Completing the jigsaw Newer universities and colleges without fundraising offices will each be given £100,000 to establish them. The government hopes the three-year scheme, worth £200m, will stimulate an extra £400m in private donations to universities. Tony Blair is said to see encouraging endowments as "completing the jigsaw" of higher education, following the introduction of £3,000 tuition fees in the autumn. The aim is to rival the endowments of Canadian and North American universities, particularly those in the ivy league. "It's breathtaking how far we have to go to be anywhere near US fundraising levels," says Professor Eric Thomas, the vice-chancellor of Bristol University, who led a taskforce on donations to higher education in 2004. The Sutton Trust, an educational charity, reports that the gap between the 10 largest university endowments in the UK and the US has widened by £12.5bn in the last three years, and that the UK seriously lags behind the US and Canada in terms of funds raised and rates of alumni who give. The Council for Advancement and Support of Education (Case), which represents those who work in alumni relations worldwide, says UK universities are 50 years behind their US peers and 20 years behind Canadian counterparts. Only Oxford and Cambridge universities compare with American colleges, raising £185m in 2004-05, holding endowments of £6bn and achieving alumni giving rates of 10%. The combined endowment of all other UK universities is an estimated £1.9bn - yet Harvard alone has an endowment worth £13.4bn, while Yale and Stanford have £8bn and £6.4bn respectively. At Princeton, 61% of alumni donate; only nine UK universities report that 3% or more of their alumni do so, according to the Sutton Trust. UK universities are, however, improving fast. In 2001, Nottingham University raised its target of £30m over five years, a year early. Last year, Edinburgh University announced it was aiming for £350m by 2011 and has so far raised £200m. And Cambridge University said last week that it had raised £500m of the £1bn it hopes to drum up by 2012. Could their success be partly down to an influx of North American and Canadian fundraisers hired to work in top positions in UK university alumni relations offices? Oxford, Nottingham, Durham, Bristol, the LSE, Edinburgh, Aston and Warwick have fundraisers from Canada or the US. "Where we are from, being asked for donations as a student or alumnus is just an accepted part of university culture," says Young Dawkins, who was president of the University of New Hampshire foundation in the US before becoming the vice-principal for development and alumni of Edinburgh University. "We have also been doing this kind of thing for a lot longer." In the US, students are encouraged to feel a sense of belonging to their year group, or "class". "The class of 73 competes with the class of 74 to raise funds for their college, for example," says Jon Dellandrea, Oxford University's pro vice-chancellor for development and external affairs, and former vice-president of the University of Toronto. He adds that in North America, there is an "unabashed notion that it is reasonable to expect people to support the organisation", which could include asking students in their final year for donations. Tania Rawlinson, director of campaigns and alumni relations at Bristol University, says that last year her former university, an ivy league institution, asked her nine times to donate: "My expectation has been that I joined a community for life and that includes being asked for money." But will such techniques be employed here - and would we want them to be? "I would feel it was entirely inappropriate to approach a UK donor or alumnus with that kind of persistence," Rawlinson admits. "But we need to stop being embarrassed about asking for money in the UK. I would be sad if in a decade's time students here weren't expecting their universities to ask them for donations." No badgering Moreover, says Liesl Elder, director of development at Durham University and the former campaign director of Santa Clara University in California: "Effective fundraising doesn't necessarily have to involve badgering. It's about helping people to align their generosity with the university." Dawkins says UK universities are not necessarily going to take on US methods. "Scotland will find its own way of fundraising," he says. "People are very generous here, but they are probably not interested in receiving nine mails a year. However, the British can learn some excellent lessons from the States on how to organise the development office, for example." Aniela Shuckburgh, who worked at Harvard before becoming Cambridge University's head of campaign affairs, disagrees that American fundraising methods are aggressive. "They have proved successful," she says. "But it is a mistake to assume we have to do as they do in the States." The fundraisers say their problem is not recruiting donors, but experienced personnel. "We have a desperate need for staff who understand fundraising, and my worry is whether we can train enough people to take advantage of this golden opportunity," says Joanna Motion, vice-president for international operations at Case. "US and Canadian fundraisers working over here bring a level of confidence and a depth of experience that few from the UK can match." Dawkins agrees: "Many come from the charity sector, which is fantastic, but the education sector is just not the same." But both are optimistic about the future and encouraged by the government's announcement last week. Motion says: "This will concentrate the minds of the fundraisers and attract the attention of the donors." Dellandrea hopes the government will go on to match the most generous donations universities receive. And they deny any worries that student debt or top-up fees, introduced in the autumn, could put off potential donors. On the contrary, they argue, once you pay for something you value it more. "US fees are, after all, much higher than in the UK anyway," says Dawkins. If he turns out to be wrong, there is always another way. Last year, Cambridge in America, a society for Cambridge graduates living in the US, collected a staggering $38m (£19.4m) from just 1,900 donors.

Judy Breck at the Golden Swamp blog has written an insightful article on Tim Berners-Lee’s keynote speech to the 3GSM World Congress 07, highlighting the importance of the Mobile Web. Tim Berners-Lee is regarded as the “father” of the Internet; his invention of the open network has been a revolution for the way information is shared around the world.

Tim Berners-Lee’s keynote emphasised the importance which W3C, the international standards body for the Internet (led by Berners-Lee hmself), is placing on the Mobile Web. Mobile phones have high penetration in developing countries, and provide a low-cost platform for information connectivity and education. In concluding his keynote, Berners-Lee provided great insight into his vision of the Mobile Web providing connectivity opportunities for those in poorer countries:

Among other things, many of us are hoping that a low-cost open platform will have a much greater penetration in what we currently call the developing world. I personally believe that it is important to humanity to connect peoples across the world as widely as possible. I think we must preserve the diversity of cultures and ideas. But also I think we must connect people to give more global harmony. We should not add connectivity to the long list that the richer countries have and the poorer ones do not, a list which of course has clean water, health care and peace pretty near the top.

As part of the Mobile Web Initiative, W3C held a workshop on the Mobile Web in Developing Countries. One of the concerns is that some of the new phones aimed at the lower cost bracket don’t all have Web browsers. The area is very exciting, and the figures for coverage — 80% of the world’s population I have heard (World Bank, according to Wikipedia), and for market growth in developing countries seem very positive.

So when we look at the choices for the mobile devices, it is clear that they must continue on the path to an open Web platform. That is what the Mobile Web Initiative is about. Huge new markets, and huge opportunities for humanity, depend on this. We know in general how to do it. But there is a lot to do.

As well as providing the potential for improving the quality of educational experiences, mobile teaching and learning promises to leverage the low-cost, high-penetration aspects of the mobile web. It may well help to deliver education to disadvantaged groups, and bring about the social justice and equity of which Tim Berners-Lee speaks.

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Anyone reading this has, unknowingly, missed out on perhaps the most enlightening blog post ever on web 2.0 and the implications for business and society in general. A real wow! moment gone because I lost my WiFi connection as I clicked 'post'.

Actually it is a shame. I tried to capture some of the really interesting stuff that has gone on at this Web 2.0 : Social Tools for Business conference in London while enthused about the whole thing and this post will, however hard I try, not be the same.

It was a small event, and all the better for it. Led superbly by David Gurteen the conference was as much about what the delegates were able to contribute to the days proceedings, in addition to the very high quality speakers that we were treated to. For me IBM's Ian McNairn was a highlight. It was exhilarating to learn how Big Blue have gone about quietly deploying these Web 2.0 type tools in their business - blogs, wiki, RSS, tagging, social bookmarks and the like - and the effect it has had on the workforce. Fascinating, really.

The presentations ranged from how the BBC have employed this technology through to examples of wikis in Law firms and how blogs are becoming central to traditional media firms like The Guardian; An overview of Web 2.0 applications and search technolgies from Phil Bradly and I must mention the hugely entertaining introduction to Virtual Worlds, mostly Second Life, from IBM's MetaVerse Evangelist – what a job title!

Through all of this what did strike me, though I'm not sure this view was shared by many others, was that almost every example [Second Life excluded perhaps], every presentation described how these tools had, in effect, improved, widened and deepened the informal learning resources of those using them. As striking was that no-one thought what they were doing [contributing to a blog or a wiki, finding out who could help them resolve an issue via a Social Network amongst many other activities] was learning at all, however informally or formally.

Many of the arguments used to support a deployment of these technologies bottomed out at their ability to somehow reduce costs and improve efficiencies and that if you don't do this then you're missing out in some undefined way.

I think there's a missed opportunity here.

In my view if you were to install these technologies and support them in the business I'm sure you'd see some improvements in staff productivity, efficiency and perhaps reduce cost associated with data/knowledge duplication for example. What about when everyone has them - like having a website/on-line store in the '90's it was very cutting edge. Now everyone has one and the edge that having the on-line presence has been negated to a large degree surely?

How about looking at the benefits to business in a different light? What if we started to recognise that by participating in the conversations that these tools support then work becomes learning and learning becomes work? As a result the business becomes more innovative, agile and better able to serve it customers. Ian McNairn did a brilliant job of showing us how Big Blue are doing just that. Isn't that a longer term competitive advantage worth aiming for?

Perhaps. Anyway, another very important function of the conference was to remind us all I think that any deployment of these tools needs to take into account the culture and philosophy of the organisation. These tools are social in nature and for strong, centrally controlled organisations, and weak managers this development will not be welcomed or supported. The tools do give a voice to those who previously did not have a voice. This is an important point and underlines the fact that this Web 2.0 thing is not for everyone - yet.

Shouldn't forget to mention that I paid a visit to Skip and Carol at Middlesex' NCWBL too. I'm really looking forward to developing some good projects here - and I think they are too.

Talking of Middlesex - well not really, but the work we're doing with Middlesex gave me something to talk about when I returned to the conference late in the afternoon. I had the pleasure of talking with Serhiy, Senior lecturer (Law and business) at Kingston University. We talked about the Web 2.0 tools and learning/academia and of course I mentioned InTouch. I think (I hope) it had his interest. Serhiy, if you're there and you need some help setting up your students please get in touch.

In summary, a stimulating and enjoyable couple of days. Thanks again to David and UNICOM for their hard work.

This is normally a place I share and opine on things learning & technology related I know, but occasionally it's worth mixing it up a little. Emerald has very good and very strong links with their library partners and customers and a report from Book Aid International reminds me that while I ramble on here about Web 2.0  and personalisation, other's needs are little more basic.

Libraries can supply reusable resources to develop and maintain literacy on a cost effective basis for an entire community. They provide practical information that can encourage development, including job-seeking, knowledge of rights, acquiring new skills and gaining health information.

The  study by Book Aid International looks at the role libraries in Africa play in relation to two areas: literacy and enabling people to access relevant and useful information to enhance knowledge. Based on a survey of library networks in Malawi, Uganda, Somaliland, Tanzania and Kenya, the study lists findings and key challenges for libraries and information centres in Africa, including:

• Lack of government investment means that most library services are unable to achieve full coverage of the population. Most libraries are city-based yet most people live in rural areas where there are very few libraries.
• Community libraries are a popular strategy for library services tackling the major challenge of how to prioritise their limited resources to target the poor.
• In areas where literacy levels are low, information resources must be appropriate for members of varying literacy levels. People surveyed said basic pamphlets and audio-visual materials could help the semi-literate, but funding is scarce.
• In many African countries, the local publishing industry is not well developed and tends to focus on school textbooks, leaving little resources for development information and books in local languages.

The report makes a range of recommendations for library networks, governments and aid donors on how to create libraries that could make a difference in the lives of poor people, including the following:

• The state must employ a sufficient number of skilled and committed library and information workers to create strong information centres and innovative services targeting the poor.
• Libraries must network with a range of organisations to place themselves centrally with regard to education, information and culture, and link with development agencies to gain access to a wide range of development information and literacy materials.
• Developing country governments must design and implement information policies that ensure all people can benefit from using information and knowledge for development.
• Governments need to establish links and partnerships between the public and private sectors and civil society organisations to co-ordinate information.
• Education policies must prioritise the establishment of literate environments in all rural and urban communities to ensure that people do not revert to illiteracy once their formal education is over.

Though I'm hopeful that some of the technologies that are emerging,[See Google, Mobiles and the Digital Divide, from earlier this month for an fascinating insight into how this is playing out on the ground] will help to close this gap and bring library content, if not an actual library closer to some of the world's poorest, this will not succeed without improved literacy programmes in place.

 

 

The Impact of Web 2.0 and Emerging Social Network Models The rapid rise of online social networks is both a social and business phenomenon, the impact of which is only beginning to be understood. The consumer-powered Web 2.0 creates innovative ways for businesses to operate and people to communicate.

This is a great follow up from the Web 2.0 conference I attended earlier this week and great insights from the biggest economic conference in the world.

One of the things that strikes me about this is that the panel is mostly an American audience. The sole European is an EU politician [French] arguing for caution,government intervention and regulation, oversight and strong privacy controls and, predictably a non-English version of all of the tools and services that for now characterise Web 2.0 - Youtube, Google, MySpace etc..

I think I just saw the death of the EU, in general terms, as a potential player in the next generation web technology provision.

Highly recommended, if just to see the EU politico make an idiot of herself.

Mostly interesting insights from the panel, which includes Bill Gates and the guy who founded YouTube (forgot the other panellists names). 

Not necessariliy my own views but interesting enough to share. 

Via Google TechTalks April 11, 2006

Richard G. Baraniuk :
Richard G. Baraniuk is the Victor E. Cameron Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University and Founder of Connexions.

W. Joseph King
W. Joseph King is the Executive Director of Connexions. Previously, he was an investment banker focused on incubating new technology companies.

A grassroots movement is on the verge of sweeping through the academic world. The "open access movement" is based on a set of intuitions that are shared by a remarkably wide range of academics: that knowledge should be free and open to use and re-use; that collaboration should be easier, not harder; that people should receive credit and kudos for contributing to education and research; and that concepts and ideas are linked in unusual and surprising ways and not the simple linear forms that textbooks present.

 

Found via Big Dog Little Dog - It's information collaboration - discusses the use of Wikis within organizations. Some of the points it makes:

• Gartner predicts that by 2009 half of companies worldwide will be using wikis
• Examples of use
• Acronyms and industry terminology, best sales practices, case studies, client information, meeting minutes.
• As a human resources site, in some cases replacing the company intranet, providing data on benefits, policies, new-employee orientation material.
• As a social-networking site where, through personal pages, employees can learn about their colleagues - what schools, previous employers, and professional and outside interests they share.

Certainly, I've been finding that Wikis are a really great replacement for stuff that we've previously done as web pages or using Robo Info/Help. Just makes updates that much easier. The natural extension is to then allow SMEs or Learners/Workers to make updates.

He also pointed at - Most Business Tech Pros Wary About Web 2.0 Tools In Business - some interesting items:

• Motorola has 3,900 active blogs, 3,300 separate wikis, 3,600 "project workspaces"
• More than half of companies don't use blogs at all, and 41% don't use wikis, our research finds. More than 20% make these tools available, but they're not widely used.
• Procter & Gamble is running an internal marketing campaign with the tagline "connect, converse, accelerate" as it rolls out real-time communications, a collaborative content portal, and desktop search.

One thing that's been interesting the past few years is that Desktop Search is only now taking off inside corporations. In fact, it's probably Vista's biggest benefit.

 

 

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I'm not sure if this scares the hell out of me or awes me. Either way, watch and then you'll know