Collaborative Technologies: A UKOLN Perspective

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Collaborative Technologies A UKOLN Perspective
http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/meetings/u
koln-2005-02-02/

• Brian Kelly
• UK Web Focus
• UKOLN

• Contents
• The UKOLN Context
• IRC at WWW 2003
• Collaboration at events
• The challenges
• Open discussion

Email B.Kelly_at_ukoln.ac.uk URL http//www.ukoln.ac.
uk/
Permission granted to use networked applications
to support aims of the seminar provided
disruptions to others are minimised.
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Supporting UKOLN's Mission

• Interested in computer supported communications
  (CSC) / collaborative work (CSCW) to support
  UKOLN's (and UKOLN's funders') mission
• We support wide range of communities HE (160
  HEIs), FE (400), museums, libraries and
  archives,
• Our funders need to support distributed bodies
  (JISC, JISC RSCs, HEIs, MLA, MLA Regional
  Agencies, etc.
• We run/participate in many events (conferences,
  workshops,..)
• We are engaging in distributed project work (JISC
  and EU funding)
• We have remote workers (currently in Leeds and
  Guildford) and split location on campus
• We have an interest in the application of other
  research interests in this area e.g. metadata,
  preservation, interoperability, standards,
• We keep a watching brief on emerging networked
  technologies which may prove valuable to our users

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Collaborative Technologies At W3C Meetings / WWW
Conferences

• Background
• Bi-annual W3C AC meetings, often co-located with
  international WWW conference
• For past few years geeks laptops WiFi
  enthusiasm innovation
• IRC used for minute-taking. Valuable for
  clarifying technical issues, addressing language
  barriers, involving remote attendees,
• At WWW 2003 IRC used to enhance the research
  process 'Real-time peer-reviewing', P Shabajee
• Speaker Tim BL coined the term x
• Tim on IRC No I didn't
• IRC discussion, Googling,
• Question Time What I said was y

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Colston Symposium, Bristol
http//www.ilrt.bris.ac.uk/news/conferences/colsto
n2004/programme

• Paul Shabajee, ILRT gave a talk about use of IRC
  and Blogs

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IM In Wider Community

• IT Services dept. at X. discovered MSN Messenger
  was inadvertently on desktop
• Must remove it it's MS security risk trivial,
  
• Must keep it users love it we'll get lynched
• Subsequent email survey across community
• "IM ... is 'here to stay' an 'unstoppable
  tide'. Seen as part of youth culture, along with
  SMS" Liverpool JMU
• "Students will arrive familiar with, and
  expecting to .. use such tools. Email seen by
  younger people to be 'boring', 'full of spam', IM
  and SMS immediacy preferred" Bath
• But
• "Complaints raised regarding students hogging PCs
  .. Also case with email some time ago" Liverpool
  JMU
• "APIs are known therefore targets for hackers"
  London Met
• "Some challenges in interoperability " Bath

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UKOLN/UCISA Workshop

• Event organised in Leeds, Nov 2004 aimed at
  exploring how CSC can be used to support TL /
  research effectively and the challenges IT
  Services face
• Case studies on Blogs (Morrison) and IRC
  (Shabajee)
• Skype to allow remote user to listen to
  first talk
• IM (Jabber rooms) for discussions
• Wiki for collaborative note-taking in discussion
  groups
• Some delegates also Blogged (at time /
  afterwards)
• Avoided 'technolust'
• AUP provided
• Addressed appropriate application areas
• Addressed deployment barriers

Event reports to be published in Ariadne and
paper written (pre-print available)
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Feedback
IM

• Wiki annotation tool useful in recording
  discussions about use of IM and Wikis

• Notes
• Delegates could
• Read notes from other groups
• All? contribute
• Update notes prior to report (democratising)
• (first happened)

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Beyond Experimentation

• Issues
• There is a learning curve (tools, mental model,
  concerns, )
• Differences in learning styles, disciplines,
  research vs TL,
• Age/gender issues? Cf. mobile phones report.
• Clarification of purpose what are we doing, why
  are we doing it, do we all agree with what we're
  doing,
• Deployment strategies want to do it, understand
  vision, but tools are flawed and I've deadlines
• Need for safety net when experimenting

Surprising new-found respect for Robert
Kilroy-Silk!
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Related Work

• Other work in UKOLN
• Use of VRVS (Access GRID technology) (and TWiki)
  to support distributed RDN / DCC collaborative
  working A Powell, Ariadne 41

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Research Issues

• Some areas of interest
• Discovery I gave you the information in email
  (home/work account) on IM in chatroom on
  Skype on Skype IM in Blog in Wiki F2F
• Preservation recording of potentially valuable
  academic discourse held in variety of
  applications in-house / trusted third party /
  commercial third party
• Identifiers need for persistent identifiers
  (independent of application, organisation and
  org. structure) for discovery, annotations, -
  nb. identifiers for Wikalong annotations vary for
  different forms of URIs (foo/, foo/intro.html, )

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On The Horizon - Podcasting

• RSS
• Lightweight news syndication standard(s) - simple
  way of getting third party content in Web pages,
  tickertape,
• Podcasts
• "Transmitters? We don't need no stinkin'
  transmitters"
• RSS 2 application invented by Adam Curry Dave
  Winer
• Simple way of getting MP3 files on your iPod,
• Distribution mechanism, creation tool, cultural
  phenomena, ..
• Growth helped by Creative Commons licences
• Applications
• Learning on the bus, train,
• Get in first make the money / make an impact
• Effect on society when networking, digital
  recording, storage access are pervasive

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Questions, Discussion,