A selection of tools for setting up an ideas forum
I find the ideas based discussion forum to be a really useful tool for promoting discussions around a certain topic or for managing suggestions and ideas from a community. These sites are widely used by communities, corporations and government organisations. A couple of good examples are:
- Stackoverflow - a question and answer site for programmers
- Dell Ideastorm - a site to submit and discuss ideas about Dell products
There are now a range of fairly easy to use tools that you can use to set up these kind of sites so I thought it might be useful to summarise them on this blog.
Uservoice - example: JISCpress - there are free and paid versions of this site, the free version is limited in terms of how many people can participate in your forum and in terms of flexibility and downloading of the data stored on the site, but the design is good and it is easy to use.
Slinkset - example: UK Uni Start-ups - this is a free site and seems to be very flexible. There is no option to download the data from the site.
Stackexchange - the software that powers Stackoverflow - this is free while it is in beta. Pricing details for when the beta phase ends are on the site. The ability to download your content on the site as a database is planned.
Ideascale - example: Open Austin - there are free and paid versions of Ideascale. The free version is unlimited in terms of how many people can participate on the forum but limited in terms of flexibility and data downloading.
I think these sites are really useful for focusing specific discussions around a certain topic or event and also for ongoing idea and suggestion management. I recommend seeding the site with a few ideas or questions as a blank slate is often intimidating for contributors.
Of course, as with all community focused websites, a community won’t spring up on its own, it requires a lot of work from a moderator or moderators to monitor and promote the site to ensure that it is useful and that it does not stagnate.
I have probably missed lots of tools, so if you have any suggestions you would like included please add them in the comments. I would also be interested to hear from people about their experiences of using these sites, what works and what doesn’t.
Guide to using some web 2.0 services in JISC projects - part 3 of 3
This is the final post in a 3 part series about using web 2 services in JISC projects. This final part briefly discusses using skype and dealing with meetings before moving on to general advice about IPR, publicising details and further information.
Part 1 of the series discusses using tags for projects, twitter and blogs.
Part 2 discusses social bookmarking, aggregation and note-taking.
The full document of all 3 parts can be downloaded from the JISC Information Environment repository.
Skype
Skype started off as a telephone service which ran over the network. It has now been extended to provide other services including instant messaging, video calls, file-sharing, screen-sharing. If you have a headset and a microphone it is a useful way to hold teleconferences with multiple participants.
It is also a useful way to get instant answers from contacts as you can see when people are online and available to be contacted to ask questions using the telephone service or the instant messaging service.
Skype FAQs
Q: Do you have to pay for Skype?
A: No – not for basic services. There are some functions that require payment. Details are on the skype site.
Q: How do I find out who is available using Skype?
A: Skype has a directory look-up service built in. It also has services whereby it uses your email list of contacts to see if any of your friends are Skype users.
Getting consensus – scheduling meetings, doing surveys
Doodle is a simple but very effective free website that you can use to do things such as agree a meeting date or do a simple survey. It is easy to set up a list of possible dates or options, and you then can email a URL to everyone, so that they can specify their preferences.
Publicising your project’s contact details
All publicity is good. Make it as easy as possible for people to discover your project and keep up to date with developments by making it easy for people to see what sources are available. List them on your project website and any publicity materials and put them in your email signature. Details that are useful to share include:
- Your project’s name (and acronym expansion)
- Your project tag and any other relevant tag
- Relevant twitter ids
- Website and blog site
- Links to relevant resources or public aggregations of resources that provide further information about the area you are working in.
- Your contact details – including Skype if you use it
Further information
Of course it is good practice with using all of these services to read the terms and conditions first to make sure they align with how you want to use the service. There is a useful toolkit called web2rights which can help you navigate IPR in a web 2.0 world.
This is only a limited overview of some of the services available. A more comprehensive list can be found in a previous post on this blog.
There is a JISC project called web2practice being run by Netskills to produce guides to using web 2.0. Guides on:
- Social Media;
- RSS;
- Collaborative Writing;
- Podcasting;
- Microblogging;
can be found on the web2practice blog.
Feedback and the future of this guide
So that is a brief overview of some of the most useful services. Obviously there are glaring omissions from this guide and we would really appreciate hearing from you which web services you find useful in managing your projects and how you use them. We will gather feedback into an updated and more thorough guide in the future.
Guide to using some web 2.0 services in JISC projects - part 2 of 3
This post is part 2 of a series of 3 posts about making use of web 2.0 services to help manage JISC projects.
Part 1 discusses using tags for projects, twitter and blogs.
This part of the series covers: social bookmarking, aggregation and note-taking.
Social bookmarking – Delicious
Delicious or a similar social bookmarking site is an online store of URL bookmarks that can be shared by many people. It can be used to aggregate content that is of interest to project staff. Delicious allows you to keep URLs, to group them together, and to add a description. When you add a new link to Delicious, tag it with your project’s tag so that other people in your project can find the link. They can also add bookmarks themselves, and hence a collective store of bookmarks is built up by using the tag.
We will be bookmarking things that we think are useful to projects in the Information Environment programme 2009-11 using the tag inf11. There is a page for inf11 bookmarksand there is also an RSS feed for this page that can be used in aggregation pages and feed readers.
Delicious FAQs
Q: How do we see what tags are available to follow within Delicious?
A: This isn’t necessarily the best way to do things as there is an enormous amount of content on delicious, but you can browse by tags. You could also see the tags people you know on delicious are using. Mine can be seen on my delicious tags page.
Other sites
Some other sites that can be useful for projects once you have a project tag to aggregate the content are:
- Flickr for photos that may be taken of the project (this could be of whiteboards or brainstorming sessions or presentations as well as records of events etc)
- Youtube or Vimeo videos are a great way to explain the project and its aims and objectives or to show off something you have developed.
Aggregation – RSS feeds & readers
There are many information sources on the web. How can you easily keep updated with them all; do you have to studiously visit each one on a regular basis? Well yes, that would work; but an alternative is to use an aggregator tool which pulls the latest content from each source that you’re interested in, and organises it in one place for you to peruse.
The most commonly used aggregator technology is called RSS (the acronym means Really Simple Syndication). Many websites now publish their updates as “RSS feeds”. The easiest way to use these updates is to use an RSS aggregator website or tool that collects the content from the various feeds, collates it, and presents it to you as a webpage that you access using your web browser or as a piece of software on your desktop.
Netvibes is an example of an aggregation webpage. Netvibes also offers an option to make the a page of content that you have created available as a public page. This could be useful for providing people with information about your project.
An example is the page we put together for an event called dev8D. There is also a page for the inf11 programme where you can see the delicious feed and the twitter feed for inf11 on the page. There is a separate page that aggregates the inf11 blogs.
iGoogle is a good alternative to Netvibes.
There are lots of tools to help manage RSS feeds and you may find that a feed reader tool is better than an aggregation web page. Google reader is a popular example of a feed reader and lots of email clients also include a feed reader function.
RSS FAQs
Q: How can you tell if an information source will work with an RSS feed?
A: Look for the RSS icon or a link saying feed.
Q: How do I add an information source to my RSS aggregator?
A: This varies by the different types of feed reader, but if you copy the URL for the RSS page then it should be straightforward to add it into your reader – most RSS readers have a button with a name such as “Add a subscription” where you can specify the URL for the RSS feed.
Note taking
Evernote is a fantastic application for note taking, storing photos, web clippings, screenshots and email clippings. I use it as a memory backup. An interesting recent development with Evernote is the ability to share notebooks with a group of people and this could be useful for a project knowledgebase.
Evernote can be used via a desktop application, a mobile application and a web interface.You can also share evernote notebooks with people via the web. This has the advantage of enabling people to monitor the notebook using RSS. This could be used to share a notebook across a project.
Evernote FAQs
Q: Is Evernote free?
A: Yes but there is a premium subscription model with extra storage and added features.
Part 3 of this guide will cover skype, publicising contact details and further information
If you’re a developer interested in library services - AND you haven’t got anything to do this weekend…then read this:
The JISC MOSAIC project is holding a competition to discover what can be done with library usage data. It closes at 23.59 this coming Monday. They’re looking for compelling applications, interfaces and mash-ups that use the data in research, learning and libraries etc.
• First prize - £1000 sterling
• Second Prize - £250 sterling
• Third Prize - £100 sterling
The competition closes on Monday 14th September 2009
Further details about the competition:
http://www.sero.co.uk/jisc-mosaic-competition.html
Good Luck!!
Sharing and re-use of catalogue records: what are the legal implications?
As part of making library resources as visible as possible in the Web environment, libraries are increasingly interested in making their catalogue records available for use in Web applications and indexing by Web search engines.
The records in a university library catalogue typically have many different origins: created by the library, obtained from a national library or a book supplier etc. So, who ‘owns’ them? And what are the legal implications of making them available to others when this involves copying, transferring them into different formats, etc.?
The JISC has just commissioned a study to explore some of these issues as they apply to UK university libraries and to provide practical guidance to library managers who may be interested in making their catalogue records available in new ways. Outcomes are expected by the end of 2009.
The specific objectives of the study are to:
• Establish the provenance of records in the catalogues of a small but representative sample of UK university libraries and in the national Copac and SUNCAT catalogues;
• Identify any rights or licences applying to the records and assess how these apply to re-use in the Web environment. This work should include clarifying the legal status of MARC records and copies of MARC records, and the legal implications of translating records between different formats such as MARC and MODS XML;
• Provide practical guidance to UK university libraries about the legal issues to be considered in making catalogue records available for re-use in Web applications such as social networking sites - drawing on the findings from the sample;
• Make recommendations to the JISC and the UK higher education community about any initiatives which could usefully be undertaken to facilitate the re-use of catalogue records in Web applications in a way which respects legal rights and business interests.
Modelling the library domain: outcomes of a workshop on 19th June 2009
Earlier this year, the JISC TILE (Towards Implementation of Library 2.0 and the e-Framework) project proposed a draft high level ‘library domain model’ which could be used to further thinking about the functions and processes that library systems need to support in future.
A workshop to discuss the Model took place on 19th June 2009.
A draft report from the workshop is now available for comment.
Most of the presentations from the day are also available.
At the top level, the Model consists of three ‘realms’:
Corporation: organisations managing ‘assets’ and making them available
Channel: means of accessing the ‘assets’
Clients: those who want to use the ‘assets’
Participants discussed the relevance and applicability of these concepts and also how they might be applied in practice using a number of different scenarios.
Modelling the ‘library domain’: a consultative workshop on June 19
The challenge of making library resources visible and accessible in the Web 2.0 environment was a major focus of last year’s JISC/SCONUL study of Library Management Systems.
The JISC TILE (Towards Implementation of Library 2.0 and the e-Framework) project was subsequently commissioned to draft a high level ‘library domain model’ which could be used to further thinking about the functions and processes that library systems need to support in future.
We are now organising a workshop to consult on the domain model proposed, and how it might be used in the future.
Who should attend?
The workshop is intended for a mix of senior and middle library managers in a range of roles (so, not confined to colleagues with formal IT/systems management responsibilities).
Where and when is it?
Friday 19th June 2009 at the Institution of Engineering and Technology, Savoy Place, central London.
What is the programme for the day?
The programme consists of a mixture of presentations and group work.
How do I register?
Due to the consultative nature of this workshop, we have a limited number of places. If you would like to attend, please register your interest by 18th May 2009, and we will contact you thereafter to confirm your place or add your name to a waiting list.
“Good APIs”
What makes a “good” API”? Can we say anything about good practice in providing or using machine interfaces to third party services on the web? UKOLN have consulted widely and suggest, among other things, that providers of APIs should make it useful, keep it simple, follow standards and use consistent naming structures. For API users there is perhaps less obvious good practice, but it’s important to choose the API carefully (they explain what this might mean), to think about risks, and respect the API terms of use.
UKOLN are now asking developers to comment on these principles; do they seem right? Is it useful to document them? For whom? How?
If you’ve got views on this then here’s where to post comments: http://blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/good-apis-jisc/.
Library round up: event, discussion and new domain model
This post more or less repeats some JISC news items (sorry) but I wanted to make sure readers of this blog saw some JISC library related activity that has been discussed, published and presented this week. In particular I want to draw attention to Peter Murray-Rust’s blog posts on the Library of the Future, in case anyone wants to contribute before he speaks at the JISC/Bodleian Library event on 2 April. You can register to attend the Libraries of the Future event in person or in Second Life. Related information:
Overview. Speakers. Registration. Agenda.
Event tag: LOTF09
Peter has blogged some ideas and sought feedback (you’ll need to scroll through a few pages on his blog to see all of the discussion). He has identified some people and organizations that, as a scientist he personally considers relevant to librarians / libraries of the future. He only includes a couple of librarians; the list of those identified leans towards computer scientists not information scientists. In general (my crude summary of a wide ranging discussion!) he appears to be highlighting the need for a revolutionary attitude, more experimentation and for academic librarians to be promoters of good policy and practice with regards to ownership and access to scholarship, and the need to move to the web.
“…the librarians of the future. They build vital, communal, information resources. They invite collaboration, either directly or implicitly. They overthrow conventional wisdom and entrenched systems and interests.”
The blog discussion is interesting, there have been quite a few contributions, and I think it points to the importance of communication between librarians, computers scientists, researchers, learners and university managers.
And to briefly draw your attention to some other library focused activity from JISC this week:
The TILE (Towards the Implementation of Library 2.0 and the eFramework) project report and briefing paper has been published. This includes a library domain model developed to identify what the library processes are in the networked environment in the light of changing behaviour and information provision. The work has focused in particular on two increasingly important areas in delivering relevant services, these are context/personalization and contribution. There will be further consultation on the domain model via a workshop later in the year.
Finally at the JISC Conference this week there was a session on the Future of Academic Library – this discussed issues such as shared services, the evolving library collection and introduced a collaboration between JISC, SCONUL, BL, RLUK and RIN to consult and develop positions on the way in which libraries can respond to change.
Information Environment Rapid Innovation Grants
We (Andy, Amber, Balviar, David, James) are happy to announce that we are about to issue a new Grant-Funded Call for rapid innovation projects within the Information Environment on 6 March 2009. You’ll be able to read all the text about what money is available and the conditions for using it in more detail in the Grant but to give an overview of what we are looking for:
- Innovative projects that create a ’something’ related to a user need from a named community. That something could be a new interface, a service that brings together existing services or a tool of some sort;
- The scope is quite simply something that is within the Information Environment (see: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/informationenvironment.aspx for definition). We are not being overly prescriptive;
- The projects should be up to six months in length and between £15,000 and £40,000;
- The documentation for everything in the Call is going to be kept lightweight so we can keep the focus on solutions to user needs rather than filling out forms. We’re just looking for five pages in the bid and the project documentation is going to be kept to blogs or wikis so we know what you’re aiming to do and how you are getting on with achieving it but you don’t spend hours telling us about it;
- The approaches should be agile or open. We’d like to see early engagement with users and for that engagement to be kept up so what is produced responds to their needs and is user-led rather than technology-led.
The drivers for this grant have come from a number of different directions:
- dev8D (http://dev8d.jiscinvolve.org/) proved to be very successful in getting users and developers together to create innovative solutions to user needs. We felt we should be doing more of this in the Information Environment;
- Whilst we recognise that certain big central services such as the UK federation could and should be provided by JISC, we also recognise that there needs to be funding for smaller, lighter tools, services and interfaces that help users achieve their goals;
- Whilst there is a place for bigger projects that involve senior managers, we feel that there is equally a place for projects where the bulk of the money goes to developers;
- The last few years have seen an increase in the development of lightweight solutions that respond rapidly to user needs across both the academic and commercial sectors.
We’re looking forward to seeing what bids come back. This forms the perfect opportunity for:
- Those who have bid for funding before and would like funding to try out new areas where we may not want to fund via a big project;
- Those new to JISC who would like to dip their toe in the water and try a smaller JISC project before going for something bigger;
- Developers who have good ideas that they might not have quite enough time to fully develop within their normal schedule;
- Technical managers who may want to have funding to ‘try out’ new members for their team on a student placement basis, for example.
The tag for discussion on this rapid innovation Call is jiscri. Please use this if you’re commenting on the Call via Twitter or posting on other blogs and social media about it so we can easily gather all those comments together and learn and respond as we go along. Subscribe to the JISC-ANNOUNCE list at www.jiscmail.ac.uk to get notified about this or other funding opportunities from JISC or go along to http://www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities.aspx on 6 March to get the call.