Ali moves blog to a dedicated site

All future technology blogs will be posted at the following web address: https://www.alirobertson.net . Thank you for supporting this blog over the years. I will now be running an ICT education/research blog, providing free resources (e.g. survey data, papers, educational resources & advice) to those that need it.

Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu creator, motivates students at the Isle of Man College

Yesterday was a very special day indeed (29th of March 2012). Mark Shuttleworth, creator of the Linux based Ubuntu operating system, gave a 1 hour presentation of his life to students at the Isle of Man College.
It was a whistle stop tour of his life from the time he sold his first business to Verisign, to making reality his ambition to become a space tourist! Finally, he spoke about how he created and manages the Ubuntu project. This guy is a real motivator and we have been fortunate to have had the presentation recorded for future training needs.

For the open-source community there is also a lot to learn regarding his vision for the future of software developments, particularly his current project that will provide 'easy to deploy', open-source cloud solutions. In an earlier blog, I wrote about private versus public Clouds and the likely requirement for more private versions as security risks mount. I'm not certain how the new software will fit into the private/public cloud debate, but I look forward to finding out shortly.

Many thanks to Mark for his motivational talk to our Manx students on the BA Computer Science programme and to those students that'll be taking the programme in following years. The presentation recording will be used for training and facilitating learning among our students for years to come; after all, it's good to be motivated by someone who has done it their way, and for the right reasons (that is, open-source creativity). Mark's passion for the open-source movement was strongly evident in his presentation, hopefully, it'll be infectious among our learners also.

Could you be our next motivational speaker or know of someone who could be? Please contact myself (alastair.robertson@iomcollege.ac.im) or Roger Cowin (roger.cowin@iomcollege.ac.im). The college provides various degrees (BSc Health and Social Care, BSc Computer Science, BA Business Studies and the MBA) whose students would always benefit from seeing practitioners speak about their experiences.

A special thanks to Manx TV (Paul Moulton) for recording the event. The follow-up interviews with Mark can be seen here and here.

Hey you, get off of my cloud…c:\hiding geek-speak from the users\☺

In the age of broadband connectivity new terms have emerged that help support new and ‘evolutionary’ technologies to become common place. Commonly asked questions, early on in the technology adoption cycle, usually focus around clarification of the new terms and services. For the techno-geek fraternity out there, this becomes opportunity to show off their knowledge that may even quicken adoption of the technology that presents itself. Sometimes terminology could never make real sense to novice IT users with even near experts struggling to understand new ways of working; but occasionally a new way of explaining complexity emerges that really does simplify matters. As windows became the watchword for an operating system, the term Cloud should become the watchword for doing ‘my stuff’ online.

I have been asked on numerous occasions to explain how the ‘cloud’ can influence the way we work; and also why it is called Cloud, and not, Space or Sky. The timeline to the development of cloud terminology is unclear but I suspect it was generated to help inform non-IT experts of a space where your ‘stuff’ and ‘stuff you do’ is stored or accessed by you but you don’t need to know where or how it’s done. Traditionally, people needing advanced IT services also required a firm understanding of the 4 layer model of networks, resources, middleware and applications. Falling asleep already? Then a better way to explain this is to describe the cloud as a space that is managed by IT experts who take care of all the difficult technological bits (e.g. updating software, keeping the network up, fixing failed servers); and you just get on and do your work, just like the halcyon dream of computing used to be but failed to deliver on. Just like the average motorist doesn’t need to know how an engine works, cloud users do not need to know how networks and data farms do what they do. Calling it something like cloud paints a marketable image in the mind of the average person that detracts thinking away from wires and computer boxes and ghastly terminology like Platform as a Service (PaaS) or Software Orientated Architecture (SOA). I bet the computer industry hopes that it may even attract them into adopting cloud services more readily. Crucially, they should just seamlessly interact with ‘information space’ without ever needing to understand the complex infrastructure and processes that provide their ability to do so. Just like windows moved us away from direct communication with hard drives by giving us pretty icons to click on instead of difficult code (e.g. C:\god this is complicated\inhell\etc)…cloud helps hides the real complexity underlying its structure; but this comes at a price, right?

Although the transition into graphically pleasing operating systems helped increase the adoption of PCs into homes and businesses around the world, simplification of online software service provision, via the cloud, may do something more sinister for those early adopters that have not read the small print carefully. Security is a major source of concern in cloud services and is an area impossible to escape from if you are considering using online services. Security is also semantically technical which, at least, will keep the techno-geeks like me happy☺. Lots of tricky terms emerge like cyber security, data centres, service uptime, hackers and firewalls; and there isn’t an easy way of escaping this kind of terminology without generalizing away from the real risks. Work coming out of the Science and Technology Facilitation Council (STFC) Daresbury, under the direction of Dr Rob Allan, suggests that if you do not want your information/data to fall into the wrong hands then you probably shouldn’t be using the cloud at all. Although this comment is in stark contrast to cloud industry views, risks exist in the cloud that go beyond YOUR abilities to control. After all, most people do not use sufficiently complex passwords that would otherwise protect them from computerized hack attacks; and a good deal of criminal activity occurs within companies by its employees meaning that your account could be hacked very easily from within the cloud supplier. Few averagely skilled computer users are aware that systems administrators within cloud suppliers have full access to your accounts and therefore data…in the ‘old school’ IT model where all data was stored and protected by your IT department, safety protocols could be embedded to factor in the risks posed by company employees. This is much harder to police in cloud environments where several supplier businesses may be linked together to provide a complete cloud service. For instance, cloud technology businesses may rely on server farms to host their apps that are then sold to you. This means your data could be accessible to multiple businesses without you even knowing. OK, there are approaches to encrypting your data at various levels, but the truth remains, managing your own data on your own servers is the most secure approach.

Beyond the risk, fortunately in the UK at least, we are governed by clearly stated data protection regulations. The Data Protection Act protects users by forcing cloud suppliers and cloud service purchasers, that are based in the UK, to become data controllers; but many cloud suppliers are located away from this protected area (e.g. US). Although all cloud companies will do their best to protect your data no one can predict when or if the cloud supplier will be sold. It can be sold, and yes, your data could be moved to a geographic location that is not data protected. If you are a UK based organisation using a cloud supplier whose data is moved in this way, if you store data about customers that is data protected (e.g. names and telephone numbers, sales invoices etc.); you’ve broken the law as you are likely to be the designated data controller. So how can we get around this tricky legal issue?

The Rolling Stones song Hey you, get off of my cloud was rather prophetic to the issue. Without throwing away the benefits that the cloud can bring is the development of the private cloud concept; that is, run smaller scale, non-global clouds tailored to local conditions. For example, a private cloud guaranteeing UK data protection at all times as part of the service level agreement to customers. Some larger organisations already run their own private cloud services and technology is now available that allows them to do this will relative ease (i.e. virtualization). This provides them most of the benefits of cloud with less risk. The offset however, is that you still need to manage your own servers which is costly. Remember that by owning the servers you are in full control of the data. For smaller organisations that don’t have the ability to host their own services the image is less clear. It could be that ‘localized’ application service providers (ASPs) will work within guaranteed data jurisdictions meaning that data is always legally protected. ASPs could form from internet service providers that would hold the key to success. They understand the context of UK Data Protection regulations already and so will have a handle on how to manage your data via software tools they will rent to you. It is unclear if or when such services will be developed and deployed however. It will also require that re-sellable software becomes available and at this time few exist outside of a few collaboration (e.g. Microsoft SharePoint) and customer relationship (e.g. Sugar CRM) packages. To be honest, cloud technologies are presently few and far between and the long-term viability of the cloud concept will only be sustained if more services become available over the coming years. We will also have to watch out for evolutions of the cloud. For instance, Google’s Chrome operating system is technically a hybrid of the cloud vision by allowing users to directly integrate with Google cloud. Given Google’s successful development and deployment of the Android handset technology this may be a space to watch out for. In mean time, we’ll just have to wait to see how the sky looks when the sun eventually rises. Only then will we be able to see how many clouds are on the horizon, global or localized. Or indeed, who will be prepared to inhabit them…

New e-Research book published - Sakai discussion included

It's been a long time since I've had the opportunity to publish to my blog. The good news is that Rob Allan (STFC Daresbury), Rob Crouchley (Lancaster University) and Alastair Robertson (Me, Isle of Man College) published a chapter within it. This work is the culmination of our research into the applicability of Sakai as an e-research toolset. The title of the book is Collaborative and Distributed E-Research: Innovations in Technologies, Strategies and Applications
and the title for our chapter is Collaborative and Distributed Innovation and Research in Business Activity.

The book contents can be viewed at the IGI Publishing @ http://www.igi-global.com/book/collaborative-distributed-research/58272.

If you need to contact me regarding this chapter, or any other element of my research, email me at alastair.w.robertson_at_btinternet.com.

Happy reading!

Ali

Developing and managing online projects and collaborations

This blog was developed for those people that work in project teams but realize that new collaboration technologies exist that could improve productivity. The application of ICT is fraught with choice and many people are forced to make technology choice decisions when they are potentially under-skilled to do so. Although many people understand that there is a role for online collaboration environments in projects, few project leaders or managers have sufficient ICT know-how on the role, selection and application of them in their work. It may seem strange for technologists (i.e. the author) to be more concerned about the human element of project teams than the technology itself, but it isn’t. Project teams rely on solid and managed interactions within the team and also for those resources outside of the team (e.g. project partners). This has always been the case, and as past research shows, the human element has often been missed which has led to failed project collaborations.

There are numerous approaches that can be applied to understand the dimension of online collaboration development. Use cases force the would-be developer to look at the requirements of the collaboration system. Use cases are written pieces about a human process in the project (e.g. workflow or communication among team participants) that highlights the human condition needing to be fixed by the collaboration environment. By drawing up use cases, it forces you to think about the processes that are presently used by your people and also helps you identify how collaboration tools could benefit them. There are a considerable number of tools available to support online collaboration (e.g. forums, chat tools, document stores and video conferencing), but some may suit your project team when others do not.

There are several keys to successful deployment of any ICT based technology but none more important than understanding the needs of your people in the work you’d like them to accomplish. Teams are about harnessing knowledge that they then turn into novel innovations. Whether the innovation is an idea, concept or a produced product, collaboration environments can make readily knowledge readily available to your people and help them work more effectively. How you move from A to B is a critical question. A is the starting point on wanting to learn about deploying collaboration tools into your team environment, as evidenced by reading of this blog, B is your intended destination where you have functioning tools in use. Travelling from A to B can be a challenging project in itself, but nothing is more rewarding than watching your people produce output in front of your eyes!

People thrive on collaboration. Collaboration is the bringing together of minds to solve problems of the day, to provide a platform for developing novel innovations. People have been working collaboratively since man first began hunting animals in a team-like way; perhaps longer. Many example of humankind's collaborative ways exist. For example, during the industrial revolution new approaches to the production of harder metals took place by people travelling to other countries and seeing for their own eyes how other cultures had dealt with pre-existing problems. Word of mouth was key to their ability to determine if processes were available elsewhere they could take advantage from. Innovators take their lead from current practice then tweak it with their own knowledge, until something even better emerges. The process of collaboration allows innovation to occur and it should be actively encouraged. The human race learns from itself, from both mistakes and wins. Although today’s cataloguing of web material makes it much simpler to find out how ‘stuff’ is done, and who produces innovative knowledge; Google is about quickening resource discovery, but it still takes thought intervention to create novel knowledge from it. Google is simply a service platform that quickens our information find and publishing capabilities. Collaboration is about providing a people orientated platform where like-minded people of similar interest, but with unique specialism’s, can share knowledge to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

Six months of changes in Sakai...

Six months can be a long time in technology markets, and I have created this blog to provide you insite on changes we have made to out Sakai service. Only six month ago we moved over to Sakai 2.7. Bringing in new social networking features, it opened a door to new ways of thinking that make Sakai a warmer place to work in. By allowing Sakai users to form Connections among work colleagues (a bit like friends in Facebook) it allows groups of similar minded individuals to form up without the requirement of a worksite. The standard social networking kit in 2.7 is pretty basic and although people hooked up quite quickly, it soon became apparent that something else was needed to help it make better sense.

Adrian Fish had already begun developing the floating chat tool that would take advantage of Connections and it was launched just last month. This tool allows users to chat with Connections that are already logged into Sakai. It's been a great hit with our users. We noticed that even in the wee hours of the morning that people were still hooked into Sakai chatting away. We think this tool is an essential ingrediant to any collaboration platform, even for asking simple questions like, 'Time for a coffee?' or 'Have you seen this link?'. Not content with getting the core chat running, Adrian then set about some newer features, such as the ability to 'ping' connections that are not already logged into Sakai. This feature emails recipients an invite to chat with you providing them an additional opportunity to stay in the loop. We think that floating chat will become available in Sakai 2.9, but stuff doesn't always go to plan :(

Then Dan Robinson and Stevo Swinsberg decided to expand out the Profile2 feature set. Building a place to post to your own or your connections profiles, this is a space to share information among your social sakai contacts; we only launched it 10 days ago so we are still looking at user issues. To date, nothing dramatic has emerged and that is usually a good sign. The current publishing space is a bit limited in scope and we'll be adding new features throughout the year based on user requests. Dan also tidied up the people search facility within Profile so that presentation of results is much better making it easier read.

So, in six months we went from Sakai CLE to Sakai CLE with social connectivity. Last year some of my eBusiness students complained that Sakai was hard to get into (being the second VLE at Lancaster); since deploying 'boosted' Sakai users tell me they really like the experience for the additional functions we have added. We note also that the addition of social tools has improved Sakai 'Stickiness'; a term used to describe how long people stay logged in for. I guess this is what we should expect. Importantly also, due to implementation of Profile2 with our additional features, our latest clients tell us that profile2 was one of the strongest choice factors for choosing to use our technology. Moreover, discussions are now underway with central uni services to roll out Sakai across campus later this year. Watch this space!

During the next 6 months we'll be evaluating user data in various ways. For example, we have collected Connection formation data and can link this aggregately to other data arrays (e.g. propensity to chat, complete profile, activity in worksites etc) plus user survey data. With this information we'll be able to determine segments of user's and track back user acceptance issues from it. After all, the new ways of working won't be to everyone's taste, but it'd be nice to be able to find out who they are and tailor a service about them too.

What happens when the cloud bursts? Skype shows the risks...

I beleive that the recent failure of Skype shows how dependant some businesses are becoming on cloud based services. Although Skype isn't a true Cloud technology, as you need to install its software locally, the service uses the WWW in a 'cloud like way' to transport data. Skype's recent system failure (click here for BBC news story) have left businesses that are reliant on its services wide open to problems; especially those that have no alternative solutions in place. There are likely to be many more events like this over the coming years and the lessons learnt for some organisations may be terminal. The Cloud places risks into any adopting organisation and each risk needs to be evaluated with mitigaton strategies in place should specific 'critical' events occur. I question how many organisations, particularly smaller businesses, undertake this level of contingency planning however.

Leveraging technology to raise productivity in academia

University life is diverse and multicultural by design and underlying these attributes are key roles that support learning and research. Most institutions have an elearning strategy but something more over-arching in technology strategy terms is be useful in that it should capture more academic/administration activity. By thinking in this way, the silos of learning, research and administration merge into a single seamless environment. In such an environment knowledge flows between areas of the organization seamlessly. Information is made readily available to those that need it and this leads to greater operational efficiency overall.

As technology is leveraged to this end and people become accustomed to its presence whole new ways of working emerge that simply could not be done before. For example, linking departments or even other institutions becomes a real possibility with relatively minor software adjustments. This alone fosters conditions for easier collaborations that lead to increases in the knowledge base. Cloud technology provides us the conduit to make this a reality at a relatively low cost. For example, there is a project in the US called Kuali. This is an open-source modular architecture designed for universities by universities (e.g. Indiana and Michigan). It contains modules on finance and web-based student management (among others modules). It is free software with solid open-source support mechanisms. Kuali is now gaining traction. It also ties into other open-source platforms, like the Sakai collaboration framework, which is useful because people can move about the environment but not feel or see the barriers between the various tools they use. And why should they? After all web conferencing (e.g. BigBlueButton)is useful for academics to communicate with co-researcher but also administration and students. So the tools should be accessible in all aspects of the environment.

Underlying any technology deployment are people's activities. A key learning in the academic domain of Information Systems is that people are the key resources in any organization. This means technology serves a particular purpose, that is, to help people do better than they could do before. So, in terms of an overall strategy institutions should focus on understanding human processes in the organisation and then develop new technological approaches that raise productivity, improve the flow of knowledge (across students/academics/partners/admin/alumni) and simplify the human-computer interface of the technology; that is, make the technology more seamless.

Orange mobile services sucks. Failing customers on clarity of pricing plans

There are times when we must stand up for the rights of people, and fight improper business practice and those organisations whose ethics are suspect. At the Centre for eScience we look at new emerging mobile technologies with a view to delivering our services across them. Recently, we took delivery of a new HTC Wildfire, to evaluate how our Sakai based technologies could be delivered. And here begins the story on a complete lack of clarity on call charges that is likely to affect many 1,000s of Orange customers in the UK...

I am a low usage Orange pay as you go customer. Low usage means that I use less than £5 of credit per month. At present I am a Dolphin user which the Orange website tells me means: free internet and texts (see here to view the price plan for Dolphin). I was curious about what 'Free Internet' means, after all it does cost money to provide data, and services must be limited in some way to reflect this cost. On reviewing detailed Dolphin charges it soon became clear that Orange were not happy to divulge the true cost of internet usage on this Pay as You Go contract type. The only detail it has on costs and internet is the statement, "Maximum daily charge for mobile Internet browsing £2". Surely, if I download a 0.5 gigabyte movie file it won't be capped at £2? I checked for small print documentation and could not find any on the orange site. Next step, call customer services for clarification...

On my first attempt I was put through to customer services and I asked 2 things. First, please clarify what internet use means. Secondly, please guide me to documentation on your website explaining in detail internet charging structures. The person on the other end of the phone explained that for Orange, free internet is not free internet, only free Facebook. What? I don't even use Facebook (see my earlier blog on the risks associated with use of social networks)! How can Orange equate internet use with just Facebook? Surely this is mis-advertising? Isn't that illegal in the UK? So, the question became, how much do you charge for non-Facebook internet? Aha, the real story begins to emerge! The lady explained that for non-Facebook internet, users on Dolphin are charged £4 per megabyte transferred. Not a cheap deal as it is advertised. I probed deeper and asked where this information was stored on the Orange website, she was unable to show me. I explained this this position was not satisfactory and that Orange were likely to be breaking the law by advertising their product in this way. The phone went dead...

Now, phone lines can go dead for various reasons. This call was probably directed to customer services in Middle Asia, and I'm guessing that the recent Perseid meteor shower knocked out communication between Middle Asia and Europe momentarily...

I dialled again. I was put through to customers services again. I requested all of the information a second time. The customer service representative was exemplary and knew her plans and charges by heart. Service was with a smile also. She explained concisely that internet equals Facebook only, not internet per ce? Again she explained that I would be charged a fee £4 for every non-Facebook megabyte downloaded. She could not explain clearly what the £2 maximum daily charge was however. Again I asked her to locate on the Orange website clear data charge structures that would be available to all customers. She tried and tried and could not locate the information for me. At this point I decided to blog the event in the hope of reaching out to users to make them aware of Orange's less than ethical approach to dealing with customer charging. In view of this activity I have decided to veto any use of Orange services and would recommend that you all do so.

Does this sound a bit like sour grapes? I bet your thinking this guys come back from holiday with a £200 unexpected data charge. Nope, I've spend about £6 on data before realising the real cost. I feel quite smug that I checked. What is important is that we have a place to go where we can complain. My blog is my conduit for complaining. When this blog becomes Google searchable, maybe Orange will find it and get back to me.

A final element to the puzzle. Why do most countries have Telecoms Regulators? In the UK we have OFCOM. OFCOM adjudicates telecom market pricing and networks and forces changes if imbalances are found. Unfortunately, they are always chasing their own tails as the telcos employ teams of people strategising how to get more money from consumers. During a Telco conference I attended about 8 years ago, one CEO proudly exclaimed that they (the Telco industry) now had a high profit instrument that would keep shareholders happy for the years to come. This was text messaging. During the presentation he was proud to announce that for every text send the consumer was charged 20 pence, but it only cost 0.0001 pence to send via their networks. The question that OFCOM must now address, is what is the real cost of sending 1MB of data across mobile networks. I bet it's really cheap to do so...given that I can buy 30Gb of download from British Telecom for £25 on a broadband service. So, data is now the money spinner of the mobile telcos, I'll be looking forward to see how OFCOM deal with this, but I am also concerned that funding cuts will limit their ability to control them.

Ok, I'm off to buy a non-Orange pay monthly sim. I can't wait to get into the new HTC phone, so far I am really impressed.

Developing Government Policy via Facebook - who will have their say?

Published on the BBC news website is an article on how the new government intends to use Facebook to get the UK electorate to vote on where spending cuts should be applied. An initial thinking suggests that this is a novel approach to driving new government policy. For example, it will be inexpensive to apply as the social network is already in place. BUT: who's voice will be heard most as a result of this policy? Facebook advises that there are now 23 million Facebook accounts in the UK. In the UK there are approximately 61 million people of which approximately 75% are of voting age implying that about 40 million people should be polled on the direction of anticipated cuts (data reviewed at the Office of National Statistics). Earlier research shows that users of Facebook are characteristically different from those that do not use its service. For example, studies find that Facebook users tend to be younger and better educated. Research that I have undertaken at Lancaster University highlights very clearly that non-IT adopters, as measured by comparison of households with and without access to computers, are on average older and/or less wealthy; this pattern of digital exclusion will be directly implemented in the governments initiative. What this means is that any vote via Facebook will be biased towards those that are younger and wealthier. There will be other distortions that will be unmeasurable. Biasness aside, what of our much more experienced seniors that have a wealth of experience having lived through both good and bad times? Surely, we should pay special attention to their voice? What of the needs of those less wealthy households without decent IT access? They too should have a voice. Moreover, by shifting policy development onto social networks the government is forcing those that wish to abstain from social nets (and this is your right!) to become online active; even if they do not wish to share their data and lives online. Earlier this year I published a blog titled Rejecting Social Networks as a Good Idea Poorly Executed. In the blog I highlighted why it is a highly risky practice to submit personal data on social networks. For example, where is your data stored? How will privacy policies be changed? Who has access to your data? If Facebook is sold in 1, 5 or 10 years time how may the company use your data and could the data be physically moved to a geographic location with few data protection regulations in place? These are valid criticisms of why we should not use social networks until the market for personal data is better defined.

In terms of what the government is hoping to achieve with the present Facebook initiative, it will not be certain that the results it views are representative of the UK voting population for the reasons given above. Crucially also, we cannot be certain that those that vote are actually UK voters. Just because a Facebook account was created in the UK does not mean the account holder is actually a registered UK voter. Clearly, there is no easy solution to the problem of getting closer to the electorates way of thinking on important country matters. I do accept that we need a communication platform for people to become part of the decision making process; but the plan needs to be better thought out than the one that has been proposed.

On Microsoft and anticompetitive positioning in e-learning environments

During the early stage of world ICT adoption growth Microsoft was very much influential in providing the operating systems that simplified computer use. This simplification allowed users to navigate complex computers more simply by providing a neater graphic interface. This was a major break though and very welcomed. During its time as a major software producer it has had to deal with significant complaints of anti-competitive behaviour. At eScience we see with great surprise that Microsoft are again more then willing to enter new and emerging markets using what can best best described as 'anti-competitive' behaviour that will limit innovation in the e-learning and course management market. In the US Microsoft has launched its new educational support service called live@edu. It is a service that devolves information system responsibility to Microsoft by use of its cloud centres. On the face of it the service looks quite good (although we haven't had an opportunity to evaluate tools). The service offers educational establishments the opportunity to move information systems into the cloud yet maintain branding. Institutions that run with the service will be provided free branded email services, free online storage and backup (25Gb per user), free class worksites, free collaboration tools, free access to Office 2010 and free support. Our problem is nothing to do with the products or services, which on the face of it look OK, our problem lies in the disruptive way it is entering the market.

Our objection is that they are entering a fairly mature industry disruptively that will eventually limit competition they face. There is no such thing as free software solution on this scale and there is already very little profit left in the VLE market. If all UK universities where to adopt their model, Microsoft would need to account for approximately 100,000 terabytes of storage space. This will cost something somewhere down the line and that is impossible to refute. The issue, however, is that during times of financial crisis institutions may be tempted to take on this technology to minimise budgetary problems. Come the next economic up wave they'd be locked into a corporate technology where they have no influence on future technology developments. Welcome to a world where Microsoft guides how you research and teach; whereas those institutions with open source developers embedded into their e-Learning/research frameworks can ask for tools to be developed to meet specific institutional needs... to the benefit of all universities using the open source technology. In the long run, the open source opportunity will cost much less than the corporate version as an investment of, say, £100,000 could raise productivity for millions of people globally. We firmly believe that software for universities should be designed by universities that understand the dimensions of academia; not by external profit making agencies seeking to capture human market share. One cannot help but think the long term plan for Microsoft, similarly banks that offer special incentives to students, is to establish a large scale market of well qualified, high earning graduates that it can use to make money from later on. Whatever the business model they have in mind, we must not allow Microsoft to become dominant in this field. Given the recent bad press relating to how large organisations can abuse our online data (e.g. Facebook, Google) we should be quite fearful of storing so much academic material with any commercial organisation that can change privacy and cost settings as it likes and has unlimited financial might to fight the courts.

We hope that you share our concerns regarding Microsoft's aggressive launch; maybe it is too new for people to see the real long term impact of the offering. As far as we are aware live@edu is not yet available in the UK, possibly as the necessary hardware in Aberdeen (the cloud centre) is not complete. It will come online next year however, and we hope resulting cloud services are priced fairly to reflect real operating costs.

Workshop on business support using the Sakai portal

The Lancaster Centre for eScience in collaboration with STFC Daresbury, the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development, Hull University Business School and JISC are hosting a workshop on the strengths of using the Sakai portal as a business support tool. For more information and to register online for the workshop please visit http://www.ictresearch.org/daresbury.htm.

In brief, the workshop will highlight how private social networks combined with online collaboration environments can be applied to support public service organisations that provide support to business in various ways. As support service provision increases, the question of how to maximise the benefit to all stakeholders needs to be addressed. This workshop shows how cloud based technology has been applied to maximise the impact of business support programmes. The model that has been applied shows that large numbers of owner-managers can be e-managed to the benefit of support initiatives (e.g. Solutions for Business and Business Link). Moreover, it provides support agencies the ability to remain in close contact with the people they support, both service providers and clients are readily contactable as needed quickening knowledge exchange between stakeholders. Additionally, we are able to create support worksites which existing users can voluntarily opt into. Using this 'joinable' site approach we are also able to provide social networking areas designed to help people meet up and communicate on matters of interest. The workshop will live demonstrate portal technology and engage delegates into online communication using a variety of online tools.

The workshop is open to all so please forward the workshop web address (http://www.ictresearch.org/daresbury.htm) to all interested party's.

Rejecting social networks as good idea poorly executed - bring on the rebellion

The blogosphere is a truly useful tool for keeping in touch with new world ideas. Social networks on the other hand contain considerable risk to those that 'give up' their data to them. Few are aware or are even concerned about how their data is stored or used. None of us know how this data will be used or abused in the years to come. Inevitably a whiplash occurs when people begin to reject improper use of personal data, as seems to be ocurring among Facebook users. In the UK we have the Data Protection Act which is designed to protect consumer electronic databases. For instance, eScience's Sakai user data cannot be exported outside of our Sakai server without express permission of the data owners, that is, the user's that submitted the content or the creators of the worksites. Since people presently volunteer data to Facebook under their terms and conditions of data ownership they are not covered by its regulation (although this 'exemption' remains untested in UK courts as far as I am aware).

Never in world history have we as a race given so much away for free; without even a cautious second glance.... Marketers will be looking at this world scale experiment with glee. If you use Facebook to its fullest extend everything you submit is contained within it forever more; even complete Facebook suicide is difficult to accomplish as long term backups are unlikely to reflect your change of heart. This means that your social graph that reflects who you are, what you have done and where you have been could be accessible to everyone with an interest in your life whether you like it or not. This is an anthropologists dream come true...

It is refreshing to read a BBC blog by Maggie Shiels that describes the Anti-Facebook group. These are a group of postgraduates from Columbia University that formed the Diaspora Project. The Diaspora project develops open source social environment designed to put peoples' own data back into their ownership. We support this notion to the fullest extent, as evidenced by our past and current endeavours. At Lancaster eScience we are deeply critical of cloud services that own peoples' data and last year began the Collaborative Research in Business (CRIB) project (see earlier blogs for a fuller description). CRIB is a JISC funded project designed to develop 'safe' social networking tools within the Sakai environment. It is now reaching maturity and the software is embedded into Sakai 2.7 that will become available later this year. Note that we are not against social networks in any respect, in fact, the social network revolution has shown us that the online world can support collaborations that people endear themselves to. We are only rebelling against the issues surrounding abuse of personal data. We support a social rebellion seeking security for personal data. In this sense, does our rebellion imply that we seek to overthrow the dark lord of social networks, Mark Zuckerberg? Not at all, his concept of Facebook is as good as it was when it first launched on the Harvard Campus during 2004. It is its poor legal execution we seek to change. In view of our stand, we support the Diaspora project and all that it stands for.

Blending VLE and VRE? - time to re-examine the issues

This post is designed to stimulate debate on how to manage ever increasing demand for Virtual Research Environments (VRE) and linkages or differences between VREs and VLEs. An earlier post in this blog highlighted that at Lancaster University Management School we have platforms that can be used for both; but this is a rare find. At other universities reports are emerging of increasing demands being placed on learning technologists to support research collaborations. Often, they will apply VLEs to the researchers needs. Importantly however, most VLE technologies don't fit research agendum and do not always carry sufficient tools to engage research users. On the face of it, the difference between learning and research, in human process terms, is quite small. In some sense, both processes are about making learning and resource discovery convenient. We are presently in a far better position to do this than ever before. Approximately 6 years ago the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC, which funds UK core academic information systems infrastructure in the UK) funded research looking at the possibility of applying VLEs as VREs. The following quote highlights, unsurprisingly, that VLEs are not usable as VREs as researchers required a broader set of research tools than VLEs of the time had.

“The first phase of the JISC VRE programme in 2004 experimented with the use of VLEs for research, but came to the conclusion that, although a shared environment works well for research, researchers’ requirements are too diverse for a single solution. One of the biggest differences between a learning and research environment is often the much greater diversity of specialised tasks and the need for security of research data and files. Researchers may also require an area in which they can experiment with the VRE.” http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/briefingpapers/2010/bpvrev3.aspx

We now believe that the issue of ‘too diverse for a single solution’ is no longer the issue that it once was; based on initial findings at Lancaster. We now successfully use a VLE as a VRE; it's called a collaboration environment. It works well for students (as a course site and to set up group work collaborations; students prefer the platform over the existing home grown technology) and researchers (collaboration worksites and e-community development). Times have moved on and since the 2004 VRE study several key changes to the human condition have occurred. People are now fully connected to internet (if they want to be connected at least); this is especially true of researchers in UK institutions. Researchers are now much more aware of their IT needs, but university based technology leadership is often quite weak due to political/financial pressures. Often, all researcher's need to speed up knowledge generation/exchange are supported online spaces to centralize project resources (e.g. works in progress docs, bid information, web resources), engage in academic discussion securely using forums or chat tools and make online presentations.

An issue in all of this is that we now have 2 distinct VLE and VRE research streams whereby the interplay between VLE and VRE are ignored. We at the Lancaster Centre for eScience propose that the agenda on the interplay be re-opened, to re-examine the issues in light of new technological developments. If you have any views relating to this blog please provide comments below.

Exciting times lay ahead, for the technophiles among us at least!

Sakai 2.7 is due to be released shortly bringing a host of bug fixes and new tools for you to use. Several key developments will appear in 2.7. For instance, we'll be hosting a new web conferencing service allowing all users to communicate to each other (via video or just voice), share power point presentations to groups and produce basic webinars. It works a bit like Adobe Connect but is simpler to use.

We will also be launching a new profile tool. The current tool is at best cumbersome, the new tool is much neater and allows people to build top notch profiles of themselves and their activities. Adding personal photos is much easier also. It also contains a general photo gallery and messaging tool. The new profile tool works in unison with a social networking tool that will allow users to search each other out, form private social networks and special interest groups. Be assured however that users don't have to participate and must select options to make their profiles visible to other users. Also be assured that any information contained within worksites will remain entirely confidential. Later this year we'll be deploying tools so people can create new worksites for their own purposes also. We hope that these tools will help empower people to work together more effectively and creatively. If you have any views, concerns or queries regarding this upgrade feel free to comment below.

JISC Project Updates: CRIB and EMBRACE

This blog publishes project updates for both the Collaborative Research in Business (CRIB) and E-Managed Business Relationships and Cohesive Environments (EMBRACE)projects. Both projects are managed by eScience and are funded by JISC. Click on the links to view video updates, project updates are no longer than 5 minutes each:

CRIB: http://www.ictresearch.org/projects/crib/crib3.html
EMBRACE: http://www.ictresearch.org/projects/embrace/embrace.html

Taking the ‘e’ out of eLearning and eResearch?

Imagine a day without technology in my work day? No thanks and no more shall be said about it! This would certainly reduce my teaching quality and decrease my research outputs. The trick however, is to apply technology via a common platform suitable to eLearning and eResearch. My thinking on this is that research led academics mostly prefer to conduct research than teach. Since teaching and research are deeply entwined, if an approach to eLearning is proposed that increases the workload of academics it would reduce research output. As an academic institution we train our students and those we consult to that technology is the enabler that incrementally improves human productivity in a number of ways. Evidence suggests that those businesses on the leading edge of technology boundaries do better than competitors. They become better at managing their work flows and have improved customer interactions. For academics in research led institutions the situation for technology based productivity increases must surely be similar? It should be that we only deploy technologies that raise productivity in both teaching and research practice and that these elements should be optimised simultaneously. Typically however, we find across many research led institutions that two distinct elearning/eresearch 'silos' appear where one does not influence the other. When this occurs rarely do they meet to seek commonalities in collaborative approaches or work out productivity trade off's between silo activities.
A key ability of elearning platforms in research institutions should be to raise communication efficiency between students and lecturers, moving away from door knocking and inefficient emails that take academics off their research stride. Contemporary students are the Web 2.0 generation and prefer seeking information via course wikis and forums. To quote a student in eBusiness that had used Sakai CLE for the first time, “It's a little bit addictive and it's practical” which is partly due to the social aspect of Sakai but also because if I provide an answer to a common student problem via this route everyone learns from it. In this sense, it manages my knowledge and time better. Qualitative discussions with students suggest preference for this approach over traditional course delivery methods and it's definitely helping them engage more fluidly with me. So, the story so far is that it has reduced my teaching load and improved the student experience. Reducing my teaching load in this way indirectly increases my research output, but crucially Sakai CLE directly increases my research output. I organise projects and collect research data (e.g. via forums and surveys) via Sakai and it also brings geographically distant co-researchers together into a common collaborative platform from any internet ready computer. In this sense there is a double research increasing 'whammy' to applying Sakai in the way I do as it reduces my teaching load and it increases my research productivity. So, I don’t want to imagine a day without Sakai; why change a winning formula?

Academic roles in research led institutions and the simultaneous impact of technology on teaching and research productivity

Academic roles in research led institutions are markedly different than those in teaching institutions. It is therefore unlikely that technologies deployed at either type of institution should be the same. At research led institutions academics mostly prefer to conduct research than teach. Although lecturing is critical to funding at research led institutions engaging academics into using eLearning technologies to enhance student experiences has fallen on deaf ears. At teaching institutions the reverse is true where those academics take considerable pride in their teaching and actively seek new advancements in technology to enhance practice. This critical distinction must be embodied into any strategy aimed at research led institutions. To this extent, teaching and research are deeply entwined. Introduce an approach to eLearning that increases the workload of academics would be to the detriment of research. Now let us think in terms of academic productivity. As an academic institution we train our students and those we consult to that technology is a great enabler by incrementally improving human productivity in a number of ways. It is commonly found in the literature that those businesses that have looked beyond traditional technology practice boundaries do better than those that do not. They have become better at managing their work flow and have improved customer interactions allowing them to compete better than those that are less technologically advanced. For academics in research led institutions the situation for technology deployment must surely be the same? It should be that we only deploy technologies that raise productivity in both teaching and research practice and that these elements should be optimised simultaneously. Typically however, we find across many research led institutions that two distinct 'silos' appear where one does not influence the other. In this case, eLearning and eResearch approaches operate apart and rarely do they meet to seek commonalities in collaborative approaches or work out productivity trade off's between the silos. More frequently it leads to under adoption of key technologies that can reduce the time spent teaching, increase student satisfaction and enhance research productivity simultaneously. Many academic researchers are apathetic toward eLearning because of the expectation of increasing workloads. Although some eLearning approaches may increase workloads, this need not be the case and Lancaster eScience provide the Sakai platform that accommodates this way of thinking. A key ability of learning platforms is to significantly reduce door knocking and emails from students as all communication is managed online at a time the suits the academic. Answer a common student question (e.g. when is the deadline) via a forum just once, and all students get to see it. Contemporary students are the Web 2.0 social networking generation and are very amenable to this method of communication and actually prefer it to traditional teaching practice. A student in my eBusiness module wrote in a forum post that he found, I quote “It's a little bit addictive and it's practical”. Informal discussions with students also highlight that they much prefer this approach over traditional delivery methods and it's helping them engage more fluidly with me. So, the story so far is that it has reduced my teaching load and improved student experience. So where does research fit into this? Apart from reducing my teaching load which therefore increases my research output, the application of Sakai as a virtual research environment allows me to organise my research and research resources better than existing university infrastructure would allow. Crucially to my work it allows me to conduct both qualitative and survey based data collections online and also brings geographically close or distant research groups together into a common collaborative platform designed to work online from any internet ready computer. In this sense there is a double research increasing 'whammy' to applying Sakai in they way I do as it reduces my teaching load (indirectly giving me more time to research) and it increases my research productivity directly by improving my efficiency. Many others such as Mary Rose of the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development at Lancaster uses Sakai for both teaching and research collaboration and has similar experiences. It gives us a common platform for both teaching and research simplifying the accessibility of both.

So, what is the takeaway from this blog? By creating eLearning and eResearch silos that do not communicate with each other we run the risk of adopting the wrong technologies, or indeed, slowing the process of diffusion among academics. There are number of good virtual learning environments available to choose from (e.g. Blackboard, Moodle) that are perfectly usable at teaching institutions; but these have not been designed specifically for the research led academic. Sakai has been designed by research led institutions understanding the distinctions between research and teaching. If you have any comments on this blog please do leave them, I'd like to hear any counter or pro arguments.

Innovex blog on collaboration, social media and cloud computing

I attended the student presentations that Mary Rose discusses. As a technologist I was fascinated by what the students had discovered during their journey. From my experience, among entrepreneurs are groups of technology lovers, but a good many cannot see the benefit to their bottom line, and even see additional risks imposed by collaborative platforms. There is an upfront cost to switching to a new platform (e.g. training) but implementation need not be rapid and new platforms can be brought in gently until staff become comfortable with the new ways of working. Starting simply is key. Once engaged however, the knowledge management benefits very much outweigh the initial switching costs. A clear advantage of collaboration platforms, as Mary highlights, was presented during the recent bad winter weather. Although I could not travel to work, I was able to work from home as productively as I could in my office. In this sense, collaboration platforms are also green technologies as working from home or hosting meetings whilst participants are geographically dispersed is now possible. Technology during the 1990s and the early naughties became far too complicated. Large firms adopted new technologies quite well as they have the resources to buy in consultants, but smaller firms lagged due to a lack of finance, skill and a 'one liner' explaining the benefits more clearly. Heck, you needed to be a computer expert and an entrepreneur at the same time and this is a fairly rare blend of abilities! With cloud technology becoming more widely available the IT world is going to be simplified and less expensive. So, here is my 'one liner': Employ collaborative platforms to raise productivity, manage your people, manage their knowledge, keep IT costs down, find/retain customers better and simplify your operations.

Building novel e-communities

Recently, Lancaster eScience, the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (IEED) and the Northwest Regional Development Agency was awarded JISC funding to develop online communities of business professionals using the Sakai collaborative environment. Called EMBRACE (EManaged Business Relationships and Cohesive Environments), the project builds on the JISC award (CRIB, see blog roll for more detail) and seeks to apply embedded social network functionality that Sakai now contains to develop lasting communicative relations between the public sector (e.g. academic and governmental agencies) and small and medium sized enterprise. The project begins on the 1st of February. EScience would like to take this opportunity to thank collaborators (IEED, Northwest Regional Development Agency) and supporters (Swansea University) for providing the evidence base that led to the successful bid. Without their support new opportunities such as these would not be feasible. I would also like to thank the Sakai development community for providing incentive to developers to keep on producing innovative and new ways of building e-communities. In particular, we would like to thank Steve Swinsburg (Sakai Fellow) for delivery of a new and innovative social networking tool beyond his contractual obligations. I personally would like to thank the development team at Lancaster eScience (Adrian Fish and Dan Robinson) for their sterling work in delivering Sakai to the academic and business communities and supporting the Sakai service provided at Lancaster. For further details of EMBRACE or CRIB please contact me at a.w.robertson@lancaster.ac.uk.