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.