61 posts tagged “events”
The Designing for Disability
A recent blog post by Neil Witt on The VC’s New VLE inspired me to provide a new introduction to a talk I gave at the “Designing for Disability” seminar held on Friday 5th December 2008 at the British Museum.
I was an invited speaker at this event was organised by the Museums Association and the Jodi Awards. The title of my talk, the final talk of the day, was “Holistic Approaches To Web Accessibility“.
The Emperor’s New Clothes
Let me tell you the tale, I began, of the benevolent emperor. He was kind and wished to do his best for his subjects. So when he was told of a secret formulae produced by a wizard from a far-off land which would ensure that all of the subjects of his empire would be able to access all of his edicts, he wanted to know more. He was told that the secret formulae would ensure that the blind, the handicapped and the crippled of his land (this story, I should add, took place long ago, when,sadly, such politically incorrect words were the norm) were would all be able to read his edicts. “This sounds truly wonderful” the emperor announced (thinking that it would also be good if they could also read about the new taxes he intended to implement - for even in fairy tales, there is a need for financial prudence and long term sustainability).
And so the emperor announced that henceforth all official pronouncements, all new laws, all new taxes must comply with the WAI way (as the magic new approach became known. And so the lord chief justice issued the proclamation and the Knights of the Accessible Table rode through the kingdom to ensure that the magic was being used everywhere. “Anyone for fails to comply with the magic will be banished“, it was announced.
Life was good, in the land. And when one of the knights who was made blind in a battle complained that he could read the edicts but couldn’t understand them, he was ignored. And when rumours appeared that there were places in the far-flung regions of the empire where the magic wasn’t being used, but people could still read the emperor’s edicts, this was dismissed.
“But it’s true!” said a little boy. “There’s a new magic, that’s even better. It’s not the WAI way magic, it’s called ‘Inclusive design“.
And in my talk I described the story which the little boy told.
And this story is true, dear friends. For I was that little boy - and so, too, were David Sloan, Liddy Nevile, Jane Seale, EA Draffan, Helen Petrie, Caro Howell, Lawrie Phipps, Andy Heath, Hamilton Fraser, Elaine Swift and many others. For that little boy was a member of the Knights Who Gathered Evidence. And here is the tale I told, which is available on Google Video.
The Evidence From The Day
This tale introduced the talk I gave, in which I summarised the various peer0reviewed papers I’ve contributed to since 2004. I described the limitation of the WAI model and the WCAG guidelines, the evidence from a number of Web accessibility surveys which demonstrates that conforming with the guidelines does not necessarily provide accessible Web services and Web services which do not conform to the guidelines have been found to be very accessible. I went on to describe some of the challenges to be faced in understanding what accessibility means in the context of learning and cultural appreciation.
I was particularly pleased that the holistic approach to Web accessibility which I described seemed to apply so closely to the various case studies which were described during the day.This included:
- Andy Minnion’s talk on “New Media for Access and Participation by People with Learning Disabilities“. He concluded that universal access with a single interface and minor changes of style and appearance do not meet the needs of this group. Content itself needs to be adapted and technical compliance, while important for other groups, is not in itserlf and accessibility solution.
- Linda Ellis’s talk on the use of British Sign Language video guides to improve access for deaf visitors to Bantock House and Park. She argued that content aimed specifically for Deaf visitors was needed and that, as BSL is a language in its own right, information provided in BSL is needed, since Deaf visitors may find it difficult to understand information provided in English.
- Andrew Payne, The National Archives, on a project to maximise access to the Prisoner 4099 archives. Andrew mentioned how “Flash can be accessible, but you need to be careful”. Based on experiences such as this Andrew concluded by suggest that we “Don’t believe the box tickers”.
I very much agree with Andrew - don’t believe the box tickers. And don’t believe anyone who suggests there’s a simple solution to difficult and complex challenges - whether they be wicked elves or government policy makers!
Posted in Accessibility, EventsI introduced Pinky and Perky in a recent blog post and I used them when I presented my paper on “Library 2.0: Balancing the Risks and Benefits to Maximise the Dividends” at the Bridging Worlds 2008 conference. And recently I used the dancing and singing pigs from the days of my youth when I gave the final invited plenary talk on “Realising The Potential of Web 2.0” at the “Nordlib 2.0 - Get Inspired by Web 2.0 for Libraries” conference held in Stockholm.
In Stockholm I used the video clip to illustrate how the dangers of an over-managed approach to popular culture wasn’t introduced in the Web era - Pinky and Perky were banned from the BBC in 1996: there was a general election about to be held and I assume the BBC were concerned about “pinko lefty” sentiments which they might try to influence young and impressionable minds (after all, where do you think the term pinko came from :-). This reference is available 47 minutes into the presentation (see Google Video or the Zentation link- where its synched to the slide on “Inappropriate Content“).
Now these two examples meant something to me and where likely to be new to the audience, thus avoiding reuse of cliched presentational devices. In the talk in Stockholm I also updated my slides a hour or so before delivering the talk, using a tweet and subsequent blog post from Karen Blakeman in which she commented that PageFlakes had added advertisments on its Web site overnight, without prior notice. “How would you respond if that happened to a Web 2.0 service you used in your organisation?” I asked the audience.
Non of these example made use of learning resources from a learning object repository. And for the objects I used (a YouTube video of Pinky and Perky, a photograph I had taken in a local museum and an interesting discussion point I’d came across a few hours previously) it would make little sense for me to deposit for reuse by others. Their value, I feel, comes from their relevance to me and my style of presentation, their (regional) links with the place I’m talking at and their timeliness. In fact I also made use of a Barack Obama image and the “Yes we can” slogan which again will time out very quickly.
Do we need repositories for learning objects, I might ask. Or are such repositories for the chore presentations (yet another talk on the same old subject to a large group of undergraduates), which won’t be used by speakers who want to provide fresh and relevant talks? On the other hand, perhaps this is mere indulgencies on the part of the speaker. After all, will a group of Nordic librarians ‘get’ Pinky and Perky? Mm, maybe I should have used the Swedish chef from the Muppets? or Abba, perhaps, if I want to go for the more popular British stereotypes of Swedish culture?
Posted in Events, Web2.0 Tagged: nordlib2008Earlier this year the JISC launched a debate of Libraries of the Future. UKOLN recently contributed to this debate by sponsoring the Mashed Library event which was facilitated by Owen Stephens, Imperial College. My contribution has been in exploring best practices for exploiting the potential of Library 2.0. I presented a paper on “Library 2.0: Balancing the Risks and Benefits to Maximise the Dividends” at the Bridging Worlds 2008 conference on “Libraries in the 2.0 Age and Beyond” held at the National Library of Singapore and gave an updated version of the talk at the Nordlib 2.0 conference on “Nordlib 2.0 - Get Inspired by Web 2.0 for Libraries” held at Aula Magna, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden on 21st November 2008.
It was a privilege to be asked to give the final talk at the conference, and to have a full hour to describe my thoughts on how libraries should go about “Realising The Potential of Web 2.0“.
The conference blog provides more information about the conference and the talks which were given. The talks were streamed live and the videos are currently being edited and will be uploaded shortly. In addition I used a Flip camera to record my own talk and this is available on Google Video (and Blip.tv) and embedded below.
In addition I have used Zentation to synch the video with the PowerPoint slides, as illustrated below. The slides are also available on Slideshare.
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I hope these different versions of the talk are useful. But if I was to provide only one version of the talk what, I wonder, should it be. The PowerPoint file on the UKOLN Web site, the HTML equivalent, the Slideshare manifestation (with the ability to be embedded elsewhere), the original .AVI file (warning, large file), the Google Video or Blip.TV video of the talk or the synched version of the talk and the slides on Zentation? And is the provision of a variety of versions a sensible precaution at a time when the sustainability of Web 2.0 may be questionable or confusing to the end user?
Posted in Events, Web2.0 Tagged: nordlib2008My recent talk on “Library 2.0: Balancing the Risks and Benefits to Maximise the Dividends” at the Bridging Worlds 2008 conference held in Singapore on 16-17th October (which was possibly the first Library 2.0 conference in Asia) brought back memories of the first time I spoke at a conference - the INET 94/JENC5 conference held in June 1994 in Prague in which I presented a paper entitled “Becoming an information provider on the WWW“.
I can recall how nervous I felt when I submitted my first paper to an international conference and wondered how I would cope with having to go onto a big stage (I later discovered that the auditorium held 1,000 people). While I was waiting to hear if the paper had been accepted I went on holiday to Victoria Falls. And wile I was there I decided to take a trip white-water rafting. After all, I convinced myself, if I can do this, I can do anything, including giving a paper at an international conference. So I did the trip - and even afterwards booked to go bunjee-jumping off the Victoria Falls Bridge (I was told it was the world’s highest commercial bunjee jump). However the jump were cancelled on the day due to bad weather, so I had to console myself with the fact that I had been white-water rafting down the mighty Zambesi. I went on to present my paper at the conference, and have subsequently spoken at international conferences held in France, Portugal, Hungary, USA, Canada, Japan, Taiwan and, most recently, Singapore. And all thanks to overcoming my nerves by going white-water rafting! (Although knowing bit about the Web probably helped too :-).
These thoughts came back to me after I’d given my talk at the Bridging Worlds conference. As I mentioned the talk was entitled “Library 2.0: Balancing the Risks and Benefits to Maximise the Dividends” and in order to demonstrate an approach I take in balancing risks and benefits I described how the slides for the talk were available online with a Creative Commons licence. I also explained that I was happy for my talk to be recorded or broadcast or for the talk to be blogged live - and described that I was using a Flip video camera to record my talk, and would subsequently make this available on Google Video. I explained the reasons I was doing this. I was aware of possible risks - I might make mistakes in my talk which would be preserved for other to see, for example. However I also explained the benefits of doing this - I was speaking at the conference as I had a message I wanted to communicate, and I wanted to maximise the impact of the message and the audience - and I felt that this could be helped by the ‘amplification’ of my talk using a variety of networked technologies.
And it seems that this explanation was appreciated, with Ivan Chew (ramblinglib on Twitter) and a fellow speaker at the conference commenting:
“Brilliant: your explanation of how you weighed the risks Vs benefits of allowing others to vid/ blog/ record your talk“
Ivan went on to further summarise my talk in a subseqent blog post.
I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling that many speakers do take risks when they give presentations - and that this comes with the territory. And participating in amplified conferences can then be seen as a natural extension of the risk-taking and not being fashionable or being rude.
Posted in Events, Web2.0 Tagged: bw2008On Saturday (13 September 2008) I attended my first Barcamp - the Bathcamp08 event held at Invention Studios in Bath. I was present at the conception of this event, in a cafe in Montreal where Mike Ellis floated the idea and explored possible themes with myself, Mia Ridge and Frankie Roberto on the day after the end of the Museums and the Web 2008 conference. It was initially suggested that the Barcamp should have a focus on the role of IT and the Web in cultural heritage organisations. However during the planning for the event is seems that this suggestion was dropped and the event didn’t have a particular single theme to it. What it did have, though, was a lot of enthusiasm and friendly vibes across a more diverse set of participants than I normally encounter, with free-lance software developers, people working in small Web development companies and from Web design and marketing agencies, developers from large companies as well as a handful from the academic and cultural heritage sectors.
As the attendees were mostly very active users of various Web 2.0 technologies and services much of the discussions, comments and reflections of the event took place on Twitter using the ‘bathcamp08′ tag, with photos being uploaded to Flickr and slides to Slideshare using this tag and other resources, including blog posts about the event, should be available using this tag. There is also a Bathcamp08 Pageflakes page which aggregates the various RSS feeds associated with the event. And finally I should mention that there are a number of video recordings of the event available, including MIke Ellis’s introduction to Bathcamp08.
With so many other comments about the event likely to be published soon I’ll not attempt to summarise the event, except to thank Mike Ellis (in particular) and the other organisers of the event (including Tim Beadle, Frankie Roberto, Matt Jukes and Mike’s Eduserv colleagues) for ensuring the event was such a success.
The Barcamp rules expect first-timers to participate actively at the event, and not just be passive lurkers. I had floated the idea of a double-act with Dave Briggs (whom I’ve not met but have had a couple of Twitter conversations with) on the use of Web 2.0 in public sector organisations, with a focus on the barriers rather than the potential barriers. However Dave couldn’t make the event, which meant some last minute updating of my slides for my 40 minute session, which I decided to call “Web 2.0: Time For Serious Thinking!” - a reference to a talk Mike Ellis and myself gave at the Museums and the Web 2007 conference on “Web 2.0: How to Stop Thinking and Start Doing”.
My slides are available on Slideshare and are also embedded below.
As the Bathcamp was an informal and friendly event I had the opportunity to be sceptical about our previous paper, using the example of the enthusiastic Web 2.0 developer (which I called an ‘Ellis‘) who has a valuable role to play in the early stages of a new technology in getting the involvement of other developers and early adopters. However once the initial period of excitement has died down, there’s a need for the more serious thinking to take place. This will include the need to address the various barriers to the use of Web 2.0 which I have encountered in recent workshop, including, most recently, the Sharing Made Simple: An Introduction to the Social Web workshop I facilitated for organisations in the cultural heritage sector in Wales. As documented on the event wikithe barriers for museums, libraries and archives include:
Corporate Depts (eg IT, Corporate Image etc)- need to get political partners on board to apply pressure via SMT
Need for Higher Level Education- fear of impacts of negative return from Web 2.0 - “it’s chaos”. Especially at SnrManager level. Need for realistic risk management.
Computer Literacy (public) - would we be excluding a generation who don’t use this tech but visual content can be more appealing to those with poor literacy.
Training/ Staff Knowledge - How do we get people’s knowledge and skills up to scratch?
Time - How do we resource this work? Who has the time?
Evaluation- how do you evaluate this work as being worthwhile? How do we get our paymasters to say that these are OK in terms of our KPIs?
Legislation & Procedures - DDA, DPA etc
Sustainability - of Software and activity. How do you work with services with which you have no SLA? How do you make sure this continues in the long term? Who might support us?
Choosing Software - how do we select the right product?
Duplication of Effort (eg. with Corporate Website) - is this a waste of time? Will it be contradictory?
Getting People to Use It - If we build it, will they come? What’s a ‘good’ level to judge ourselves against?
Abuse & Bad Publicity - How do we deal with this? What if it all goes wrong and gets in the papers? Could I lose my job?
Cost - Who pays? How?
Anyone have any suggestions as to how these barriers can be addressed? Or even comments as to whether these barriers are real?
The term ‘amplified conference’ was, I believe coined in a blog post by Lorcan Dempsey in which he observed that ” It is interesting to watch how more conferences are amplifying their effect through a variety of network tools and collateral communication“.
It will be noted that Lorcan didn’t seek to define what he meant by the term, but was merely observing a pattern of uses of networked technologies at events being made, in Lorcan’s example, at a number of JISC events, although such uses predate this as I described in a paper on “Using Networked Technologies To Support Conferences” published in June 2005.
But we don’t seem to have an agreed definition of the term. And this can be problematic, especially if we decide that we want to host an ‘amplified conference’.
So I thought I’d set the ball rolling by describing what I mean by an amplified conference.
The term amplified conference describes a conference or similar event in which the talks and discussions at the conference are ‘amplified’ through use of networked technologies in order to extend the reach of the conference deliberations.
The term is not a prescriptive one, but rather describes a pattern of behaviors which initially took place at IT and Web-oriented conferences once WiFi networks started to become available at conference venues and delegates started to bring with them networked devices such as laptops and, more recently, PDAs and mobile phones.
We can observe a number of ways in which conferences can be amplified through use of networked technologies:
Amplification of the audiences’ voice: Prior to the availability of real time chat technologies at events (whether use of IRC, Twitter, instant messaging clients, etc.) it was only feasible to discuss talks with immediate neighbours, and even then this may be considered rude.
Amplification of the speaker’s talk: The availability of video and audio-conferencing technologies make it possible for a speaker to be heard by an audience which isn’t physically present at the conference. Although use of video technologies has been available to support conferences for some time, this has normally been expensive and require use of dedicated video-conferencing tecnologies. However the availability of of lightweight desktop tools make it much easier to deploy such technologies, without even, requiring the involvement of conference organisers.
Amplification across time: Video and audio technologies can also be used to allow a speaker’s talk to be made available after the event, with use of podcasting or videocasting technologies allowing the talks to be easily syndicated to mobile devices as well as accessed on desktop computers.
Amplification of the speaker’s slides: The popularity of global repository services for slides, such as Slideshare, enable the slies used by a speaker to be more easily found, embedded on other Web sites and commented upon, in ways that were not possible when the slides, if made available at all, were only available on a conference Web site.
Amplification of feedback to the speaker: Micro-blogging technologies, such as Twitter, are being used not only as a discussion channel for conference participants but also as a way of providing real-time feedback to a speaker during a talk. We are also now seeing dedicated microblogging technologies, such as Coveritlive and Scribblelive, being developed which aim to provide more sophisticated ‘back channels’ for use at conferences.
Amplification of a conference’s collective memory: The popularity of digital cameras and the photographic capabilities of many mobile phones is leading to many photographs being taken at conferences. With such photographs often being uploaded to popular photographic sharing services, such as Flickr, and such collections being made more easy to discovered through agreed use of tags, we are seeing amplification of the memories of an event though the sharing of such resources. The ability of such photographic resources to be ‘mashed up’ with, say, accompanying music, can similarly help to enrich such collective experiences (such as the Animoto clips of IWMW 2007 and UKOLN’s Exploiting The Potential Of Blogs and Social Networks Workshop).
Amplification of the learning: The ability to be able to follow links to resources and discuss the points made by a speaker during a talk can enrich the learning which takes place at an event, as described by Shabajee’s article on “‘Hot’ or Not? Welcome to real-time peer review” published in the Times Higher Educational Supplement in May 2003.
Long term amplification of conference outputs: The availability in a digital format of conference resources, including ‘official’ resources such as slides, video and audio recordings, etc. which have been made by the conference organisers with the approval of speakers, together with more nebulous resources such as archives of conference back channels, and photographs and unofficial recordings taken at the event may help to provide a more authentic record of an event, which could potentially provide a valuable historical record.
Well that’s my initial attempt at trying to define what I understand by the term ‘amplified conference’. I should add that in this post I’m not discussing any of the limitations of amplified conferences (which I’ve commented on previously). My final comment is to point out that I actually organise ‘amplified workshops’ and ‘amplified seminars’ but neither of these terms seem to have the resonance of ‘amplified conference’. So I suspect we should probably stick with this term to refer to a range of events.
Does this definition work for you?
The Internet Librarian International Conference Is Ten
This year sees the 10th anniversary of the Internet Librarian International (ILI) conference. This year’s event, ILI 2008, will be held at Novotel London West, London, UK on 16-17th October 2008. And, unfortunately, it will be the first ILI conference I won’t be able to attend. I have spoken at all of the ILI conferences and have also been a member of the programme committee and chaired sessions for a number of years.
My Involvement In ILI Conferences
Details of all of my talks at ILI are available on the UKOLN Web site. In light of the forthcoming anniversary I thought it would be interesting to produce a timeline of my involvement with the conference. I used the Dipity software to produce the timeline of my involvement in the ILI conference series, as illustrated below (and I should add that an embedded version of this is available on the UKOLN Web site, which also provides access to a locally managed copy of the data, so that potentially the service can be recreated if the Dipity service is not sustainable).
The conference has been of particular relevance to UKOLN, as it has provided an opportunity to actively engage with the communities served by both of our core funders: the academic libraries and the JISC development community together with those working in public libraries. Producing this timeline has provided a useful opportunity to observe and reflect the topics which have been of interest to these communities over this time.
Talks On Web Standards
My first talk was entitled “New Standards on the Web” and I described emerging new Web standards, including a range of XML standards (XLink and XPointer) and RDF. Looking back at the presentation (and the references to related work such as Eric Miller slide’s on support for RDF in Netscape) I can see how naive I as in my expectation that the emerging new W3C standards would be quickly deployed in a mainstream service environment. I gave another talk on standards at ILI 2003 entitled “HTML Is Dead! A Web Standards Update” in which I avoided the complexities of Semantic Web standards and focussed on data formats including SVG and SMIL. Again I was soon able to appreciate that the market place had little interest in these standards, although my comments on the importance of and XML and CSS, for example, were appropriate and timely. The final talk I gave related to Web standards was given at ILI 2005 and was entitled “Facing The Challenges Of A Standards-Based Approach To Web Development“. Here I reflected on the failure of various Web standards to gain acceptance in the marketplace and described the ‘contextual approach to use of open standards’ which I had been involved in developed for the JISC to help avoid repeating the costly mistakes made in the past when open standards (e.g. Coloured Book software) had continued to be advocated even after their failures had been widely acknowledged.
Web Accessibility
A talk on “Benchmarking Of Library Web Sites” given at ILI 2002 included a description of use of automated Web accessibility testing tools. The following year, at ILI 2003, I took part in a Web accessibility panel session entitled “Web Site Accessibility: Too Difficult To Implement?” and this time I gave one of my first presentations in which I argued that the traditional approaches to providing accessible Web resources, based on implementation of WCAG guidelines, was flawed. Two years later the joint UKOLN/Techdis holistic approach to Web accessibility had been developed and at ILI 2005 I was able to run a half day workshop with Lawrie Phipps on “A Holistic Approach To Web Usability, Accessibility And Interoperability“.
Best Practices For Publishing E-Journals
ILI conferences have provided a dissemination opportunity for various projects I have been involved in. I gave a talk on “Electronic Magazines: Issues in Implementation” at ILI 2000 which described the EU-funded Exploit Interactive e-journal. The following year, at ILI 2001, Marieke Guy and myself ran a half-day workshop session on “Publishing Web Magazines, e-Journals & Webzines“, the first of four workshop sessions I have facilitated at ILI conferences.
Other Areas
Other topics which I’ve covered at ILI conferences have included advertising on Web sites (at ILI 2001), new devices on the Web (ILI 2002) and quality assurance for Web sites (a half day workshop at ILI 2004).
Web 2.0
Since ILI 2004 the main focus of my involvement at ILI has been related to Web 2.0. The first talk was entitled “Beyond E-mail! Wikis, Blogs and Social Networking Software“, with a talk on “The Sceptics View Of New Technologies” being given in a panel session at the ILI 2004 event.
A talk on “Email Must Die!” at ILI 2005 described the benefits of various Web-based collaborative and communications tools, and, at the same event I continued to argue the need to adopt a critical approach to the new technologies with a talk on “Folksonomies - The Sceptics View“.
I was invited to chair a session on Wikis at ILI 2006 and, due to the late unavailability of one of the invited speakers, also gave a brief talk on “Reflections On Personal Experiences In Using Wikis“. My main talk that year was on “Web 2.0 and Library 2.0: Addressing Institutional Barriers“.
Finally at ILI 2007 Kara Jones and myself ran a masterclass on “Using Blogs Effectively Within Your Library” and I gave a talk on “The Blogging Librarian: Avoiding Institutional Inertia“.
Returning To ILI 2008
I had intended to participate at the ILI 2008 conference, but as I have been invited to present a paper at the Bridging Worlds 2008 conference, I will unfortunately not be able to attend. I will be there in spirit, though with my colleagues Marieke Guy and Ann Chapman this year facilitating the half-day blogging workshop.
I would like to take this opportunity to give my thanks to everyone who has helped to make the ILI conference series such a great success, especially the conference organisers (including Marydee Ojala, Jane Dysart, Nancy Garman, David Raitt, Bill Spence, Jean Mulligan) and the people I’ve met at ILI (too numerous to mention, but I should include Michael Stephens, Mary Peterson, Frank Cervone, Karen Blakeman, Phil Bradley, Darlene Fichter and Peter Scott). All my best wish to everyone at ILI 2008 - and all the best for the next 10 years.
In February 2008 I asked the question “Is Southampton Setting A New Standard For Institutional Web Sites?“. There was subsequently a lively discussion about the iSoton service, with Helen Aspell, Head of Digital Marketing at the University of Southampton and the person who led this collaborative project, describing the background to this work.
But in addition to the main iSoton page, which provides access to information about the University of Southampton held on Web 2.0 services including Youtube, Flickr and Wikipedia, it is also work noting the approach taken to the provision of a search interface for resources at the University of Southampton. The search page is illustrated below.
It is interesting to observe the single search box used for searching (on the top row) publications, people and experts and (on the bottom row) the main University of Southampton Web site and all Web sites at the University of Southampton.
And although the Search publications option allows you to refine a search or start an advanced search, this isn’t the case with the other searches.
Does this, I wonder, reflect the evidence that very few users ever make use of the advanced search capabilities? Or is this a worrying trend, a dumbing down of search for what should be typically an intelligent group of users?
I have to say that I’m looking forward to hearing Helen give a talk about the iSoton service at this year’s Institutional Web Management Workshop (IWMW 2008). Alison Widish, head of Web Services at the University of Bath recently commented on a presentation by Helen at the CASE 2008 conference: “I eagerly awaited Helen’s talk and I wasn’t disappointed“. Alison went on to say:
Overall I was really impressed with Southampton not just with the website (which I find visually appealing and easy to use) but with the way the University LIVE their brand. It’s incredibly important to know who you are as an Institution and to provide an experience which reflects that… and it’s great to see this being carried across to the web.
Lots of food for thought!
And as this year’s theme for IWMW 2008 is “The Great Debate” I’m sure Helen’s talk on the first day of the event will help to contribute to the discussions on future directions for both the institutional Web site and institutional approaches to search. But if you can’t make it to Aberdeen, feel free to engage in the debate here.
My colleague Marieke Guy together with the JISC-PoWR project partners at ULCC have announced details of a workshop on “Preservation of Web Resources: Making a Start” - this one-day workshop will take place on Friday 27th June 2008 at the Senate House Library, University of London.
The JISC-PoWR project runs until the end of September 2008 and will run three workshops which will aim to identify best practices for preserving Web sites. The key deliverable of the project will be a handbook which will document the challenges to be addressed in Web site preservation in a number of areas which will include key institutional Web services (e.g. the prospectus), project Web sites (which have clear termination dates) and, a particular challenge for the project, the preservation issues associated with use of Web 2.0 services.
The first workshop will be free to attend (although there will be a penalty for non-shows), with the second workshop being held as part of the IWMW 2008 event at the University of Aberdeen on 23rd July.
Please sign up now if you would like to attend. And I’d you can’t make it but have an interest in the preservation of Web resource, why not subscribe to the JISC-PoWR blog - and, rather than being a passive reader, join in the discussions. Topics we’d be interested in hearing about include (a) how institutions are currently addressing the preservation of key institutional Web-based services (such as the prospectus); (b) the approaches you may be taken to short-term project Web sites (whether JISC-funded or institutionally-funded and (c) your views on the preservation of data and services provided by externally-hosted Web 2.0 services.
In a recent blog post on the Cultural Interpretation & Creative Education blog Bridget McKenzie summarised the MLA and HLF views on 21st C Curation which were presented at a seminar given at UCL on 30 mApril 2008.
Carole Souter, CEO of the HLF informed the audience that “‘We’re getting tough with people” and went on to say that “If you tell us that 200,000 more people are going to look at your website because of it, well, so what? How do you know they have really been engaged?“. The importance of user engagement was echoed by Roy Clare, CEO of MLA. In a comment on a project funded by the NOF-digitse programme he asked: “How they [the users] would engage with it?“.
I am really pleased that such views are being expressed so clearly by senior managers of public sector bodies. In the past I’ve been concerned an an emphasis on blunt usage statistics. But now the emphasis in the museums sector is on the quality of the user experience and user engaement. And, as Bridget observed, Carole Souter’s “suggestion was that if you are going to include digitisation into an HLF bid, it would have to involve people in specific thematic projects of local interest“.
If funding will only be available for digitisation projects which enable users to actively engage with the digitised content, then this, to me, seems to be sending strong signals that a Web 2.0 approach should be taken.
And one approach to enable users to be able to engage with the content is through the provision of blogs as, in a UK context, Ingrid Beazley demonstrated at the Museums and the Web 2008 conference with a session entitled “Reach new audiences, increase numbers of visitors, and become a major part of the local community by using online social networking sites and blogs“. As described in her abstract Dulwich Picture Gallery has “experienced marked successes with our user driven, dialogue friendly Facebook and Flickr sites” and “there is considerable buzz around our plans for 2008, including the launch of our online magazine blog with which we are building a Gallery associated community“.
But how should museums go about establishing and sustaining their blogs - and also exploiting the potential of social networking services? Well I’m pleased to say that this is a topic I will be talking about at the Museum Heritage 2008 show at London Olympia on Wednesday 7thM May 2008. If any readers of this blog from the museus sector are planning to attend this event, I’d love to chat with you. But if you can’t attend, then my slides are available on Slideshare - and are also embedded in this blog post.
Your feedback is welcome.
