Background

Not much time is available for the discussion groups, so please try and focuss on the activities.

Please ensure that a note-keeper is available for your group. The note-keeper will ideally keep notes on this wiki.

Discussion Group Session 1

Exercise 1: Social Networks for professional development

There is a lot of interest in use of social networking tools and exploiting these tools in education. In this session discussion how these tools can help to support the Web Management Community.

The group focussed discussions on moving forward as a web management community and the development of online communities.

Members felt that there were several issues in developing a robust online community, including:

• exclusion of others (online only communities)
• active participation of those who belong to the community
• the number of communities that already exist and the topics/themes being discussed in them
• time to devote in administration
• which tools are the most effective in getting members to actively participate in the community
• engaging those who may not be part of an educational institution
• continuuing to meet up/talk to one another outside formal conference settings
  

Exercise 2: Barriers

What barriers do you forsee in using these technologies?

This discussion will lead into the next discussion session in which you will discuss the potential use of social networking tools.

The group expressed that although they are part of the JISC mailing list, most are 'onlookers' or 'observers' than active participants. Reasons for this are varied but include:

• not knowing who's actually on the list
• fear of asking a 'stupid' question
• time constraints

It was felt that perhaps a discussion forum would be a better tool for the web management community to use, rather than a mailing list. There would be distinct discussion areas. Examples expressed include:

• Starter area - Beginner's Guide
• Distinct Subject Areas - Web Editing, Marketing, Help with Code/Bugs, CMS, Analytics, etc.
• Awareness service - sharing information, 'what's new'
  
• Socials/Meet-Ups
• Chat - Gabbly
  

It is also important to note that a discussion group on its own would be difficult to sustain if it was the only means of communication between the community. Promotion and encouragement from 'administrators' in the community should include regular email, provision of RSS, etc to update members of the community to participate in the forum.

Discussion Group Session 2

In your group revisit the issues that you identified on day 1. Seek to identify solutions to the barriers discussed and suggest ways in which social networking tools could potentially be used to enhance the ‘community’ aspect of the Web management community. Please provide feedback in the wiki.

The group were enthusiastic in setting up a discussion forum for the community. This will be supplemented by regional meet-ups and similar, but the group refrained from discussing the operational aspects of setting up with discussion forum until feedback has been received from the other groups as it did not want to duplicate any identical/similar ideas.

It was felt that the discussion board would benefit from the support/push of the the JISC community.