Discussion group: The Web Management Community

Session chaired by the wonderful Mike McConnell of the University of Aberdeen
Notes by the wonderful Debbie Nicholson of the University of Essex

5 minutes to meet up and introduce each other…. “What do you want to get out of the conference?”

• Good Dinner
• Meet other people who are going through the same experiences as ourselves
• Meet other people who are at the same stage of development
• Having moved from MIS to the web side of things – need to see what it’s like on the other side
• Social Networking
• Sharing/stealing ideas

Social Networks for professional development

There is a lot of interest in the use of social networking tools and exploiting these tools in education. In this session you discuss how these tools can support the Web Management Community. Various tools are already used to facilitate social networking: Mailing Lists, Bebo, MySpace…. What else do people use?

Team wiki:

• Very informal
• Used for 6 months
• Written in wiki markup

Issues:

• Staff too old to embrace this… …This point was argued as ageist, it was later agreed that there were many other reasons why staff would shy away from this technology.

• Too lazy

• Too busy

• Too senior – I have work slaves to do that for me(!)

• Although simple when you know what to do, a common complaint was not having the time to learn a new technology.

Wiki for writing a report: One institution set up a wiki for a report writing exercise in collaboration with external consultants.

Issues: Although they could see the benefits of using the wiki for writing the report, most users e-mailed their comments in for someone else to add them to the wiki.

Discussion forums: It was decided that it would be difficult for senior staff to take part in a discussion in the same way less senior staff could, as often once they have given their opinion it is taken as final and therefore more difficult for that topic to still be up for discussion.

Fashion: Fashion often dictates which technology is used. There is reluctance to put all our efforts into creating new technologies, passing it out around the institution, and then people stop using it as technology has moved on, something better is needed. Would it be better to just embrace new technologies as they are created? Use programmes such as Facebook, mySpace, Bebo and then when fashion moves on, just move with it? Move on to the next new technology.

What else could we do:

Back up mailing lists with central resources

• Problem with mailing list is it’s quite tricky to retrieve information. If you need the answer to a question you really have to search for it.

• Emails can get a bit much to deal with if you don’t read them at the time. You end up with a long list of unread mail and no time to do anything about it.

• Technologies move on so quickly, it’s more efficient to repost a question than trust the archive of information.

Wiki/Blog/Feed

• IWMW have been using a wiki for years…do people *really* use it to its full potential though?

• Who would be responsible for adding data?

  • Could we add information from the mailing list?

• Who would be responsible for maintaining the site/feed…taking any inappropriate material off?

• Would people add anything at all, would it just be the same few doing all the work?

• What should go on there?

• Bit of a busman’s holiday having to do all the web work for the IWMW community when that is your job too!

• Conference Wiki seen only as facility for the conference period – how could we change that?

Regional Groups

Scottish Web Folk meet quarterly – set up a local area for each region?

Issues:

• Travel

• One person having to take the lead and get it up and running

• Either one person always responsible for organising each even or complications of taking it in turns

RSS Jisc news feed into Facebook?

Blogging:

• Around 80-90% of people who set up a blog never go back to it.

• Could be used for news rather than an HTML site.

Issues:

• Problems with getting people to use it in the first instance though.

Facebook:

• Facebook is informal, can target one person or a whole group

• Allows the community to build as you can see faces and get to know people

  • Doesn’t work when people use Homer as their picture though.

• Facebook gives a personality to mailing list type activities.

Issues:

• Issues with linking to an area outside of the University website. Taking people away from your website when they’ve just got there. Also not being able to link back to the University very easily.

• Have to have the University address in case someone else does!!!

• What if they close Facebook tomorrow?

  • § Exit strategy!!!

  • § Would we get the archive back?

  • § Would we be able to easily transfer it into another programme?

• Are there issues with mixing business with pleasure? Having personal information on a site that is used for work?

• Are potential employers checking out online sites for information about candidates who are being interviewed? Is this good or bad?

• Risk with external hosting

• Multiple log ins

  • § One institution planning single log on authenticated by Google or Hotmail which could also be used for external site.

  • § Do we trust them though…? Are these all really barriers??

Face to face interaction: We need face to face interaction. Would video conferencing be a suitable alternative? Would it facilitate building a ‘community’? It’s used widely for training and meetings but not on an informal basis. You wouldn’t be able to achieve that informal freedom you have at the conference with someone you’ve actually met. But what about video conferencing with people you have met? Might need a specific purpose to start the conferencing in the first place…

Skype/IM

• SMS used fairly widely internally…. Could we make more use of this across institutions though?

• What about Skype or webcams with MSN? Chatting with people you know in a much less formal way…could that work?

Possibilities:

International Collaborations Database Instant access to information about activities being carried out in other countries… · Google mapped · Places and subjects are searchable · Populates as soon as you start to type Could tie into recruitment, click on the map and it would show recruitment agents in your area.

Facebook api – Directory of Experts Facebook is the kind of programme you can dip in and out of… you can change the settings so you receive emails informing you of a posting if you want to, but you can also switch them off. Within a network or main group called IWMW we could have sub-groups. We could have a group for each year of the conference, with conference specific details. Then groups set up for specific activities: css, php, xml etc… A directory of experts area within Facebook would allow access to information, in a personal way. You could see who to contact and know a bit about them before getting in touch. Each person attending the conference could have a profile – go on then, link it from a google map!

Issues:

• Who would be in charge?

• Profiles would need to be developed

• Would one ‘expert’ be inundated with requests for help on a particular subject

  • § Would need a bank of people able to answer questions on each subject.

• Would people be willing to share information?

• Archiving of data

• Control of environment

• Updating and upkeep

• Resources

Actions - as a minimum:

• The Facebook account for IWMW needs to be maintained and encouraged as an ‘all year round’ facility.

• All conference goers should be encouraged to link into this, even if it’s just until we decide what else we can do.

• Users should be encouraged to think how we can make it bigger, something that would make it the centre of the community.