Brian Kelly will give a pre-recorded presentation of a talk on "Personal or Institutional Use of Social Web Services For Scholarly Communication?"at the Scholarly Communication Landscape: Opportunities and Challenges symposium to be held at The Manchester Conference Centre, Manchester on 30 November 2010. See http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/online/scl-2010/

1. 1
Personal or Institutional Use of Social Web
Services For Scholarly Communication?

2. UKOLN is supported by:
Personal or Institutional Use of Social Web
Services For Scholarly Communication?
Brian Kelly
UKOLN
University of Bath
Bath
UK
http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/online/scl-2010/http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/online/scl-2010/
This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-
ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat)
About This Talk
Social Web services, such as blogs, have
been used successfully by early adopters.
But should we now see such services
being migrated to the institutional
environment in order to address
institutional concerns? Or should the
institution seek to exploit the benefits of
such out-sourced approaches?
About This Talk
Social Web services, such as blogs, have
been used successfully by early adopters.
But should we now see such services
being migrated to the institutional
environment in order to address
institutional concerns? Or should the
institution seek to exploit the benefits of
such out-sourced approaches?Email:
b.kelly@ukoln.ac.uk
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/briankelly/
Blog:
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/

3. Social Networks
• Focus on individual, not the institution3

4. Ouseful.info
blog by Tony
Hirst
Relaunched in
July 2008
Original blog
launched in
March 2005
4

5. 5
Martin Weller’s
Ed Techie Blog.
Launched in May
2006

6. 6
Steve Wheeler’s
Learning with ‘E’s blog
Launched in
December 2006

7. 7
eFoundations blog,
provided by Andy
Powell & Pete Johnson
Launched in Sept 2006

8. 8
Marieke Guy’s
Ramblings of a
Remote Worker blog.
Launched in Sept 2008

9. My ‘Must Read’ Blogs
Characteristics of my ‘must-read’ blogs:
• Ouseful.info: hosted at
ouseful.wordpress.com
• Ed Techie: hosted at
nogoodreasons.typepad.com
• eFoundations: hosted at
efoundation.typepad.com
• Learning with ‘e’s: hosted at
steve-wheeler.blogspot.com
• Ramblings of a Remote Worker: hosted at
remoteworker.wordpress.com
Hosted outside the institution
9
EarlyAdopters

10. Early Adopters
Characteristics of established & successful
early adopters:
• Willing to take risks
• Passionate about communicating
• Identified ways of balancing personal
approaches & institutional concerns
• Have developed established communities
• Want to continue to do a good job
10
EarlyAdopters

11. Acceptance by Organisations
Increasingly the institutional perspective is:
• We must use blogs
• We need a Twitter account
Situation today:
• Social Web widely accepted
• Evidence of ROI, value, etc. still needed
But:
• Where does early adopter work fit in?
• Should existing approaches be continued?
11
EarlyAdopters

12. Institutional Concerns
Concerns regarding use of Social Web being:
• On-message: having an authoritative,
consistent & authentic voice
• Appropriate: relevant to organisation’s
mission
• Legal: not being sued!
• Present: not disappearing over holidays
or when author leaves
12
Concerns

13. Changes to Terms & Conditions
13
Concerns
Ning changed their terms and conditions in 2010,
removing the free service

14. Blog Dies
Blogs which
are
abandoned
14
Risks that
abandoned
blogs attract
comment
spam

15. 15
Blogs can also
disappear

16. Inappropriate Content
16
Story
Council blocks Twitter due to
tweet saying “A squirrel could
run rings around journalist”
(meant to be private message)

17. Addressing the Concerns
Appropriation of Professional Uses
• Close down blogs, Twitter accounts, …
• Requirement to use institutionally
approved accounts
Professional Responses to Institutional
Concerns
• What goes here?
Leave Well Alone
• Accept the risks
• Avoid confrontation
17
AddressingConcerns

18. Inappropriate Content
18
Story
Council blocks Twitter due to “A
squirrel could run rings around
journalist” tweet (meant to be
private message)
Parallel
Email message sent to list rather
than individual.
Email service suspended
How To Respond
Training and advice on when
mistakes are made (e.g. apologise)

19. Blog Dies
19
Abandoned
blogs may be
hosted in the
institution
Miles
Metcalfe is
now based in
Shanghai –
and has no
access to
institutional
account
(though he
would be able
to update
Cloud blog).

20. 20
In-house blogs can
disappear – and reappear
due to value placed on
them by their owner

21. 21
The revived
Auricle blog,
which the
author cared
about.
Now at http://www.auricle.org/auriclewp/

22. Experience at
Croydon Council
illustrates the
need for
lightweight and
flexible policies
22
Lightweight Policies
Mosman Council
provides an
example of a
lightweight policy
for Twitter
Policies

23. Managed Closure
23
There’s a need to
manage the closure of
Social Web services
(in-house or external)

24. 24
iPres 2010 paper on
“Approaches to archiving
professional blogs hosted
in the cloud” gives advice
on best practices for
closing blogs

25. JISC Use of Social Media
25
Increasing about of
usage of Social Web
services by JISC

26. Popularity of iTunes for OU
“The Open University (OU) today reached a milestone
as the first university to hit 20 million downloaded
tracks on iTunes U, a dedicated area within the iTunes
Store (www.itunes.com). With an average of over a
quarter of a million downloads per week*, the OU’s
popularity has soared since content was first made
available on iTunes U in June 2008.”
26
Institutions are using Social Web services, but what about individuals?

27. A University Perspective
27
Article on academics’
personal home pages
published in THE

28. Personal Web Sites (1)
28
Professor David
Gauntlett’s Web
site

29. Personal Web Sites (2)
29
Professor Robert
West’s Web site

30. Personal Web Sites (3)
30
Dr Jim Wilde’s
Web site

31. Exemplar
31
Jo-Anne Alcock’s blog
as an exemplar,
launched in June 2007
Jo-Anne
Alcock’s blog
continues in
her new role at
BCU
http://www.joeyanne.co.uk/

32. Moving From Personal to
Organisational Use?
What moves:
• The data and the service?
• The contacts, the comments, the social
graph?
• The expertise, the approaches, …?
The organisation moves:
• To make greater use of Cloud Services
• To accept that staff may leave the
organisation & take (copies of) their content
• To appreciate and value staff commitment
32

33. Individual Responsibilities
Context:
• Many information professionals use the
Social Web to fulfil business objectives
• The ownership of the underlying
technologies is no longer as important
Implications:
• Need to adopt (and be seen to adopt)
approaches which address concerns of
organisations and others
33

34. Social Web Audit
Memo
From: PVC (Sustainability)
To: HoDs
As agreed at Senate all departments must
provide an audit of use of Social Web services
used for departmental/institutional purposes.
In the audit you must provide:
• Details of third party services used
• A risk assessment
• Strategies for addressing risks
34

35. Blog Example
Aline Hayes, Assistant Director of SLS/
Director of Information & Systems Technology
at Sheffield Hallam University
35

36. Blog Policy (2)
Policies For This Blog
This blog is hosted by Sheffield Hallam University,
therefore the content of this blog belongs to them
and remains theirs in the event that I either cease to
contribute to this blog, or leave the University.
Policies for the use of & inclusion of Twitter Feeds
The content of any Twitter feed relates to a mix of
work and personal matters. … Staff who choose to
follow me on Twitter are assumed to be happy that I
may follow them in return … I reserve the right to
treat the Twitter id Aline_Hayes as mine & not the
property of SHU36

37. Blog Policies
Blog policy for UK Web Focus blog
37

38. A Scientist’s Approach
38
Full disclosure page
on Cameron Neylon’s
blog covers:
• Ownership
• Responsibilities
• Finances
• Copyright
• …
http://cameronneylon.net/about/disclaimers-and-full-disclosure/

39. Professionalisation
39
Guidelines for JISCinvolve
blogs covers in-house blogs.
Guidelines on writing is
applicable generally.
• Supporting organisation’s goals
• Personal responsibilities
• Personal style
• Legal issues
• Blogs are about links

40. Cloud Services As Saviour
Risks of:
• Reduction in funding across public sector
organisations
• Loss of staff, technical expertise and in-house
services
Therefore need for:
• Scenario planning
• Contingency plans for outsourcing to Cloud
services
• Education and trust in staff offset loss of in-
house solutions
40

41. Conclusions
• The Social Web is here and to stay
• Institutions are now recognising that
approaches taken by early adopters have
provided benefits
• In-house Social Web services are being
implemented – but may not be ideal
• There is a need for a mixed environment
• Library staff may be well-positioned to
demonstrate responsible approaches for
working in this environment
41

42. 42
Questions
Questions are welcome – you can engage in
discussions on UK Web Focus blog. See
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2010/11/30/
TBC