Two positive developments, one could relate to forms of fiction, more later. The other is that OhmyNews have published my story about the Information Security discussion this week. The UK has enough real problems to form a hard news introduction and I managed to include some of my own opinion-

The survey reports UK interest in the ISO 27000 standards but the most recent survey by ISO showed only 486 certificates in the UK compared to 3,790 in Japan.
The basis of ISO27001, the standard used for certification, is the Plan, Do, Check, Act cycle referenced to Dr Deming though he called it the Shewart cycle and the word "Study" is also widely used in place on "Check". The standard describes how an information security system can be established, operated, reviewed and improved. There is a requirement for system review as well as corrective and preventive action. The controls selected for a specific system are a consequence of the management process.

My impression is that this kind of systems approach may not be well accepted in the UK. There appears to be more interest in leadership as a topic than in how organisations learn to adopt in a new context such as that associated with an increased role for information. The approach of finding senior managers to blame when future problems arise may not be as helpful as looking at procedures and culture more widely.

This is the central bit in what I would like to talk about at the "Safety" conference in Lancaster. The ISO standards can be integrated as management because they each have Plan-Do-Study-Act as a basis. Why it works in Japan ok but less in the UK is still a bit of a mystery but OhmyNews is well placed to cover this. It may take a while.

Leadership is obviously part of the discussion but I still think the "learning organisation" topic was dropped too quickly in the UK. "Networked learning" is also part of this. The security is traded off with access so is never complete. Security awareness can come through forms of learning like anything else.

The other development is that WorldTV now offer service to combine web video as a channel. Victor Keegan wrote about it in the Guardian so this an example of the contribution made by professional print journalists, just to make it clear that bloggers recognise this sometimes.

I have strung together the videos of the Lancaster campus, click here for the Bailrigg channel ,starting at Info21 and ending up at the Spicy Hut. the scenario is a journey from a discussion on some proposal that meets some security and communication criteria intended for a client meeting at the Spicy Hut. Will the intention survive critique along the way? World TV allows new video to be inserted in the sequence. It could be from anywhere, a lot of places look much the same. Could end up as fiction or documentary. Text versions could inlcude comments on this blog or there is a Google doc.

I have done a revised version of the proposal for the Protection conference.

Search results, data security, and integrated management


Secure data is valued as an input for any process so is often within the scope of management concern. Web search can be a source for documents, probably with a wider range than an academic library. The paper considers the possibility that danger can be real.


Standards for data security such as ISO27000 can be audited and reviewed together with other aspects of a management system. Comparisons can be made with studies on quality policies. Academics have concentrated on “quality” as a discourse. Wilmott and Wilkinson1 describe the word as having “no meaning”.


Even if the management procedures described in standards are seen as an imaginary there is still a question as to how organisations learn or otherwise change behaviour over time. As with the latest revision of ISO9000, ISO 27000 refers to the PDCA learning cycle and work by Deming. This can be seen as an approach to design.


One area to concentrate on is security around mobile communications. There is currently a trend for material promoting security software to present social networking as a danger. How to balance this with the benefits of web access will be considered taking an internet cafe as a case study. A PayPal account was compromised during 2007, evidence that danger can be real.


The style of presentation is intended to be as close to a workshop as possible. The paper could be combines with others in a session.

The presentation will conclude by looking at Swickis, search engines using a social approach associated with Wikis. Currently there are two shown on a related blog, one for "learning with ISO 9000", one for sciences of protection.

It is concentrating on data security. I think I will understand enough about 27000 by then. It would still be good if other people could be there. Not sure the blog approach can be extended to a conference presentation where the speaker is missing some basic information but it is worth a try.

I have dropped the reference to film scripts. there is a film evening during the conference but this seems to be a different mode to the papers.

I have been thinking about the Networked Learning Conferences, both from the past and coming up soon. What I remember is that the "critique" approach seemed to question whether e-learning was something to engage with. Some of the discussion seemed not to get past this to an engagement with practice. Not sure if I missed where this could have changed. I have found a link to Chris Grey Against Learning and had another look. Not very polite about the web.

Having put up the Flickr photos from the leadership event ( see previous post ) I have noticed more support for such forms of social networking. In e-learning age Jane Hart writes about a toolbox based on surveys of people in educationa and training and hosted by the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies. Most of this seems to be the sort of software usually mentioned anyway in discussion about the web, including Google Docs and Firefox. My guess is that this has mostly come companies and individuals in groups.

I have searched out some photos from Networked Learning 2004 and started a new set on Flickr. ( I reached the 200 limit so have now invested in the pro offer so will carry on loading more from the backlist indefinitely...) There is a spot for comment on Flickr but also the toolbox mentions voicethread, "a collaborative slideshow tool" for linking in audio. So maybe more links will turn up.

On Flickr there are tags for "networkedlearning" and "networklearning" but not much from the conferences.

One topic will be to sort out a definition for "Technology Enhanced Learning". From a Prolearn email I have found a Wikipedia reference. There is a note as of today that the article is not categorised and should be categorised with others of a similar nature. It will be interesting to see if this changes over the next couple of months.

One of the discussions will be about "The Tyranny of Participation and Collaboration in Networked Learning" including claims about "heterotopian spaces". Google is not very useful in explaining heterotopia. The Wikipedia offers a couple of obviously wrong choices and a link to Foucault. Most of the Google results are for journal articles that require payment.

I have found a description of one from Sage-

Shaping e-Access in the Cybercafé: Networks, Boundaries and Heterotopian Innovation
Sonia Liff

Warwick Business School, Warwick University, Sonia.Liff@Warwick.ac.uk

Fred Steward

Brunel Research in Enterprise, Sustainability and Ethics (BRESE), School of Business and Management, Brunel University, Fred.Stward@brunel.ac.uk

The cybercafé is located as an innovative site of e-access emerging in the 1990s. Accounts of its novelty are reviewed. Its distinctiveness as a site linking the `real' and the `virtual' is theorized in terms of social networks and Foucault's concept of heterotopia. The growth and nature of cybercafés in the UK are investigated using data from a number of surveys. The detailed practices of a sample of cybercafés are examined using data from on-site interviews and observations. It is shown that the properties of a heterotopia are expressed in cybercafés, but to differing degrees explained by contrasting types of boundary-spanning practice. It argued that this analysis has implications for the future management and facilitation of e-access in cybercafés.

Key Words: boundary spanning • cybercafé • e-access • heterotopia • information and communication technology (ICT) policy • innovation • network

Maybe some link will suggest more about this. I may pay out for the download but it could be better value to have a couple of hours web access at Life Bytes.

Comments welcome.

I have posted some photos on Flickr from the conference on leadership that happened in Exeter on Monday. There was only a mention of the theme from the previous event when Will Hutton claimed that the context for organisations has been changed by technology and that leadership has to change to cope with this. See PDF of his presentation. However the idea seemed to be accepted. And the Flickr link has been welcomed. There may be a link from the official site.

More later.

The Byron Report appears to concentrate on other dangers from the web, unsuitable content for children. The presentation in media has so far obscured the interest in digital literacy that was in the research. This report could be a productive basis for discussion as there is an alarming discourse around it as well as real issues.

Things may change between now and the Protection conference. So far there has been almost no press coverage of the issues in the quote below.

"There is a long tradition of media education in UK schools, although it has remained fairly marginal to the mainstream curriculum, particularly in primary schools. Paradoxically, media literacy has not been a significant element of the National Literacy Strategy; and the National Curriculum for Information and Communication Technology currently focuses primarily on technical skills rather than on the evaluation of digital content. By contrast, media educators have a well-established conceptual framework, and a developed set of classroom strategies, that are increasingly being extended to digital media such as computer games and the internet (Buckingham, 2003, 2007; Burn and Durran, 2007). Media education involves understanding the processes by which media are produced; analysing the verbal and visual ‘languages’ they use to create meaning; making judgments about how media represent the world; and understanding how audiences are targeted, and how they respond. These approaches generally involve both critical study and creative production of media."

Annex G: The Impact of the Media on Children and Young People with a particular focus on computer games and the internet (PDF, 305kb)

I have started a topic on Guardian Talk - Media-New Media. Fear and web culture. There are links to education but it seems to start as a media issue, at least as reported.

Graphic from the main report. Could be a works instruction. Good to include mention of anti-virus software.

Information Security

The ISO survey (PDF link) published in 2007 included for the first time a section on ISO/IEC 27001:2005, a management system for information security. My interest has been in ISO 9000 but there is an overlap in how management systems work through documentation and learning. Standards could be relevant for the current research project. The Management School did contribute to the KE project.

In the UK there is now declining interest in ISO9000. However the number of certificates on the planet continues to increase. I wrote a story on this for OhmyNews, mostly about the numbers in China.

Selected numbers from the 2006 survey on ISO/IEC 27001:2005

United Kingdom 486
India 369
Japan 3,790

So although the UK has some base for this, enough not to need to outsource all data management anytime soon, the number of certificates for Japan is striking. Could it be that there is some practical reason for this?

Web search finds a couple of PDF documents that help to understand what the standard is about, both from consultants so look out for rhetoric.

Form for checking readiness from ATSEC

Information Security and ISO27001 – an Introduction from ITgovernance

The form mentions four areas where records may exist-

Nonconformities
Preventative and corrective
Training plans for your employees
Regular reviews of ISMS

The introduction includes reference to the PDCA cycle

The PDCA cycle is the Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle that was originated in the 1950s by W. Edwards Deming and which says that that business processes should be treated as though they are in a continuous feedback loop so that managers can identify and change those parts of the process that need improvement.
The process, or an improvement to the process, should first be planned, then implemented and its performance measured, then the measurements should be checked against the planned specification and any deviations or potential improvements identified, and reported to management for a decision about what action to take.

This formulation implies a level of management that is not always involved in the system. Further discussion required on how this might work.

Meanwhile the British Standards Institute (BSI) have published PAS 99, a guide to an integrated management system that could include all the standards for audit and review-

* ISO 9001 Quality
* ISO 14001 Environment
* BS OHSAS 18001 Occupational Health and Safety
* ISO/IEC 27001 Information Security
* ISO 22000 Food Safety
* ISO/IEC 20000 IT Service

The IAS view on danger seems to be that the discourse around danger is more interesting, except when this discourse causes danger, which is then regarded as real. That is a bit sweeping but is based on cases from the workshop on documentation etc. The danger of terrorists crossing the Mexico / USA border was seen as low. The danger of death from dehydration was seen as significant. So on the Casa Segura website there is a warning before some guidance on survival in a desert -

We strongly discourage anyone from making the dangerous journey through the Sonoran desert. There is not sufficient water or resources and temperatures are extreme. It will take days of walking in a harsh landscape and it is not worth risking your life!

So this is not an example of a procedure or works instruction following on from a policy. The policy is formally opposed to the procedure. However there is a link to an Australian government site about dehydration. Perhaps this could be considered as objective information, useful for people in an Australian desert.

At the workshop the most enthusiasm for detailed instructions came in the proposals for the "extreme green guerilla" (E.G.G.) community, "a network of amateur self-sustaining people who have shortened their lifespan to sustain the ultimate green lifestyle." The manifesto includes a statement - "We will not engage in consumerism. We must not consume. We must be consumed."



One project is the Animal Messaging Service. "Extreme green guerrillas are against using the Internet or mobile phones for communication, as this method will tie them to big corporation. E.G.G. are also against conventional posting service, as it leaves a great CO2 footprint. E.G.G. send messages internationally by hacking into the animal migration system. In natural sanctuaries environmental protection agencies tag migrating animals with active RFID tags. E.G.G.s hack into these tagged animals to send digital messages internationally.

The E.G.G. project is supported by detailed manuals so is a suitable case study for how detailed instructions can support a manifesto.

This is a blog version of material that may find a version style for a "paper" or at least a workshop or fringe discussion around "sciences of protection".

It may seem way off topic but it eventually clarifies ideas to attempt to present them. The academics in Lancaster deal with different subjects over time but there is some continuity. I may improve my understanding of where they are at as well as of the role of documents in a process.

I still think there is a connection between quality ideas and the work on learning organisations. The "knowledge economy" (KE) was a useful context for this. However, my impression is that it was the rhetoric around the KE that was of interest. Discourse analysis seems to be a theme that continues over different research projects. I have yet to find much about KE from IAS that looks at policy as if a positive contribution was possible. During the conference the after dinner speech was probaly the most effective presentation and the concern for academic freedom resonated with the audience.

Today in the Guardian Education section there is an article by Phil Beadle who claims that computers cannot replace the "professional brilliance" of teachers. My guess is that his take on the KE is shared by many in education.

The further agenda is also economic. If we are working towards a "knowledge economy" in foregrounding ICT use above any other skill, we are promoting an economy in which only one form of knowledge is perceived as viable or useful, and a lesson wasted on a clumsy, two-sentence PowerPoint presentation is of more value than reading a book.

So although I may seem off topic, one aim is to find some way of working with information technology that meets some of the educational objections. "Quality" is one way of describing this. Some of the academic discussion seems not to have got past a set of objections so there is not much contribution to a design stage. Is it surprising that the learning aspect of social networking is best understood by online companies? Another article this week objects to cyberbullying of teachers through student comments on Facebook. My impression is that the Guardian rarely includes a study of how Facebook works or how education could learn from it and similar sites.

To be updated later with some comment on the Networked Learning conference. Will it all be about "the dark side" or will there be anything that could connect with practice?

Film is part of the scope for the research project on safe living. Annette Davison is in the photo, talking about "The Conversation" as part of a presentation on "Ear Defenders : designing film for safe living". There is a readiness to use media from the web or anywhere, not just a print format suitable for journals.

I have found a couple of links from Blinkbox where you can create a one minute sample. This seems a good chance to test this. More argument later if things fit together.

Not much music on this one


www.blinkbox.com

Only some at the end on this


www.blinkbox.com

safetypaper

The workshop last week on documents, mediation and presentation was mostly related to examples of state policy on immigration and terror. It turned out that the chance of being blown up on a flight is less than one in a million so discourse theory is a reasonable way to explain the theatre at airports. Also the number of terrorists arrested so far on the USA / Mexico border is reported as zero.

However I still think that danger could be real. Also that there is something that could be explained as a "knowledge economy" or something like it. And that the word "quality" has a meaning. There is such a thing as rhetoric to support a neo-liberal project, but this is not a way to explain everything.

I realise I am repeating more or less the same points every so often but there is a benefit in testing ideas so trying to connect with academic conferences is worth a try sometimes. I am not sure what a "paper" is, now that the web allows versions to exist at different times. Still, I have managed 300 words more or less on topic.

This blog post can be edited so will have more links later

=================

current version, deadline 15 April

Possible thread- Distributing protection and 'Safe Living'


Search results, documents, and integrated management

Documents can be part of a process with a scope that includes safety. Web search can be a source, probably with a wider range than an academic library. The paper considers the possibility that danger can be real.

Standards for health and safety compete for the attention of senior policy makers. They can be audited and reviewed together with other standards. Comparisons can be made with studies on quality policies. Academics have concentrated on “quality” as a discourse. Wilmott and Wilkinson describe the word as “meaningless”.

Even if the management procedures described in standards are seen as an imaginary there is still a question as to how organisations learn or otherwise change behaviour over time.

One area to concentrate on is security around mobile communications. There is currently a trend for material promoting security software to present social networking as a danger. How to balance this with the benefits of web access will be considered taking an internet cafe as a case study. A PayPal account was compromised during 2007, evidence that danger can be real.

The style of presentation is intended to be as close to a workshop as possible. The paper could be combines with others in a session. Reference will be made to two scripts for film fiction. One deals with the difficulties for practitioners in maintaining a focus on a project while relating to the “critique” concerns of academics. The other covers a security catastrophe intended to focus on responses seen in the context of organisation.

The presentation will conclude by looking at a Swicki, a search engine using a social approach associated with Wikis. It will be claimed that documents can be part of a management process, possibly contributing to safety.

There has been some progress on the "Sciences of Protection" Swicki that I started as a test. "Fears" and "Anxieties" have been added to the buzzcloud following their use in searches. I have also added "danger", a word I used last week at a meeting of the Deming SIG. Apparently the people who work on risk rarely mention the word danger though it has turned up on the website for the workshop later this week. Documentation in itself is seen as potentially dangerous, even if usually there is no danger that could be as interesting as language. Where I am going way off topic may become clearer so check this blog next weekend.

A couple of things fit together from recent reading. Through the Financial Times I have found a research project into Second Life funded by IBM. There is a company website for www.seriosity.com, linked to research by Byron Reeves at Stanford and Thomas Malone at MIT. There is evidence of leadership development through online games, refencing a leadership model developed at MIT. I have now found three PDF files about this and they make a lot of sense.

Then earlier today I caught up with Buzzmachine, the blog from Jeff Jarvis. He mostly writes about media as changing with the web , but occasionally mentions education. He expacts a similar scale of change at some point to what he observes in news organisations. The universities he mentions as having content online already are Stanford and MIT. In the UK there is often mention of research and teaching universities as if there is a need to concentrate on a small number of research brands. As the effect of the web speeds up I am not sure why any research universities would be in the UK in terms of destination sites. It seems to me that the universities where there is most interest in the web are not the same ones that get research funding. Bit sweeping but something to come back to.

I have put a comment on the blog for the New Sciences of Protection project. This is at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Lancaster, where I tried to link quality assurance and learning organisations at a previous conference on the knowledge economy. Not sure where this will go. They seem mostly interested in language, but documents can be a real cause of danger.

By the way, the Knowledge Economy will turn up again quite soon at the Work Foundation. This appears to be a study in government, not rhetoric, so could be a basis for credibility.

Thinking about updating the learn9 website. I don't feel like insisting on definite statements. I think the search engine woreks well for people to find what they want or suits them.

i still think the ISO approach is useful, especially for print organisations but things are more in flux at the moment. Adobe are now promoting Flash and AIR so i think there is anew phase after Postscript and PDF. In some ways I find it hard to adjust to this but also things seem much more fluid that previously. I like Scribd for example and they could do well. The approach is fairly straightforward in using Flash to present documents online, including PDF. There are other products such as share that are still in beta on Adobe labs so I don't know what will happen eventually. Sevice providers that already do some combination of print and web design could go in various directions.

I have sent in a story on Learning Technologies to OhmyNews. More on this when I see how they edit it. It is based mostly on the Adobe move towards Flash so some of the issues will continue on the blog about drupa.

Learning Technologies draft

This is a draft of a story for Ohmynews, probably to be finalised next weekend.

Adobe proposes Flash for learning
e-Skills Maturity Model continues to feature on business radar


Adobe emphasised a view of learning around Flash for video and an animated web at their stand during Learning Technologies, a show at Olympia in London last week. Although the word "Acrobat" is still used to describe a software product there was almost no mention for the Portable Document Format (PDF) widely assumed to be associated with a large proportion of current income. The implication is that Adobe anticipates a web based less on text and learning environments based less on paper. Acceptance for online learning was evidenced by e-Skills UK, featuring case studies linked to a maturity model launched at Learning Technologies last year.

The combination of Captivate and Connect allows for rapid creation of presentations starting from Powerpoint which is assumed to be familiar for most people working on training in organisations. Content is displayed through Flash whether it is video or a form of paper. Collaboration is possible through video conferencing or text chat. Connect Professional has administration features that are not available in the Acrobat Connect offer that is now part of Acrobat. Previously Acrobat was known as software relating to PDF, a format that put on screen a recognisable representation of design for a paper page. In 2005, Adobe appeared to buy Macromedia though the discussions at the time may have suggested some form of merger. Managers from Macromedia continue to be influential in several Adobe business units. When Acrobat 8 was released in 2006 it included a menu choice to launch Connect, formerly known as Breeze when part of Macromedia. Although Adobe claim there is integration between the Flash and PDF formats it is my impression that the Connect approach in Acrobat 8 has almost no relation to the rest of the PDF based part of the software that most people are familiar with. There is no way to save a record of text chat as a PDF though it can be saved as text from which a PDF could be created. There is no way to save a PDF version of slides unless the presenter chooses to offer this.If this sounds confused it is because I am confused. I am stuck on PDF as a normal route so suddenly having Flash all over the place needs some getting used to. -Will 2/3/08 1:15 PM

There were many other signs of support for video as a direction. datmedia showed how videos can be integrated with web pages through any browser. They support many channels from organisations, including the Learning Technologies event. A presentation from last year is on the datmedia website. Techsmith offer Snagit as a way to capture screen sequences as a Flash file and Camtasia Studio for related processes. Flash is assumed to be widely available or at least within the scope of software supported by a training department.

There was some evidence in progress on establishing learning as a business priority. Last year e-Skills UK launched a report - "Towards Maturity" - showing how technology is adapted in organisations. Recently Laura Overton has reported on the e-Skills website about Online Educa Berlin where Sue Todd – President and CEO of corporate University exchange - who presented details of her recent benchmarking activity with her membership organisations around the globe.

Her research shows that businesses are waking up to the value of learning to the bottom line of their business. Sue believes this as potentially a great thing as learning success in the future will require training to be perceived as a core business process supporting business goals in the same way as marketing or manufacturing does.

Case studies from Towards Maturity site

So far I don't see much evidence of "leadership" or senior management as a driver for e-learning. Last year my impression was that technology was introduced by people in training or IT or because people found it useful at home. Senior managers got involved when given detailed training. conversation this year suggests things may be changing. Board approval is getting easier. I am still looking at the case studies.

--------------------------------------

Above is news, comment and quotes can follow. It strikes me that "social networking" is much discussed but academic theory around this is not connected.

-------------------------------------

The question for information professionals working across all types of sectors and organisations is what will the impact be on them and their work is learning 2.0 in all its proliferations does turn out to be something more than marketing hype. One cast-iron reason why it may stay the course is the simple reason that people (and especially younger learners) appear to enjoy the freedom, interconnection, and interactivity that is on offer. A few years ago one of the ways that the internet was fostering learning (especially informal learning and knowledge sharing) was through communities of practice (CoPs). These CoPs are individuals which technology could connect and bring together so that they could share knowledge and improve both individual and organisational performance through sharing of experience in an unstructured way. Just by belonging to the community your experience, knowledge and expertise was assumed and accepted. Learning 2.0 can be seen as the young cousin of CoPs. Learning 2.0 is social network transformed for a learning purpose.

From Information World Review blog, based on Stephen Downes at Learntech Conference

I think the CoP discussion started as an academic way to describe something. It became a practical aim later. Now seen as from the past because I think the academic discussion is not connected with the blogs. I may be wrong but the people who are published in journals seem to be in a parallel world. "Networked Learning" has a critique of the idea of community but I can't find anything recent online for free. There may be something in journals but it is expensive to find out.

Ideas of Community and Implications for Theorising Networked Learning

My impression so far is that "leadership" is not a way to explain how organisations take on e-learning, and "distributed leadership" drifts back to organisation.


Back to News

From the Houston Chronicle

"While Adobe will have new product releases this year (including Photoshop Express, Acrobat 9 and Creative Suite 4 in our view), we are concerned that these won't be strong enough to buck the picture of deteriorating demand," MacMillan said.analyst Ross MacMillan said in a client note. He also cut his price target to $30 from $50.

So what will Acrobat 9 be like? There is almost no publicity for MARS, an XML rewrite of the PDF format. I still think the hard copy aspects of communication have some sort of base. But the Adobe push on Flash and AIR (integrated runtime) mark a significant break away from page based design.

Photos from BETT

This link to Flickr

More on this blog later

BETT story for MyNews India

A revised version will be sent to OhmyNews after the event


Schools Minister suggests parents can solve UK bandwidth problems
BETT chance to compare rich internet applications

Jim Knight, UK Schools Minister, has told The Guardian that parents should now assume responsibility for providing IT resources at home, including web access. "We need to get to a point where in the same way when they start school the expectation is you've [the parent] got to find a school uniform, provide them with something to write with and probably these days a calculator, and in secondary school some sports gear - well, you add to that some IT." The statement came in an interview with Will Woodward who reports that "parents could be required to provide their children with high-speed internet access under plans being drawn up by ministers in partnership with some of the country's leading IT firms."

http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,2235303,00.html

Talks continue with companies such as Microsoft, BT, Sky, Virgin and RM to help close the widening achievement gap between pupils from the richest and poorest families. More than one million UK children have no access to a computer at home. The issues will be discussed at next week's BETT show on educational technology at Olympia. Last year Jim Knight announced at BETT a Home Access Taskforce following a study by Intel. Dell and RM on "universal home access".

The implication is that access to the web is now accepted as part of a learning environment. Jim Knight made the case for better web access-
"Obviously you need to make that affordable, you need to make that universal otherwise you just advantage those who can afford it. To some extent that's the case at the moment, where 50% of homes have got IT broadband, but they are hugely powerful educational tools ... we know from the research evidence the difference that information technology can make."

Much educational design has been intended to restrict access to unreliable information and to avoid time wasting through networking. Products at the 2008 BETT will include Autology, based on corporate technology from Autonomy, which is limited to 12,000 websites believed to be "credible". As reported in Personal Computer World, Bloxx will demonstrate how to "block bandwidth-hogging social-networking sites" and also block "proxy servers that allow crafty students to get on the web."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6245899.stm

www.bloxx.com

www.autology.com

http://www.pcw.co.uk/crn/analysis/2206425/safe-bett-innovation-3724662

There has yet to be any official statement in 2008 about the future use of open source software in UK schools. Many people at home are using Firefox and Open Office even if Linux is rare on the desktop. This is one way that web access is easier to afford. The statement from Jim Knight seems still mainly concerned with negotiating for discounts from existing sources, suggesting that "the government could in effect procure millions of new customers for them".

Last year BECTA, an advisory body, suggested delay in accepting Windows Vista and new versions of Office. There was also some support for Open Source. Asked by ZD NET about alternatives to Microsoft, Stephen Lucey said "The majority of functionality is not used in schools' typical use. But if schools make use of the additional functionality in Office 2007 then it is a decision for them".


http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39285734,00.htm

However, in October 2007 BECTA complained about Microsoft to the Office of Fair Trading claiming "alleged anti-competitive practices by Microsoft in the schools software marketplace and in relation to Microsoft's approach to document interoperability." The licences available sometimes have the effect that cost differences are not easy to identify when considering choices. "Document Interoperability" is probably a reference to the Open Document Format used in Open Office and supported as an international standard by ISO. However there is no apparent change in approach to open source. "Open source is a separate issue, and schools can make their own decision," said a Becta spokesman to ZD Net.

http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39290148,00.htm

"This is a mini-step in the right direction, but what Becta is actually doing is keeping Microsoft in front of the market to the exclusion of alternatives," said Mark Taylor of the Open Source Consortium pressure group."They're in danger of looking a bit silly, giving the market a non-recommendation and showing a lack of direction."


There are critics of the BETT event who notice the costs involved for the major stands at Olympia. Graham Brown-Martin on Handheld Learning describes BETT as "an event where the combined investment of all the participating companies, attendees, etc could probably fund the provision of a million learners with a device and connectivity. Or even a couple of new schools." There is some enthusiasm for the event, but then Brown-Martin answers his own question. "Where would we be without the annual pilgrimage to Olympia following the holiday season?" Possibly at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, seen as a bit more "glamorous". The Handheld Learning article continues to make a case that it is consumer electronics driving the home adoption of ICT as the Web is known in education.


http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk/content/view/43/2/

I would certainly agree that the most interesting stands are not always the largest. Open Source software will probably be on the balcony of the smaller hall, somewhere near Open Forum Europe. But BETT is now the only UK computer event that fills most of the space at Olympia. There is now a trend for companies to organise their own events that sometimes appear to be a closed world. BETT may be the only chance in 2008 to compare the new approaches to "Rich Internet Applications" from Adobe and Microsoft. Both are moving away from a web based on text. Video and animation are seen as a way forward. Computerworld has reported that during 2008 Microsoft will compete with Flash through Silverlight.

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9053739&pageNumber=2

At BETT 2007 Microsoft announced Grava, for creating content. My impression was that this was a sort of bundle of Expression tools adjusted for education. There has not been much news since that I can find.

http://connect.microsoft.com/Grava/content/content.aspx?ContentID=4256

Adobe are promoting Creative Suite so there will be some familiarity in schools. There may be more emphasis on coding at BETT as the future of applications depends on support from developers.

Moodle and other open source developers will be there. My guess is that a high proportion of developers will be considering open source options. the BECTA concern with "Document Interoperability" is only part of this discussion.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/27/broadband_summit_berr/

Jim Knight is not the only UK government minister concerned about bandwidth. Chris Williams in The Register reported a "next generation broadband summit" hosted by Stephen Timms, Competitiveness Minister at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR). Knight takes the view that the meeting decided "that they definitely need to start thinking around what to do about the UK's creaking internet infrastructure at some unspecified point in the future (perhaps)." There will be a vision statement and a further meeting later in 2008. Ofcom chief Ed Richards made it clear that the regulator won't be intervening to encourage early investment. He said: "Ofcom's role is to deliver a robust regulatory framework allowing industry to deploy when there is a clear business case for doing so."

This is the same sort of approach that minimises a role for government as such in providing a web environment for learning. My own opinion is that statements such as "the UK will be not too far behind in the knowledge economy by such a such a date" are actually to be welcomed as something relevant might then happen. At least UK parents have been warned about the dangers of the digital divide. They have only themselves to blame.

OhmyNews have published my story on Online Information and the Wikipedia.

More on this later.

At the Online Information show I was looking for a chance to photograph the book - Everything is Miscellaneous. The FT must have had one stand too many as this one was unattended.

More photos at Flickr

There is a post about e-books on the InfoToday blog

I think e-books or access to content online has indeed made it for academics and related readers. More on this later.

I still can't find any London paper based reviews for 'Everything Is Miscellaneous' by David Weinberger. I realise I am repeating myself but I hope to raise this with the publishing panel around lunchtime. I asked the question on the Guardian Books Talk and the explanation so far is that London reviewers don't recognise hardbacks published in New York.

I think they should have a case by case sort of approach. This book in an earlier version was a keynote for this event. Now not much sign of interest in the book. Still on Amazon UK and video of similar content is on Youtube.

There is one photo so far on Flickr tagged onlineinfo2007.

Mine is not turning up. Not sure why.

There is web access in the press office. They have let me in as a blogger. Things are looking up.

Yesterday one of the free seminars close to the exhibition was about how to source business information from BRIC, Brazil India Russia China or emerging markets in general. It was seen as a problem that so much information is not originally in English.

As I understand it, the Wikipedia policy at the moment is to address the problem that not enough languages other than English are well represented. But here on the locally/globally blog it turns out that some people seek out English anyway.

There could still be symbiosis between various forms of structure and approach. The word "symbiosis" keeps turning up. No news yet on the voting for Japanese buzzwords.

More Googling on "Jimmy Wales Wikipedia" finds this in the jamendo blog-

Breaking news: Wikipedia announces Creative Commons compatibility!

Sylvain (Jamendo’s CTO) just got back from a Wikipedia/iCommons party in San Francisco where he taped a very exciting announcement from Jimmy Wales : Creative Commons, Wikimedia and the Free Software Foundation just agreed to make the current Wikipedia license (the GFDL) compatible with Creative Commons (CC BY-SA). As Jimbo puts it, “This is the party to celebrate the liberation of Wikipedia”.

There is some info from the Online Information conference keynote in the IWR blog.

The InfoToday blog will have more on this later.

Well the bad news is that Easy web access on Kensington High Street is about to become Easy something else. So I have gone back to Earl's Court where I know the deal is good. One Great British Pound then stay as long as you like. No return number though.

Link to Internet Lounge

There is a rumor that either Olympia or Earl's Court is about to become a giant Pizza Express with flats on the top. My vote would be to keep Earl's Court. It seems more like a high street.

Not much yet on Google searching with onlineinfo2007 . Karen Blakeman has a blog but only one post so far.

MyNews India have published my story ahead of Online Information. I was invited to contribute following stories in OhmyNews. I tend to keep text in draft and am often not sure whether to send in something ahead of an event or to wait for more definite information. So I sent the slightly speculative version to MyNews India and probably the eventual version for OhmyNews will be much the same except for the direct quotes. But who can tell? And they may get some other stories from Olympia anyway. Do send them in and don't worry about a variet of points of view. The editors can cope.

outline script bailrigg

This set of short YouTube videos shows the basis of a future video / chat show covering a conversation during a walk from Info21 to the Spicy Hut at Lancaster University. Further explanation later. Production standards to be improved if and when this can be explained to the resource controller.

Info 21 cafe, Lancaster University

Start of a journey to the Spicy Hut. Gather confidence in an IT project, supported through some vision of quality.



Route from Info 21, Lancaster University

Moves towards Alexander Square. Part of a journey to hold on to an IT vision.



Towards George Fox Building, Lancaster

Towards conference centre, and probably a critique of any project from many visiting directions.



Away from George Fox Building, Lancaster

Route returns towards Alexander Square. If it is not raining the tree could be a spot for some reflection.



Towards Management School, Lancaster

Further discussion may just make things more complicated. Look out for shape shifters.



Venue, towards Alexander Square. Lancaster

Another chance for reflection



Alexander Square, bookshop and library

Check out hard copy links



Leaving Alexander Square. Lancaster

From the newsagent in the opposite corner to the library. Another corridor, look out for sudden gusts of wind.



Institute for Advanced Studies, Lancaster

Could be a place to discuss language, or forms of realism.



Web and coffee at Institute for Advanced Studies

Almost like a proper cyber cafe. You may need a password. Wifi works ok at Info21.



Continuing Education

If there are still issues with the IT project, at least comparison with life long learning may reveal that someone is already doing something similar at home.



Towards the Spicy Hut, Lancaster

Shows the final corner. Can you still meet someone else and explain what the project is about? Don't worry about the food.

OhmyNews has now published my story on the ISO survey. They dropped the words "Quality Management" from the headline but otherwise most of what i sent in has been accepted.

China Leads Continued Growth in ISO 9000
New developments in information security

Possibly last year's version was not as likely to be published as it was less definite.

Continued growth in China use of ISO 9000
Mixed sector pattern in USA and UK

I hope to find response and comment on this story and the survey. I think it is a significant stage when ISO 9000 has momentum outside the UK and the history of BS5750.

ISO publishes survey for 2006.

I have tried to do a story on this for OhmyNews. I am not sure who reads OhmyNews. It could be anyone in English speaking countries but I think it is people near Korea who want to expand on use of English. So the China and Japan aspects of the recent survey could be interesting for them.

I tried before with a story about the 2005 survey. The editors found it too hard to follow for a general audience and I could not work out how to explain it better. For the 2006 survey I have tried to stick more to hard facts and leave the opinions and speculation for later.

There could be several stories from different points of view. In the UK ISO9000 is clearly in decline and there are people who claim this is a good thing. But on a global basis it is still growing and the sector specific standards have a base in at least one major country. To establish how the basic management approach supports learning only requires a few case studies that can be followed.

More later when I hear from the editors. The survey free version itself is a PDF.

OhmyNews have published my story on the LCC Futures Conference. David Penfold spoke about the Semantic Web as well as Web 2.0 and suggested ways to work with both. This is encouraging as to how the Online Information show may go. He chairs a panel discussion about publishing on the final day.

Apple was included in the discussion, mostly around the iTune University though there is no announced plan outside the USA and Canada. Deakin now teaches video editing as a standard part of journalism courses. Not very academic? Not in the newspaper recruitment spec? Maybe but surely they are correct. Check back next year for an update.





Apologies for the clumsy painting on the slide. Playing with the levels helped at first but it soon went adrift.

There is a new website following up a meeting on Changing Forms of Organisation.

It includes most of the presentations as PDF, mp3s of the talk and selected video. I did try to get there but it was fully booked. I think the website offers a fair view on what probably happened. Quality issues are part of the discussion. Leadership is seen in the context of organisation.

My guess so far is that the main difference between now and when the learning organisation idea was first considered is that the web is assumed to have happened. The talk is about the knowledge economy but I think the web is a major part of this. So IT is not something that is hard to introduce to an organisation if some some review method is supposed to exist. It is just something that has happened and will probably continue.

The site has a blog from John Burgoyne and a discussion forum. Also photos of the wall for starting ideas and post-it notes from the conclusions phase. A document summary is also on the site.

I have suggested a link with the Deming SIG at the Chartered Quality Institute. Terry Rose has given permission for me to load up his recent presentation on Language Processing. Something like this seems to be happening anyway but I think the theory is relevant here and shows where quality ideas can contribute.

One quibble so far. The photo of "the wall" includes a reference to Facebook and MySpace. I think these sort of sites may have more to offer than is sometimes supposed. They may not have a formal theory of learning design but they have just got on with it. Somehow the interface results in a lot of people contributing something. Let us hope the same is true for the Changing Forms of Organisation site.

Maybe I misunderstand what the words in the phot are about. Comment welcome.

"Quality" as language

Looking at the IAS blog and other online material about "Safety" I am more convinced that a lot of what academics write about quality is just about the word, not any sort of practice. As memory serves the book "Making Quality Critical" starts off with the claim that the word "quality" has no meaning. So maybe the rest of the book is just about how it is used anyway. If the project is to write about neo-liberal rhetoric it matters not what the instance is.

New blog on "Safety" from IAS in Lancaster

I have put a comment into an academic blog


Not sure if this is off topic already but I was interested to find this blog as I contributed to the earlier research project on the Knowledge Economy. I am interested in quality systems in practice and how this relates to ideas about learning organisations.

My guess is that most academics are interested in language, so what is meant by "safety" or "quality" is more interesting than whether defects or danger actually exist.

So my idea for a film is a conference introducing the Centre for Performativity Studies. In the openening scene the police turn up suddenly and the organisers are arrested. It turns out that all the credit cards used to book for the event have had unauthorised charges and £137,000 has gone through an identified account. A claim about "identity theft" through a wifi network is made but there is disputed evidence.

Quite what happens next I don't know, but at least things start with a clearcut problem situation.

===========

------------------
Professor Cindy Weber introduced the key questions for the program: how is safe living conceived today?

-----------

Dr James Wilsdon

The key question is: what is being smuggled in under the rubric of security, safety and protection? This does not mean turning to conspiracy theory as Adam Curtis, for instance, argues. How is security, safety and protection used to drive through policy decisions? From the perspective of science and innovation policy, there is a tendency to actually shut down debates even in the guise of opening up debate. The use of notion of risk is a good example since it often narrows debate down. The challenge of Chindia is also being used to drive policy decisions. We need to be suspicious and alert to these rhetorics of closure.

--------------

Professor Michael Dillon (Politics and International Relations, Lancaster University) looked to some of the wider conceptual issues to begin with. In a sense, we have discussed an architecture of security as an imaginary. It is a dominant imaginary.

Press release about Online Information

Online Information (4th- 6th December 2007 at Olympia, London) is pleased to announce that Adrian Dale, Managing Partner of Creatifica Associates,.as the new conference chairman for 2007. Dale commented, “It’s an honour and a privilege to be asked to chair the conference - whilst at the same time a challenge following on from Martin White.”

The Online Information Conference will provide a forum dedicated to learning, debate, professional development, technology reviews and assessments, expert discussion as well as case study presentations and the sharing of research results and opinion with over 30 sessions and more than 100 expert speakers.

The theme this year is "Applying Web 2.0 - Innovation, Impact and Implementation". Dale explains why this is so relevant for 2007-2008. “This year Online Information professionals will be "going mainstream" again. The world of Social Software has come alive this year and the challenge for the information professional is to show relevance, leadership and professionalism in this fast moving consumer market. We want to avoid the "bubble" and the "consumer froth" which we can leave to the market place - this conference is about what comes after this - deriving real business value from the opportunities that are coming for free, well, nearly free!”

Not much of a mention for academics, though some university librarians will be there. Maybe "leadership" is a word to work on. There is not much about quality and organisations in the material so far but I think "leadership" might connect with this.

Moving media discussion to readG

This blog has been covering media recently but this will reduce. I plan to move this to another blog about reading the Guardian.

The book "Everything is Miscellaneous" could be about academic writing or newspapers or both so the discussion around media helps to break down distinctions between disciplines such as learning and quality, and between academics and practitioners. But the media bit is off topic for thios blog to a large extent so there will be less of it.

Reading the Guardian includes the media section that covers most of the UK media in a global context.

"Kids are not stupid" claims forum leader.

David Brunnen, forum leader for networked services, part of the communications management association (CMA) has made series of claims in the September issue of Networking.

"Good news that in the sometimes wierd world of Web 2.0, youth-led innovations like Facebook are being translated into new services for business."

But wait. There is more.

"According to sources close to their deadlines , the shock for the media industry is that they've not noticed that kids are not stupid."

So if this is true about building trust in media, it could also be true for education. Start with where the kids are at, and design around it.

On the other hand it would have been nice if the case for socially constructed methods online had been better accepted and resulted in more funding for projects. But it just seems to be so that the example of what is already happening is more persuasive.

One more quibble. It seems to me quite strange how much money some people are prepared to pay on ringtones for mobile phones where the sound quality is not really that good. But there may be very sensible reasons for this that I just don't understand.

I am having another look at Squidoo and Eurekster. I tried out editing often a while back, then lost track. But a check on Alexa shows they have grown over the last couple of years.

There will be a version of this post with a bit more technology included on the drupa2008 blog but the Adobe MAX event is an occasion to just list some options for online collaboration or forms of publishing. I have been working on a page about a possible eTEN research project. This was around the Adobe project for server software and PDF. At the time I saw PDF as central to the move of documents online. PDF has all the function of paper. But recently Google docs are showing that the format of the page is not that crucial if it is the text that is central to collaboration. Adobe have now bought Buzzword and it looks as if this will work ok with the same sort of collaboration as with Google docs plus the display and design of pages as they would print. By the way I don't see these as competing too much ; both ways of processing words would suit some purpose. Adobe seem converted to the Google model of free online apps supported by adverts. It is unclear whether the PDF approach will also change. In my opinion the acceptance of PDF for online collaboration has been delayed by the very high prices charged. LiveCycle is only really promoted to a few banks and some governments. Perhaps PDF is only required in a corporate setting for security and signatures etc. It may just stay rare and expensive while Flash is promoted on another model.

Most of what was announced at MAX is still beta. Actual releases next year. So my view at the moment is that it is not really possible to design any learning situation given the rate of change in available formats and software. The next few months are a time for observation and experiment. There is a relevant theory of learning no doubt but this may be clarified later.

On the drupa2008 blog I have suggested that the London College of Communications do their Futures conference in reverse order, putting print in a web context. The publishing bit in the middle could link to discussion at Online Information. I don't understand how the courses are organised at LCC but for some reason the issues for the panel at Online Information seem slightly distinct from the Digital Print World conference.

So in a mild attempt at time travel, here is my question for the panel. In real life this will be asked around lunchtime on December 6th towards the back of the hall in Olympia.

What to make of the London printed reviews of "Everything is Miscellaneous" by David Weinberger. So far as I know there have not been any. There is no UK publisher but the book is available from Amazon UK. Is there something about books such as Andrew Keen's "The Cult of the Amateur" that appeals more to the sort of people who edit review pages? Since David Weinberger gave a keynote two years ago for the Online Information conference with similar content, is the lack of book reviews evidence that the conference is of very little interest for the world of London literature?

My impression is that the Swicki is working ok. So the idea that there is a link between learning and quality could be valid. I will try out putting that more definitely. Quality systems work as people learn from them or in them, maybe it is more about learning design or the learning is accidental. So I will arrange other blogs and claims as if this is a reasonable assumption for a while.



I have just done a search on "learning quality" in the Learn9 Swicki. The results are ok. I am not surprised that a European project turns up. The continental universities are serious about online learning and using quality ideas as part of this. The concern is quality in support of learning but this is probably as good a context as any to find out about learning within quality, the concern I started out with. Of course "non-learning" and system failure are just as easy to study. There may be more data.

I have tried out a post about forms of knowledge on the Guardian Talk. I have posted a series on the QR funding part of research assessment. Some academics have helped to explain things. It is a way to find out what they think about quality.

Also on the learning with ISO 9000 log there will soon be something on forms of knowledge that might overlap. The current debate about amateurs that mostly comes from professional journalists strikes me as related to discussion by academics about mode1 and mode 2 knowledge. My own interest is in quality and I am gradually turning to forms of journalism rather than attempt academic writing. Most quality theory has come from practitioners. The web is changing the location of styles of knowledge. If it turns up in a Google search it may be from a journal, a magazine or just a blog or something. Continues on blog.

Since writing that I have had a printed promotion for the Online Information Conference and I think it will leave it as open as possible till then. The keynote speaker is Jimmy Wales and the topics are all "web 2.0". It seems a good chance to talk about validity claims in a wider context. I'm sure some form of quality will fit in there.

There is every chance that the Hunky Mouse or someone from Newswireless will turn up and report. Could Guy Kewney revise his views on amateurs given new discussion on user generated content?

There are speakers from universities so I will contact others and see what they think. In 2002 there was a "Manifesto: Towards E-Quality in Networked E-Learning in Higher Education" but I don't know how this has developed since. Is the word "quality" part of this? Chris Grey wrote "Against Learning" (PDF file)in 2001. I got the impression the web was part of the learning he was against.

Academics may not recognise the conference as carrying weight in their discussion. There is still no UK review of "Everything is Miscellaneous" that I can find though I think a keynote at Online Information is worth some consideration.

I have had an email invite to a survey on e-learning, or rather whether the term "e-learning" should vanish and just be known as "learning". Strangely there is also another term "technology-enhanced learning". This seems to have been recently invented by academics looking for another discipline. Hey, this is just a blog don't take offence. I have sent a reply and suggested "the web" as a term that is in use. It seems obvious to me that some form of learning is involved in using the web. One problem is that "education" is associated with institutions. In the UK there has recently been less emphasis on adult education other than basic skills or through employment sectors. So I think the web should be part of the mix.

It is making more sense that the Online Information show can be imagined. I might as well assume it is happening now or last week. Also I have managed to read all the way through "Everything Is Miscellaneous" by David Weinberger. I do read some books by the way. I do not spend all my time watching TV or online. Just most of it. But I still read newspapers and magazines and sometimes a book. Usually they have some kind of typological guide or outline. "In this chapter you will discover x y and z" or an introduction that sums up the main points. In this case there is just a long continuous text with occasional breaks for a chapter heading. Maybe it is thought this is how a book should be. Based at the Berkman Center, Harvard Law School and a frequent keynote presenter at events such as Online Information maybe he thinks that speaking without interruption for an hour or so at a time is no bad skill and printed text should have the same effect. Not that I'm complaining about the content now I have managed to read it. I just think there should be a route map.

One thing disappointed me, the representation of people who work on quality assurance. An imagined character, Carla (page 160), has just one line. "I'll be making sure what we build meets company standards." This is in a chapter on "what nothing says", how fiction communicates more than our information about people we know through work. My own view is that quality assurance can be more than this. Maybe I should turn to fiction for a Carla who would guide the team through the next morphosis.

Jimmy Wales, scheduled to present this year's keynote for Online Information, is quoted on page 136. "I'm not all that interested in French philosophy. An article is neutral when people have stopped changing it."

Wales is currently working on the Wikia search engine. One of the principles is quality ( as well as transparency, privacy and collaboration).

"* Quality - Significantly improve the relevancy and accuracy of search results and the searching experience."

Discussion so far points out that search engines sometimes turn up mostly commercial sites : social networking sites suffer because people use the wrong tags : there is plenty of room for improvement.

It is a mystery to me why Weinberger's book has not been more widely reviewed in the UK. That is, reviewed at all as far as I can tell. It is now available through Amazon UK. On Huffington Post Weinberger recently explained why there has been media attention for "The Cult of the Amateur" by Andrew Keen

How could they not feature an author -- a former dot-com guy no less -- who says that the Internet is killing our culture, as his subtitle puts it? Even better, the culture the Internet is supposedly killing is the mass media's presented in its best light -- the home of poetry, opera and fine journalism.

Some points from his own book are repeated but there is support for some of the points made by Keen.

Keen's best case largely fails. It's strongest at pointing to the strengths of the modern ecology. Some institutions that have nurtured talent are likely to go bankrupt. We do not yet have replacements for some of them, and it's possible that for some of them, no economic model will emerge that will enable them to continue.

So this is interesting for business students as well. The Wikipedia may not have a normal business model but it seems to survive. Online Information will include some discussion about publishing.

This post is going away from theory and into news but maybe the time is right for this. The Online Information conference in the first week of December is a significant event. With stands for university presses including Oxford and Stanford there is potential interest for academics.

A couple of years ago the keynote speaker was David Weinberger, author of the book "Everything is Miscellaneous". My main interest in this is to at least break down the divisions between learning and quality as academic subjects. Just enough to make some connections.

The news is that this year the keynote will be from Jimmy Wales and cover "Web 2.0" , whatever that turns out to be.



It surprises me that "Everything is Miscellaneous" has not been reviewed by the Guardian. They have covered a book on the "Cult of the Amateur". Maybe this is better suited to the views of proper journalists such as Victor Keegan and Tim Dowling. So far as I know there has not been a review of "Miscellaneous" in Information World Review, although "Amateur" has been together with an interview.

Screenshot of search on Guardian shows that "Miscellaneous" has only been mentioned by Jeff Jarvis, in 2006, before the book existed. So what is the point of a book format? Available from Amazon UK ( special offer includes the Amateur one as well if you are really interested). Is UK review space limited to London publishing? What is going on?



Discussion continues online. Olympia in December is actual space.

There is more happening around the discussion of expert authority in a web context. On this blog I still think it is worth repeating this, just to create a space where quality and learning can be seen as related. It is the view of distinct academic subjects that has been a block on this.

Today's post, actual through the letterbox hard copy stuff in cellophane, included Information World Review. Splash next to the front page title- "The Wicked Web 2.0 - Culture Killer" . This is a bit loaded. I have not given up on dialogue through Guardian Talk but have decided to concentrate on this blog. So in future most words will turn up here to avoid repeating things. But today, here is a copy from Guardian Talk

Information World Review has joined in the publicity for Andrew Keen's book. "A book is a fitting medium to argue for a reassessment" writes Mark Chillingworth. This is a very fair point. This stream of thought is coming from the print world. I am not sure Victor Keegan was right to say it represents any trend on the web.

In an interview, Keen says "We need to re-install a principle of authority. The mainstream media and experts can civilise the web."

Presumably Guardian journalists support this view of experts and mainstream media. Who knows? They rarely join in this sort of Talk.

I may continue to add to this topic but probably will kepp my own blog more updated

http://www.learn9.net

By the way, as far as I know there is no IWR review yet of "Everything is Miscellaneous" by David Weinberger. As mentioned before, this is a proper book. Continuous text with an index. Maybe this will have to wait for UK publication. The US version is now on Amazon UK.

Also similar points on the chatspace for NewsWireless. Guy Kewney recently wrote about the threat to journalism from user generated content on the web. However NewsWireless seems fairly open to contributions.

A printed version of Information World Review has arrived, dated for July and August. The opinions are a bit exetreme in my own view. Web 2.0 is linked with the words "wicked" and "culture killer". That is just the splash on the cover. The review of the book "The Cult of the Amateur" by Andrew Keen is headlined "The monkey cult destroying the temple of knowledge". It opens by comparing the web to "infinite monkeys ....perpetuating the cycle of misinformation and ignorance". The recent views in IT Week from Guy Kewney seem fair and balanced by comparison.

In an interview with Mark Chillingworth, Andrew Keen said "We need to re-install a principle of authority. The mainstream media and experts can civilise the web."

Strangely the same Mark Chillingworth writes an editorial about a recent discussion panel on Web 2.0. "My hat goes off to the information professionals....who put their hands in the air and admitted they didn't fully understand the technology and the issues it presented to their working lives."

So what sort of authority do they have? There could be some sort of dialogue with the people who have been using the web in ways now described as Web 2 or whatever.

I am not sure who finds this topic. There seem to several routes from the Newswireless pages. So here is a link to my own blog, which may be more likely to be updated-

http://www.learn9.net

Also there is a comment on the IWR blog. I don't think they have reviewed "Everything is Miscellaneous" as yet. If I'm wrong another comment should turn up.

I have previously come across the Information World Review mostly through the Online Information show. It now seems to put more emphasis on print than I had realised. The case made about "The Cult of the Amateur" seems to get attention just because it is in a book.

The Online Information show would be a good time to talk about online information.

I will do a course later this month on autobiography, part of the summer school at Lancaster. The first slant is as a situation. More chronology will follow later. I have included some time travel, taking in up to drupa next year.

Jeff Jarvis on Buzzmachine recently described the possible consequence of web availabilty for education.

"I keep coming back to the idea that the next institution to explode — after media, advertising, consumer companies, politics, and government — is the academe. This will have profoundly disruptive implications for both education and research. But why shouldn’t educational institutions — especially publicly funded ones — follow the lead of MIT and other universities and put their curricula online? And wouldn’t it be ducky if there were a good, standard infrastructure for doing so and even for joining in with other online students? And, of course, why shouldn’t we all be able to create courses to share?"

This interest me as it would change the way people think about learning and quality, and the way that print fits with the web.

My guess is that Nature will be at the Information Management Show or Online Information. They both have a blogger stream in the free seminars that are on the show floor. I get confused as to which is which.

Guardian Education this week has ann article about Nature Network and a quote from Dr Timo Hannay, director of web publishing at Nature Publishing Group.

"We are increasingly seeing the online world with its informal rapid communications complement the slower, more formal communications of academic journals. There should be a way of measuring the impact of a scientist who posts comments on a site like Nature Network. These could be added to their publishing record for the research assessment exercise [in which every active researcher in every university in the UK is assessed by panels of other academics]. I think the funding bodies will see that these contributions add to the scientific knowledge base."

Previously I had thought of "Research Assessment Friendly" knowledge and "search engine constructed" knowledge as two different things. They could be complementary but I have not previously come across anyone suggesting the web be given the sort of credibility suggested here.

I would welcome it because as the management learning establishment still have little time for quality as a topic, still less recognition as a subject. By contrast any discussion coming out of real situations can often cover both learning and quality.

I am starting to include more in this blog about the nature of the knowledge that is on the web. The actual book, "Everything is Miscellaneous" has arrived. It is now on Amazon UK. Last weekend was the third forum on citizen journalism organised by OhmyNews. Very little coverage so far, but the issues keep cropping up. Proper print journalists seem to be getting upset.

Latest example, Guy Kewney in IT Week.

Headline - Warning: user-generated sites may contain nuts
Real news and informed opinion are being drowned out by conspiracy-fuelled drivel

selected quote -

User Generated Content makes these people think they have a point worth making and allows them to make it. This is a recipe for mob rule, not intelligent consensus.

"Real News" on NewsWireless has included a story about Hutchison which was denied and then appeared not to be valid. The explanation came out that the prediction was essentially correct except that Chinese beliefs in the benefits of a new year had led to a delay. Very entertaining and easy to read, but surely there could be a bit of tolerance for bloggers from real journalists such as these?

Serge Ravet has posted a Google Doc including the original formatting. This is fantastic as it would have taken ages to guess.

I have highlighted the bits that jump out. There will be more on the website later.

This is a Green Paper about eQuality. There was an awards event in Paris in January and this paper was written later. So the meaning of the word is still for discussion. Any scope that includes learning, quality and technology is helpful for me.

Checking out the links on the website I find that the various European quality research projects seem to have combined to support a Quality Foundation. Here there is a wiki with several texts.

My impression is that the discussion has gone a long way in combining ideas about learning and quality. I am trying to reformat this text to get a better idea of it. It is very encouraging so far and may be a base on which to reorganise other material.