Twitter at FIE

IEEE Frontiers in Education is a fine conference, and I was looking forward to being able to link up to some folk via the twitter back channel this year.

The conference organisers even rather optimistically declared a hast tag...

you can see the level of debate by visiting http://www.tweetviz.com/ and checking out #fie2010 :-(

probable the most read tweet is the one posted outside in the lobby

unfortunately there was no wifi in the conference room and I don't have a US data card. However the free wifi in my (different and cheaper) hotel, is free, works all the time and works in the rooms as well as the lobby. occasionally I text but mostly it's a silent scream

as @tgmcewan said thanks to #ibahn and #marriot

some more visualisations which are fab....

a map of knowledge and an infographic

just stumbled across these two, which I need to note ... something with a bit more analysis may come later!

first of is a map of knowledge - the Web 2.0 points of control map which was an output of a recent web2.0 summit
http://www.coolinfographics.com/blog/2010/9/9/the-web-20-points-of-control-map.html

second was an infographic example of the tube map ( where information and relation is priviledged over accurate scale). And I do insist on calling it a tube map, is was derived from the London tube, calling it a metro map does not work, as anyone who have ever travelled on the Paris Metro will tell you!!

this is a tube map representation of the most widely spoken languages in the world its the work of folks at PS transaltions, but I found it via the cool infographics blog.

http://www.pstranslation.co.uk/infog_languages.html

so thanks to the http://Guardian.co.uk for the original springboard, and if you want to follow this sort of area then the links from the cool info graphics blog are an excellent place http://www.coolinfographics.com/links/

Web Science Curriculum ( and Workshop)

work in progress

Its been a week of web science for me this week, along with a few extra lessons on language learning (the first half of the week was in France at Montpellier 2) and inter-disciplinary discussions.

The structure of this post is about the formal web science curriculum workshop (third in the series) but interspersed with some thinking and ideas related to what is going on in Montpellier ( who plan to host a new Masters in Web Science from academic year 2011-12)

At the end of this post there will be a list of links, a list of those who attended the workshop, and a list of folk from Montpellier who might be involved in the new proposed masters.

Web Science Curriculum Workshop Programme:
As yet only a few of the resources appear to be on the web, but I will link where I can, and expect to re-edit or republish this blog post when things change.

Intro and welcome from Cathy Pope (soton)

Further Welcome and Web Science Trust - Wendy Hall @DameWendyDBE

Round table introductions - all

Web Science subject categorisation - a proposal for discussion Michalis Vafopoulos @vafapoulos and Les Carr @Lescarr

What is Web Science? Nigel Shadbolt @nigel_shadbolt

What is Web Science? group discussion (ok, I won't be giving twitter names for all here!)

Round table presentations of what we are teaching, planning, and what collaborations we would like

Dave de Roure @dder

+++overview+++

Rather than being a documentary narrative, this account is a synthesis of the discussion which mixes parts for points raised in various sessions

draft curriculum for discussion - paper developed by Michalis Vafopoulos ( @vafapoulos on twitter ) and Les Carr was presented and discussed.

Web Science Draft Curriculum

The proposal brings forward a taxonomy which provides a structure for the intersecting topic areas across the curriculum

The discussion to some extent turned on what was missing from the list - but any brief account cannot do justice to the issues raised. We had an initial bash at the discussion immediately following Michalis' presentation, returning to it, and refining our ideas as the day progressed.

My assumptions

students + curriculum -> web scientist
curriculum = knowledge + processes
study= cognitive apprenticeship

inter-disciplinarity is about the negotiated understanding of meaning

borrowing from the concept of the barefoot psychotherapist

parallels with language learning

When considering the work/research/focus areas of the list it appears that the web scientist might be an identified by the fact that the reseacher's specialisms did not alone sit in an existing recognised discipline area, essentially web scientists have to be inter-disciplinary. During informal discussions with Mark Weal we agreed that it might also be helpful to portray the information space through some form of associative map. I suspect that different colleagues will find different styles of representation useful, although the taxonomic approach has strength since it mirrors that used in the ACM curricula.

There was a definite thread running through the presentation which Nigel Shadbolt made that learning from existing disciplines/fields of studies which are by nature inter-disciplinary may be of advantage. The discussion time after this presentation was wide ranging, and if possible I will try to link to other accounts which folk make. Pragmatically one way in which the field can be established and create its identity is through attaching itself to other established disciplines, thereby demonstrating its role and value.

One alternative approach to the curriculum mapping which was suggested during the subsequent dicussions was to take an approached based on the IEEE software engineering body of knowledge

Another suggestion was to take a look at the Achievement Standards Network

Probably worth thinking about a few ways in which we portray/understand web science. Our Southampton perspective is one of co-creation - or in social science talk web science is the product of co-constitution. There are a few (some classic) pictures which can help illuminate this understanding.

How we see the web science curriculum at Southampton: We began teaching a web science masters in 2009/10 Les Carr and Mark Weal plus Cathy Pope have been to key players in designing the structure of the course, but there has been extensive input through discussions with a whole host of academics who are contributing to the teaching, some of whom offer single lectures, others who have a more significant role in the classes.

When we think about what is web science, we have various visualisations which capture the extent of the area, some of which address content, other parts of which address process. You can find more details on the course web site, and through resources which we have deposited in EdShare (our educational repository).

We host a Web Science Doctoral Consortium - http://webscience.ecs.soton.ac.uk/
We run an MSc in Web Science - http://www.ecs.soton.ac.uk/admissions/pg/msc/1011/web_science.php
We routinely deposit our learning resources in EdShare

But it is may be more useful to consider a process orientated understanding of web science which has been presented by Tim Berners-Lee. Students of web science, like all masters' students will need to develop their critical thinking and analytic skills across the set of processes. The curriculum needs to be more than a mapping of the landscape, since the ways of thinking and analysing data which are special to Web Science are an inextricable part of the field.

By way of observation, we got into discussions where understandings pivoted on linguistic understandings. Many of the discussions were constrained by concepts of existing ways of working.

One of the heated questions was about where web scientists would get jobs, surely Web Science for students is more about a mindset rather than a ticket for a job, I find myself returning to the model of higher education as a cognitive apprenticeship. The issues is that students of web science, and practitioners (academics or in the field) will acquire a set of skills and a model of knowledge and understanding which is mediated by the consideration and exploration of web science phenomena. I look at web science ( like I look at so many different parts of life) from a technology affordances perspective (after gaver). This belies the fact that I additionally come from a social constructivist perspective. for those reasons, I would wish to privilege approaches over content.

However when we return to the issue of where students will work when they have graduated from the course, the problem is created when we seek to gain accreditation, or agreement from our institution to support and instantiate a subject as a formal programme. At that time we are asked to explain or anticipate (for a commodified model of education) Where will our students work, Where will they gain their work experience, What are the topics which they can study? Who are the academics who will teach them.

The discussion about what is web science, and where to web scientists work is of particular importance to those who expect to incorporate a period of internship, work-placement - or french 'stage'. I favour an approach in the curriculum which enables the learners to gain self knowledge and confidence. In terms of placements and internships I see opportunities for students to take placements in orgnaisations where they are able to pursue activities where they practice web science in context (for enterprises such as tourist boards or regional development agencies, for small businesses, or as interns for research groups at Universities)

sound points made by colleague from Amsterdam (Hans Ackermanns)

what people want
sharing of resources
beruit - french or arabic text on web science
highland and islands - working in health related areas - seeking to share video resources
discussions of possible text book - maybe an electronic version would be more apposite!
remote teaching by agreement with other institutions/institutes - real time with video conferencing
DERI are prepared to participate and exchange

I would like to make a strong argument for remote learning - I see web science as requiring a participative curriculum, where the students play a strong role in creating their curriculum and helping take forward our understanding of web science. We are talking about learning at masters level, but I think this might also be applicable at undergraduate level. It seems to me that the very inter-disciplinary nature of the web science necessitates an active role for the students in creating their own understandings, and personally experiencing their own understanding of interdiscipinarity , not withstanding the fact that we are trying to establish web science as a discipline in its own right.

If we believe we are seeking to educate the thought leaders of the next generation, then we would be doing them a disservice if we construct a web science curriculum which is predominantly didactic.
===notes===
proposals - koblenz - text book on web science
web science book already translated into greek and chinese
approaches - stand alone masters, specialist modules, seeking to develop computer science 'flavoured' with web science
scarcity of people who can deliver - seeking to find people across the country, contribute remotely


===
participants
=== - links incorporated where I have been able to find that the institution has a specific web science initiative/programme

Jack Kopeski - OU Milton Keynes

Joanna Luciano - Rensselaer -

Chris Baker - University of New Brunswick

Michalis Vafopoulos - Thosaloniki

Hugh Glaser - Linked Data consultant

Nick Gibbons - University of Southampton

Hans Akkermanns - The Network Institute NV Amsterdam http://www.vu.nl/en/research/interdisciplinary-research-institutes/ni/index.asp

Elizabeth Brooks - UHI - head of computing network

Connor Hayes - DERI - NUI Gallway Ireland

Stéphane Bezane - UIR web science at USJ Beirut looking for ways of setting up exchanges for students and sharing materials (lebanon - on interest to Montpellier)

Birgit Proell - Johannes Keppler University , interested in sharing materials

Su White - Southampton/Montepellier 2

Marco Antonio Cassanova - Brazilian Web Science Institute http://www.webscience.org.br

Geraldo Xexéo - Brazilian Web Science Institute http://www.webscience.org.br

Sergej Sizoc - Koblenz

Lei Zhang - Tsinghua University (name means the water is clear and the trees are growing)

Hugh Davis - Southampton/Montepellier 2

Bernie Hogan - Oxford Internet Institute

Mark Weal - University of Southampton

Wendy Hall - University of Southampton

Nigel Shadbolt - University of Southampton

Claudia Roda - American University of Paris, Interested in sharing materials

===
interactions - and questions to continually ask....
===

what are you proposing?

what are you arguing?

so what did you mean by that?

Issues in a web science masters

===
montpellier folks
===

Stefano Cerri

Madalina Croitoru

Clement Jonquet

LIRMM montpellier

University Montpellier 2

===
links
===

http://wiki.websciencetrust.org/w/Web_Science_Subject_Categorization_%28WSSC%29:_a_proposal_for_discussion

http://web science.org

http://wiki.websciencetrust.org/w/Curriculum

1. Towards a Science of the Web: the Power of Networks. Wendy Hall. http://mediaplayer.group.cam.ac.uk/component/option,com_mediadb/task,view/idstr,CU-Personnel-2007-WISETI/Itemid,99999999

2. Introduction to Web Science. Video of a lecture by Nigel Shadbolt.

3. Web Science Lectures at Georgia Tech. http://webscience.cc.gatech.edu/lecture-series

4. ESWC2008 Panel Does the Semantic Web Need Web Science. Wendy Hall moderator. http://videolectures.net/eswc08_hall_dsw/

5. Web Science Research Initiative Curriculum Workshop Report. http://webscience.org/filemanager/active?fid=42

6. What is the Future of the Web? A presentation by Tim Berners-Lee followed by a panel discussion with Berners-Lee, Hall, Shadbolt, Spivak, moderated by Hender and McGuinness. Links to ReadWriteWeb coverage. http://tw.rpi.edu/launch/

7. Building a Pragmatic Semantic Web Alani, H., Hall, W., O'Hara, K., Shadbolt, N., Chandler, P. and Szomszor, M. (2008) Building a Pragmatic Semantic Web. IEEE Intelligent Systems, 23 (3). pp. 61-68.http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/15787/

8. Web Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding the Web Hendler, J., Shadbolt, N., Hall, W., Berners-Lee, T. and Weitzner, D. (2008) Web Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding the Web. Communications of the ACM, 51 (7). pp. 60-69. ISSN 0001-0782 http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/16555/

9. Why Study the Web? vide of lecture by Nigel Shadbolt http://archive.zepler.tv/266/

10. Upcoming Web Science Events http://webscience.org/events.html

Digital Literacies considered - Digital Discourses and Subject Specialisms

work in progress
Some reflections on the Digital Literacy Workshop at ALT-C 2010 - has tag #altc2010

Considering the prospect of convincing my academic colleagues to find space for Digital Literacy in the curriculum would most likely be taking on the task single-handed of pushing water uphill. If on top of that I was asked to devise an institutional strategy which helped put Digital Literacy at its core.


......
WIP - notes

use - visualise

http://twitterfall.com #altc2010
http://visibletweets.com

Tuesday
Donald Clarke's refs/ observations - uses the teaching of physics as a proxy for methods in lectures generally

The media equation - Byron Reeves & Clifford Nass http://www.amazon.co.uk/Media-Equation-Television-Information-Publication/dp/1575860538

Ferris Bueller's Day Out - video clip

(? of course how do you measure the discourse which is happening in people's head)

socrates plato and aristotle - ref to the philosopher's song - link to video

Newton - anecdote, lectured to empty classes
Feinnman - brilliant lecturerer - read the biography - read the preface to lectures in physics
Mazur - "Data is not the plural of anecdote" - (?narrative and hypnosis)

Revisiting technology, organisational change and how we research it

One area that I am particularly interested in is the impact of technology on organisational change. I have been spending a little time recently researching into this area, and there are number of publications which I think are worth revisiting, particularly in the context of research methods generally and those concerned with Web Science in particular.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social Interactions in the Web,  in CACM, Hendler et al 2008

For now this post is mostly a note to self, but will repay some further thought and development. If you have comments or pointers to other work, that would be excellent.

A few years ago, when wanting to present some of my findings to a conference, my paper was rebuffed by (what I thought to be a low grade and shallow) reviewer, whose comments on the work was sparse, but which began 'I don't much care for this sort of research'.

As someone who takes an interdisciplinary approach my research typically uses a mixed methods approach. I am aware that in the area of technology enhanced learning, we are often at an intersection between researchers from the social sciences (often education, psychology, anthropology) and those from the more logical positivist traditions of the hard applied sciences such as computer science. The challenge is always to find ways of overcoming epistemological differences between disciplines and engaging in useful and constructive dialogue across any perceived divides.

its interesting to note that this issue is at the core of a large part of what we are tacking in Web Science - which was described in one of the earliest papers (Berners-Lee et al, 2006) as being concerned with  the Engineering, Technology and Analytics of the web as well as being "The science of decentralised information systems". It is however also pointed out that that Web Science is fundamentally a study of socially embedded technology (and thus my implication inherently inter-disciplinary). Subsequent publications (for example Hendler et al 2008) identify the role of 'social machines" and talk about the inter-relationship between the Engineering and Technology and the Social Dimensions

In that context, these publications which come from the field of management science and information science, which, in themselves represent fields of study which have probably already experienced Biglan's hard applied/soft applied intersection.

There are a number of approaches which have arisen following on from Gidden's work on structuation which are of interest. Orlikowski has been influential in discussion of research methods appropriate for this area.

References:

Berners-Lee, T., Hall, W., Hendler, J. A., O’Hara, K., Shadbolt, N. and Weitzner, D. J. (2006) A Framework for Web Science. Foundations and Trends in Web Science, 1 (1). pp. 1-130. http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/13347/

Hendler, J., Shadbolt, N., Hall, W., Berners-Lee, T. and Weitzner, D. (2008) Web Science: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Understanding the Web. Communications of the ACM, 51 (7). pp. 60-69.

DeSanctis, G., & Scott Poole, M. (1994). Capturing the Complexity in Advanced Technology Use: Adaptive Structuration Theory. Organization Science, 5(2), 121-147. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2635011

Giddens, A. (1986). The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration

Also available in the Hartley Library Southampton

Orlikowski, W. (2000). Using Technology and Constituting Structures: A Practice Lens for Studying Technology in Organizations. Organization Science, 11(4), 404-428 http://www.springerlink.com/content/r21881t5637408h5/

Orlikowski, W.J. and Baroudi, J.J. (1991) Studying Information Technology in Organizations: Research Approaches and Assumptions. Information Systems Research, 2 (1), 1-28 http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.103.107&rep=rep1&type=pdf


Orlikowski, W. J. and Barley, S. R. (2001). Technology And Institutions: What Can Research On Information Technology And Research On Organizations Learn From Each Other? MIS Quarterly, 25(2), 145-165. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3250927

Potential Projects: Tools and Environments for Learning Potential Projects: Tools and Environments for Learning

As students progress through their education we observe that they customise and build their own learning environments bringing together sets of preferred tools in a manner which is individual and responsive to their personal needs.

The Southampton Learning Environment seeks to establish a framework in which to provide personalised and personalisable information and services.

Project students undertake dissertation work related to the Southampton Learning environment will have the opportunity to address challenging problems across a range of focus areas associated with the development of this exciting new environment.

Indicative areas include but are not restricted to

• Interface specification and design

• Linked data for interoperability

• Widgets to support learning

• Personalisation framework

• Widget container

• Id management framework

• Evaluation of learning environment tools

• Tools for research/visualisations

see also - something to read

http://shirleyknot.blogspot.com/2010/06/something-to-read.html

LSL research agendas - something on Impact factors and Road Maps - notes for information

information from http://sciencewatch.com/dr/sci/09/jan18-09_2/ produced by Thomson Reuters

The Journal of Engineering Education is very highly rated, ISI impact factor of 3.0, its worth understanding the associated roadmap which they have developed which is very relevant to research agendas in LSL

National Academy of Engineering Education Research Benchmark and Frameworks http://www.nae.edu/cms/11560.aspx

Engineering Education Research Colloquies - Engineering Education Research Agenda


References:

* The Steering Committee of the National Engineering Education Research Colloquies. The National Engineering Education Research Colloquies. Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 95, No. 4, October 2006, pp. 257-258.


* The Steering Committee of the National Engineering Education Research Colloquies. The Research Agenda for the New Discipline of Engineering Education. Journal of Engineering Education, Vol. 95, No. 4, October 2006, pp. 259-261.