Holy Grails, Long Tails, Widgets and Beyond: UKeiG

1. Holy Grails, Long Tails, Widgets and beyond: facing the challenges of the information environment and meeting the expectations of the ‘born digital’ user Lisa Charnock and Lisa Jeskins

3. What will our users expect from our Services in the Future? Is this where we should be?

7. Obligatory Mimas-Meets-Web 2.0 Slide….

10.

Hinweis der Redaktion

Andy: Before we start our presentation formally, (please reserve judgement, etc) Last year I created this video for the Intute conference to try and capture one possible future for Intute users. Today I’m showing it to get us thinking about where Mimas services might be in the future -- what futures are possible for Mimas services? Where are we headed? Any why? <show video> Andy: that was entertaining (make a joke about choice of music). At the time, this was fun and interesting to do. Second Life was being touted as the Next Big thing, and we had a play with it -- sometimes its fun to do some low risk experimentation and see what happens. Many of us are beginning to do this across services with various facebook apps and search widgets being developed and ‘thrown out there’ in a web 2.0 dominated But this raises questions. In the case of Second Life, the questions are whether we, or specifically Intute, should be there. (account for percentage of use) Is it worth this investment? What will Mimas users expect from our services in the future?
Simulation and Immersive Environments – we used to call this Virtual Reality. It includes Second Life, but also visualisation programmes (landmap?) Everywhere computing – users are no longer tied to single devices PCs. You can access and interact with information from your mobile phone, your television – any networked device. Everything is online – the so-called ‘Google Generation’ will increasingly expect to not only be able to retrieve a catalogue record, but also the item itself – we know this is already happening. We want it *now* and ‘Libraries of the Future’ Personalisation – not only do I want to get at what I need. I want the system to *know* what I need. And then I want to be able to store it, tag it, repurpose it, and share it in whatever context I choose. Andy: For the next half hour or so we’re going to touch on some Mimas developments or plans that respond to these various ‘quests.’ Joy is going to step in for Stuart and talk about our next plans for mobile computing or ‘everywhere’ computing -- beyond hairdressing and into other domains. Lisa is going to talk about how Mimas library and archival services fits into the new JISC call for ‘Libraries of the Future’ and the increasing drive to give our users what they want – direct access to academic content. Joy and Lisa Charnock are then going to start a discussion about ‘Personalisation’ – perhaps the hottest topic right now, and the area with the most currency and the most debate. We’re then going to open up discussion with a few questions and invite you to participate in a larger discussion about where we’re headed, and what issues we will be facing.
REMEMBER – FOR STUDENTS, THE NOVELTY VALUE IS VCERY SHORT-LIVED. THIS IS ABOUT SUPPORTING LEARNING BY USING THE COMMUNICATIONS TOOLS STUDENTS ARE VERY FAMILIAR AND EXPERT IN – IT’S ABOUT RETHINKING INTERACTION AND COMMUNICATION IN NEW CONTEXTS. So for example – students can access learning materials – in the case of Hairdressing training, this takes the form of accessing ‘how-to’ modules when a student is ‘on the job’ This might take the form of Field work – museum and archive visits and work Or students might interacting with audio and sound content – for instance, listening to an audio track while visiting a place of historical interest. The feeding back ideas and comments on that content to peers THIS IS A SHIFT IN PEDAGOGY – TOWARDS A COLLABORATIVE, INTERACTIVE OR ‘CONNECTIVIST’ MODE OF LEARNING – THE TOOLS FACILITATE THIS TYPE OF INTERACTION “ Imagine students, researchers and work based learners using wireless Internet access in the classroom or workplace to access pedagogically sound learning materials, and then building on that learning by contributing their own notes and images to online repositories using ubiquitous devices such as mobile phones.” Students can … (extract from bid) – list exemplar possibilities. Mimas has been proposing work in this are that intends to give students and tutors freedom of choice and a personalised learning experience by letting them chose the tools they want to use to express their learning achievements. From our recent bid to JISC. The students’ notes can be instantaneously commented on by colleagues and tutors. Later they can be reused for in-depth learning and displayed on a Blog for further comment or to provide evidence for an ePortfolio. In the meantime a tutor can use RSS feeds (built using XML) to gather evidence of student learning for comment in their own Blog. The tutors and students can also use the RSS feeds to populate their own preferred social networks such as Facebook. Highlight notes in the quotes – touch on key points This is just one possible future, and this is new terrain. We’re still exploring how to proceed here, but the fact is that Mimas has a strong record in this area – the challenge is determining which area to focus on, and which partnerships we embark on to take this forward (within the University and potentially in the commercial world) Cut the quote down – touch on some key points and extrapolate in the talk (i.e. don’t put everything on a slide)
The implications of the shift are enormous and Users: Demand 24/7 access Scan , flick , and ‘power browse’ their way through digital content Expect instant gratification at a click
Mimas has been involved with implementing web 2.0 functionality across its services for a while now -- -- Services like Zetoc have implemented RSS feeds for journal contents updates, and other services use feeds to update on their news (Hub, Copac, Intute, Jorum) User profiles – Intute, Jorum Search widgets – net-vibes (archives hub) Copac and Hairdressing training have a facebook presence These are all personalisation tools where users can customise data. There is an entire terrain still to be explored regarding how our services can support adaptive personalisation. In other words, where a system adapts to your needs and drives content of interest to you (think Amazon)
Laura Kaagan -- offers a good general definition of what it might mean. What about context? What about community?
Conclude presentation