Embedding Use of the Social Web in Your Institution

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Embedding Use of the Social Web in Your
Institution
http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/events/so
cial-web-leeds-2009/
About This talk reviews some of the barriers to
effective use of Social Web services and suggests
approaches to embedding its use.
Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK
Email b.kelly_at_ukoln.ac.uk Twitter http//twitter
.com/briankelly/
Blog http//ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/
UKOLN is supported by
This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonComme
rcial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat)
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Contents

• Challenges to embedding use of the Social Web
• Motivation
• Im unconvinced
• I dont know where to start
• Institutional Barriers
• IT Services/Comms policies
• Sustainability/interoperability/legal/ concerns
• Sustainability Barriers
• Metrics
• Managing closure
• Other Barriers
• To be identified in breakout groups

Outputs from today
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The 1 9 90 Challenge

• Participation Inequality Encouraging More Users
  to Contribute
• In most online communities, 90 of users are
  lurkers who never contribute, 9 of users
  contribute a little, and 1 of users account for
  almost all the action. (Jakob Neilson, Oct 2006)

• Potential Benefits
• Globalisation
• Cross-fertilisation
• Unexpected benefits
• Maximising impact

• Potential Dangers
• Globalisation
• Mono-culture
• Unexpected dangers
• Loss of impact

Remember that Social Web services improve as the
numbers of users increase. The safe in-house
solution may fail due to a lack of a sustainable
community.
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Motivating Action
Motivation

• Implementing Change
• Need champions is that you?
• Are You Convinced?
• One aim of today providing examples of benefits
• Need further convincing read more examples (e.g.
  http//blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/)
• Where to Start?
• Too many opportunities!
• Suggestions
• Exploit personal or institutional
  interests/priorities
• Dont feel pressured into activities
• Go for the low-hanging fruit

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The Personal RSS Reader
Motivation

• Low-hanging fruit
• Netvibes with tabs for
• Your services
• Other peoples information about your services
• Key agencies in your area
• Your areas of interest

My personal Netvibes page
Note Netvibes videos clips
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The Public RSS Page
Motivation

• Low-hanging fruit
• Netvibes with public tabs for
• Your services
• Other peoples information about your services
• Key agencies in your area
• Your areas of interest

My public Netvibes page
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Twitter Is An Option
Motivation

• Twitter can provide tangible benefits
• Engaging in discussions at events
• Remote participation at events
• Finding our what theyre saying about you
• Note you dont need to say what you had for
  breakfast!

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Understanding The Institutional Barriers

• What are the barriers?
• IT Services says no!
• Comms department says no!
• Legal department says no!
• What we need to do
• Gain a better more detailed understanding of
  concerns
• Seek to address concerns
• Move towards a more risk-taking culture

Institutional Barriers
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Examples of Barriers

• Some examples
• Access to services blocked
• Access to services blocked at peak hours
• Responding
• Gain an understanding of reasons why and develop
  response
• e.g.
• Service blocked at peak hours indicates a network
  bandwidth concern
• General block could be due to (a) access to
  illegal content (b) staff wasting time

Institutional Barriers
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Subverting the Barriers

• Example
• Cant have a wiki user-generated content may
  include spelling mistakes. This will bring
  council into disrepute
• Understanding Purpose
• Wiki was to support teenager reading group
• Politics
• Need to ensure council achieves its social
  inclusion widening participation targets

Institutional Barriers
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Its Too Risky!

• Story
• Council blocks Twitter due to A squirrel could
  run rings around journalist tweet (meant to be
  private message)
• Parallel
• Email message sent to list rather than
  individual.
• Email service suspended
• How To Respond
• Expect strange response and plan accordingly

Institutional Barriers
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Have a (Lightweight) Policy

• Mosman Council (Australia) provides good example
  of a lightweight policy

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Risk Management

• JISC infoNet Risk Management infoKit
• In education, as in any other environment, you
  cant decide not to take risks that simply isnt
  an option in todays world. All of us take risks
  and its a question of which risks we take

Institutional Barriers

• Examples of people who are likely to be adverse
  stakeholders
• People who fear loss of their jobs
• People who will require re-training
• People who may be moved to a different department
  / team
• People .. required to commit resources to the
  project
• People who fear loss of control over a function
  or resources
• People who will have to do their job in a
  different way
• People who will have to carry out new or
  additional functions
• People who will have to use a new technology

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A Risks Opportunities Framework
IntendedPurpose
Benefits
Risks
Missed Opps.
RiskMInimisation
Evidence

• Time To Stop Doing and Start Thinking A
  Framework For Exploiting Web 2.0 Services,
  Museums the Web 2009 conference

Costs
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Using The Framework
IntendedPurpose
Benefits
Risks
Missed Opps.
RiskMInimisation
Evidence
Costs
Note personal biases!

• Use of approach in two scenarios use of Twitter
  Facebook

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Beyond The Pilot

• Youve
• Made use of Social Web services yourself
• Met like-minded colleagues and shared best
  practices
• Gathered anecdotes of the benefits
• Now you want to ensure
• The services are sustainable
• The services will continue if you leave
• The services will continue if funding and
  political circumstances change

Sustainability
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Metrics

• There are lies, damned lies and Web statistics
• Dangers
• Failure to grasp complexities (caching, false
  hits, robots, )
• Inappropriate comparison

Rather than a single Web site usage statistics,
theres a need to understand a diversity of
metrics
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Blog Statistics

• Blog statistics for UK Web Focus blog
• Average 250 visits/day in 2009

• But how meaningful is this? What about
• RSS readers?
• Email readers?

The tension desire to enhance end user
experience through increased RSS takeup vs need
to report on usage stats
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Email Statistics

• Remember that digital resources can now be
  accessed in a variety of ways
• Web access
• RSS
• Email
• On Google

Sustainability
Statistics on email delivery of blog posts
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Hidden Dangers

• When Peregrines Come To Town
• Derby Museum and Art Gallery provided v. popular
  Social Web services about nesting peregrine

So great were webstats submitted under Best
Value Performance Indicators the Audit
Commission questioned their veracity. After much
high level debate they declared our figures
unsuitable for reflecting website usages by
museums.
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Tail Wagging the Dog

• It was suggested that this decision might put
  viability of the project into question. I feared
  this could be a case of the statistics-gathering
  tail wagging the audience-focussed dog. But
  common sense prevailed and weve since been fully
  supported in our work, especially so after being
  able to demonstrate that we draw many thousands
  more visitors into our main websites each summer
  and that our project contributes towards some of
  our authoritys Corporate Priorities, too

Institutional Barriers
Note importance of stories rather then just number
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But Statistics Can Be Useful

• Statistics can help to identify successful
  strategies for engaging with user communities
  e.g. potential of Twitter

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But Statistics Can Be Useful
Statistics can help to identify successful
strategies for engaging with user communities
e.g. potential of Twitter
1,759 followers 1,392 following
3,460 followers 2,365 following
622 followers 329 following
156 followers132 following
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Termination of Services

• Individual (blog policies)

Sustainability
Blog published by Aline Hayes, Assistant Director
SLS/Director of Info Systems Technology,
Sheffield Hallam University
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Termination of Services

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

Sustainability
Having a simple policy on your use of Social Web
services can be beneficial to your users
clarify issues
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Its Not Just The Social Web

• What is the future for public sector services
  after the General Election?

Sustainability
With expectation of decreased funding, surely now
is the time to use the Cloud service?
Observer, 6 Dec 2009
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Culture Grid
Sustainability

• Collections Trust (CT) are developing the Culture
  Grid an architecture for managing cultural
  resources whilst allowing integration with Social
  Web services

But what of the risks associated with the Culture
Grid? Theres a need to apply a risk analysis to
publicly-funded services too.
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Conclusions

• To conclude
• The Social Web is here to stay
• The early mainstream users are demonstrating
  value and developing best practices
• There are risks but these are risks which need
  to be assessed and managed
• There are also risks in doing nothing!

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Questions?