New Media Theory & Digital Culture

The UK Open University has a pioneering and innovative division called OpenLearn that, among other things, develops tools for learning. One of the tools is called Cohere and is designed to map ideas in an electronic and networked environment. The description from the Cohere site describes the tool as;

 an experimental knowledge mapping tool that runs on the web, connecting you, and your Ideas, to other learners with common interests. Cohere is designed to help answer critical questions such as : “Who supports this idea?”, “Show me examples of that phenomenon”, “What are the limitations of this methodology?”

Maps similar to those prepared by social network analysis can be prepared and seem to provide a valuable way to understand the relation between ideas or other ‘entities’….

A relatively new (October 2009) report, Choosing virtual worlds,  is designed to help select an appropriate virtual world for educational objectives, particularly at the college and university level. As would be expected Second Life is the primary platform, but others, notably OpenSim (an abbreviation for Open Simulator), are runner-ups, according to the survey of UK academics on which the report is based.

The report initiates the comparison by providing a definition of virtual worlds and cites OII colleague Ralph Schroeder: “I have argued for more than ten years for a clear definition of virtual environments and virtual reality technology as to have a sense of being present in an environment other than the one they are actually in, and to interact with that environment a computer-generated display that allows or compels the user (or users)8; or, in short, ‘being there’.”

Many lists of criteria for selection are noted in the report; one that is both compact and encompasive of major concerns was proposed by Peter Miller:

• Ease of implementation.
• Ease of content creation in-world by staff and students.
• Availability of content and tools.
• Stability.
• Availability of training and contractors.

The report is prepared by Virtual World Watch, which is a treasure chest of materials on educational applications of these venues.

In a recent assignment for this course, I ‘reprimanded’ a student for including doi codes (digital object identifier) in the references provided and said that “I had never seen them used in published references”. Although I haven’t seen them, they are becoming more frequent and APA (American Psychological Associatiion) style guide, 7th edition **does** discuss them, as does a series of APA blog posts and flow chart as recent as September 2009. APA does recommend their use in bibliographic entries; see here.

Policy is changing and it seems that for Web-based material, it **is** preferred to cite the doi when it is available; see schema in the above blog thread.

- Nick Jankowski

During a meeting today at the Virtual Knowledge Studio (VKS) about platforms for distant collaboration, a couple of persons present mentioned the software systems used in teaching online courses. The management software ‘tossed on the table’ included: WebCT, ANGEL, Blackboard, and the granddaddy of online cabinet collections: BSCW. I couldn’t help but try to trace the links between these systems, and the general Wikipedia article on WebCT helped much.  Here are a few tid-bits:

• BSCW, originated in the mid-1990s and originally was an abbreviation for Basic Support Cooperative Work. Recently the title has been revised, using the same initials, to something more ‘snappy’: Be Smart Cooperate Worldwide, probably as a renewed marketing effort. Some people dislike this basic software system because of a somewhat user-unfriendly environment. I’ve used it for as long as it has been around and, across time, have become accustomed to its design and structure. BSCW provides essentially a virtual filing cabinet and serves that purpose well, and one of its attractions is that it is free….
• WebCT is considered the grand daddy of of course management software and was designed by Murry Goldberg, a young professor at the University of British Columbia in the mid-1990s. The initiative caught on and, like so many upstarts, the initiative transformed from experimental idea to commercial product, involving several million users worldwide in its heyday. A delightfully dated decade-old video of its inventor is available here on YouTube. There are many YouTube demonstration videos about WebCT and this one is about WebCT Vista which is an ungraded and streamlined version of the original product.
• ANGEL is (well) known by SUNY-IT students since this software is under license by the university and serves as the baseline for online coursework. What some persons may not know is that the company has been recently purchased (May 2009) by Blackboard, as has WebCT, and is being phased out. My experience with ANGEL is limited to this course this semester, but I have found it a considerable improvement over Blackboard (earlier versions that I utilized years ago). If ANGEL would allow a bit more modification in the software, allowing software extraneous to the system to be incorporated (like blogs from different vendors and like video conferencing software such as Elluminate), I can imagine a ‘complete package’. Now, however, the ‘gates are locked’ and separate platforms must be created to use other online learning tools. ANGEL was developed at about the same time as WebCT, the mid-1990s, and was a collaborative project between Indiana and Purdue University. One of the more recent intentions of ANGEL inis to incorporate Second Life into the learning environment; see June 2008 ANGEL white paper ‘The Power of Virtual Worlds in Education’. I do not know whether this initiative will be continued under the new ownership by Blackboard.
• Blackboard seems to be the Microsoft of course management software, now market leader with a seemingly aggressive acquition policy. The official website of Blackboard is the most commercial-looking of all of the products. Efforts by the company to incorporate the mobile phone into the learning environment are shown on the front page of the site and a new product is being launched: Blackboard Mobile. It is probably that the most recent version of this software is much more sophisticated than the version I used about a decade ago, and probably matches the functionalities of the two rivals it bought out, WebCT and ANGEL.

Alternatives for reference management software are about as plentiful as word processing programs used to be several decades ago. Two contenders for market leadership are EndNotes and RefWorks - not that they are the ‘best’ but they do seem to dominate the academic sector of users. One of the many ‘Davids’ as compared to these ‘Goliaths’  vying for a place in the field is called Mendeley. I am relatively new to these products, so cannot speak from extensive experience. I can, though, relay a few highlights from a RefWorks training I attended yesterday and a scan of the Mendeley site and materials I took on today.

Judith Gulpers from the Erasmus University library gave a select and small group from the Virtual Knowledge Studio (VKS) an information-packed two-hour tour of RefWorks yesterday (5 Nov. 2009), based on similar trainings regularly given by the library. It is clear that much value can be had from embracing a tool such as RefWorks; it is less clear whether there is more value in choosing this alternative over, say, EndNote. The two seem similar although Judith said new users seem to adjust to RefWorks more easily than persons changing over from EndNote. Old dogs are slow to learn new tricks….

One of the distinct attractions of RefWorks is the ability for research teams to share bibliographies, something of fundamental value in collaboratory endeavors. Interestingly, although Erasmus University has strived to encourage ommunity-wide sharing of bibliographies by staff and students, very few (less than a handful) publically accessible bibliographies have been uploaded…staff and students seem to still desire to protect their labor rather than share openly….

Ultimately, choice of a reference management software product is (largely) based on the choice already made by the community of scholars in which one works / studies; there is a strong ‘pull’ to adopt what is already used by peer group members, mentors, departments, institutions. And, when high quality service and support by the institution is provided, as in the case of Erasmus University, the choice becomes even more strongly that of the community. Still, ‘deviant’, new initiatives, particularly those with a grounding in users as opposed to corporate interests, like seems to be the case with Mendeley, have an attraction almost irrestible, at least among those of us with an ideological adversion to large corporate interests as those behind EndNote and RefWorks….