Empowering Users and Institutions: A Risks and Opportunities Framework for Exploiting the Social Web

Empowering Users and Institutions: A Risks and Opportunities Framework for Exploiting the Social Web Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK UKOLN is supported by: This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat) Acceptable Use Policy Recording of this talk, taking photos, discussing the content using email, Twitter, blogs, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised. Resources bookmarked: ‘ cultural-heritage-online-2009 ' tag http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/cultural-heritage/events/cultural-heritage-online-2009/ Email: [email_address] Twitter: http://twitter.com/briankelly/ Blog: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/

About Me
Brian Kelly:
National Web adviser to UK Universities and cultural heritage organisations
Based at UKOLN, a national centre of expertise in digital information management and located at the University of Bath
Involved in Web since January 1993
Over 300 presentations given since 1997
Current area of interest include Web 2.0, Web standards and Web accessibility
Introduction

Opportunities & Challenges

On the Pull – physical and virtual exhibition organised by Brighton Library

Brighton On The Pull
On The Pull also used MySpace and Flickr

National Library Example (1)
National Library of Wales “ Shaping the future: The Library’s strategy 2008-2009 to 2010-2011 ”:
“ We propose taking advantage of new online technology, including … Web 2.0 services …
It is expected that the Library itself will provide only some specific services on its website. Instead, the intention is to promote and facilitate the use of the collections by external users, in accordance with specific guidelines.”
Example of use of Web 2.0 services embedded within a Welsh Assembly Government funded project

Use of Web 2.0 at the National Library of Wales including:
Use of YouTube
Examples from guest blog post by Paul Bevan on UK Web Focus blog / Bridging Worlds 2008 paper, National Library of Singapore http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykCAxSqziFY

Use of Web 2.0 at the National Library of Wales including:
Use of YouTube
Use of Flickr
http://www.flickr.com/groups/cymru-wales/

Web 2.0
A Non-technical Perspective on Web 2.0
It’s not just about the technological aspects, it’s about rethinking ownership and use of services and content
Web2MemeMap, Tim O’Reilly, 2005
Characteristics Of Web 2.0
Network as platform
Benefits of scale
Social Web
Clean URIs
Remix and mash-ups
Syndication (RSS)
Architecture of participation
Blogs & wikis
Social networking, tagging & sharing
Trust and openness

It’s About The Individual!
How do you relate to a world in which the focus of the Social Web is the individual. Challenges posed:
‘ It’s my space’
‘ Sustainability
Privacy
Editorial control
Branding
…

Why Use the Social Web? http://www.flickr.com/photos/quelsaa/2080736454/sizes/o/

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

A Question
“ How Can Institutions Develop Innovative and Affordable Tools to Engage Increasingly Sophisticated Audiences ” (JISC Digitisation Conf 2007)
Some thoughts:
In some areas they shouldn’t attempt to compete with market place successes (e.g. Google)
If some cases institutions may be indifferent to the service provider (e.g. Microsoft or Google Docs)
There are real needs to:
Answer the question “Why develop?”
Be realistic if development work is funded
Be user-focussed (and this isn’t necessarily easy)
Be prepared to write off investment if users don’t want what we’ve developed

Being Realistic
Options in light of the credit crunch:
Let’s build up an empire now which will be embarrassing to close down
Let’s use issues of ownership, stability, privacy, … to stifle discussion of 3 rd party solutions
Let’s explore a blended approach (a 3 rd way?)

The Pilot was a Success …
Following a very successful pilot project the JANET Collaborate prototype site will shortly be retired.
…
This retirement has come about as a result of difficulties in maintaining the prototype beyond its intended lifetime. We are now looking at how to add the functionality into the JANET service portfolio in order to provide an improved feature set based on the requirements gathered in the pilot.

We understand that some fans of the prototype site may be disappointed by this news. We apologise for this and at the same time thank all the users of the prototype for their strong, enthusiastic support during the pilot.

Managed External Services
We’re seeing greater take-up of email in the cloud
Cloud computing - Hope or Hype? , From A Distance blog, 4 Nov 2009, Chris Sexton Discussions about managed cloud services now mainstream

Unmanaged External Services
My UK Web Focus blog, hosted on Wordpress.com

Use of Cloud Services
Use of services in the cloud:
We are committed professionals
We want to support innovation
We can demonstrate best practices
Policies

Experience at Croydon Council illustrates the need for lightweight and flexible policies
Lightweight Policies Mosman Council provides an example of a lightweight policy for Twitter Policies

Risks and IWMW 2006
Risk assessment approach initially developed for IWMW 2006
Risk Management

Risks and IWMW 2006
Summary of the risks
Risk Management

Risks and IWMW 2006
There are also risks in doing nothing
Risk Management

Copyright Risks
R = A x B x C x D
where
R is the financial risk;
A is the chances that what has been done is infringement;
B is the chances that the copyright owner becomes aware of such infringement;
C is the chances that having become aware, the owner sues;
D is the financial cost (damages, legal fees, opportunity costs in defending the action, plus loss of reputation) for such a legal action.
Note this is a device aimed at providing a new way of looking at copyright issues

Legal Risks
Factors to bear in mind:
Commercial use: a rights owner who later becomes aware of the use of their work may be more likely to pursue an action for infringement of copyright than if the work is being purely used for educational purposes.
Particularly sensitive subject areas: music, geographic data, literary works by eminent authors and artistic works including photographs and drawings.
Is there any track record of the contributor ignoring legal niceties in the past?
Is there any track record of a particular third party having complained before?

Reducing the Legal Risks
Approaches:
Have clear and robust notice and take down policies
Have procedures with a clear address given for complaints
Example from JORUM Procedures to Deal with Queries, Alerts and Complaints

Towards a Framework
“ Time To Stop Doing and Start Thinking: A Framework For Exploiting Web 2.0 Services ”, Museums & the Web 2009 conference
Intended Purpose Benefits Risks Missed Opps. Costs Risk MInimisation Evidence Biases Subjective factors
Sharing experiences
Learning from successes & failures
Tackling biases
…
Application to existing services
Application to in-house development
…

Using The Framework
Use of approach in two scenarios: use of Twitter & Facebook
Intended Purpose Benefits Risks Missed Opps. Costs Risk MInimisation Evidence Workflow Marketing, community Community support Rapid feedback Org. brand Policies Low? Twitter for individuals Organisational Fb Page Marketing events,… Large audiences Ownership, privacy, lock-in, effort Marketing opportunities Low?

Conclusions The future is exciting - but organisations will need to address the challenges. Acknowledgments to Michael Edson for the Web Tech Guy and Angry Staff Person post / comic strip

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Empowering Users and Institutions: A Risks and Opportunities Framework for Exploiting the Social Web

by Brian Kelly on Dec 11, 2009

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Empowering Users and Institutions: A Risks and Opportunities Framework for Exploiting the Social Web Presentation Transcript