Lecture Notes Focuss Info Workshop Ghana Kwami Ahiabenu Ii

Lecture notes
Kwami Ahiabenu,II
Kwami AT penplusbytes.org
workshop on information, knowledge sharing facilitated by social online tools

Our Journey
Introduction & Background
Infostructures
Key words, tags, hash tags & tag clouds
Social media tools
Social book marking and micro blogging
Mapping roles in infostructures powered by social media tools
Questions & answers and Activities
Conclusion

Introduction
Online collaboration, information and knowledge is a key life line in our growing knowledge society
Infostructures are now a key building block in development cooperation, academia and research
Our journey will take us through how we can collaborate online, share info and knowledge within the framework of infostructures using social media tools .

Background
Focuss.Info workshop aimed at promoting new information and communication (ICT) skills among peers in the domain of global development research and cooperation.
The workshop is part of focuss info Initiative that aims at improvement of access to information, a fundamental right that strengthens democracy, and supports human rights.
The objective of Focuss.Info also corresponds to the work of UNESCO, which helps to develop effective ‘infostructures’, including developing information standards, management tools and fostering access at the community level.

What are infostructures
Infostructure is similar to Infrastructure
Infrastucturesrefers to a set of physical systems designed to deliver services. Eg. Road, telephone , internet etc
Infostructures on the other hand is similar to infrastructures but it is not physical in nature. It connotes the layout of information which enables easy navigation.
An infostructure is created when we organize information into a useful and organised manner.
Examples - A table of contents, bibliography,anindex, world wide web, etc

Some key Characteristics of Infostructures
It must be designed with end users in mind to achieve its intended service of helping them navigate a maze of information
Consistent navigation structure is core to any infostructure in order for users to navigate all documents related or non related.
Clear ordering of information by theme, table of contents, searchable Index, what’s new, archives,
Documents must easily be cross-referenced especially through the use of reasonable number of links

Key words
One important tool for online collaboration and info sharing is the use of key words and tags
Keyword(s) can be defined as a word or words identifying a content. Authors make use of them to reveal internal structure of their work.
Key word(s) can be referred to as a significant or descriptive word, specific terms, reference point or code(cipher) used in the process of finding information.
Using key words, a user can easily and efficiently search for information based on authors’ input.

Tags
"tag"islike a keyword or category label which helps you find content with similar characteristics. They are non-hierarchical keyword/term in nature and assigned to a piece of online information. For example, we can tag all library websites in Ghana with “library Ghana” tag.

Hashtags
On the other hand, Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. For example go to www.hashtags.org and search for hash (#) key word (focussgh) #focussgh – Focuss Info workshop in Ghana.
Other services such as http://search.twitter.com, TweetChat, Tweetdeck, TweetGrid, and Twitterfall are also popular for following hashtags in real-time.

Tag cloud
A tag cloud or word cloud (or weighted list in visual design) is a visual description of content tags used on a website.
For example : http://tagcrowd.com/ enables you to create your own tag cloud from any text to visualize word frequency.

What are social media tools
Supports the democratization of knowledge and information
Since 1980s, online means have made it possible for users to communicate and collaborate.
But the advent of web 2.0 tools increased the popularity of social media tools and also increased number of users on social media platforms
Social media tools enable people around the world to contribute and collaborate on readily available online platforms invariably creating new knowledge bases that were not traditionally recognized as information sources. Also it has transformed a lot more people from content consumers to content producers.

Social media tools in action

Social bookmarking
Social bookmarking is tagging a website address egwww.focusss.info and saving it for future use since it can easily be retrieved.
You can bookmark web address to your web browser but saving them online means it can easily be shared with other users.
Examples - www.delicious.com : most popular
www.citeulike.org : A free service to help academics to share, store, and organize the academic papers they are reading.

Social book marks sites

Examples of Social bookmarking platforms
DIIGO http://www.diigo.com is two services in one - it is a research and collaborative research tool on one hand and a knowledge-sharing community and social content site on the other.
GNOLIA http://gnolia.com/ an online community built around link saving and sharing.

BlinkListhttp://www.blinklist.com/ is a powerful social book marking productivity tool.
Simpyhttp://www.simpy.com/ is a social bookmarking service that lets you save, tag, search and share your bookmarks, notes, groups and more.

News/what’s new type social bookmarks
Fark :http://www.fark.com/
Slashdot : http://slashdot.org/
Technorati : http://technorati.com/about-technorati/
Reddit : http://www.reddit.com
Newsvine : http://www.newsvine.com/

Enabling bookmarking on your website
Most Website now provide visitors a link to enable them bookmark content from their sites. This is done by embedding a code. See http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php

Micro blogging
Microblogging is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, E-mail, digital audio or the web.(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-blogging)

Micro blogging
Twitter – is by far the most popular micro blogging tool in the cyber space with millions of users all over the world. www.twitter.comis a free social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets.
Other micro blogging platforms include but not limited to pownce, tumblr, jaiku, mysay, hictu, moodmill, Frazr, Iratemyday, emotionr

Examples of Micro blogging platforms
Twitter - http://twitter.com/ launched in 2006, is a very popular instant messaging system that lets a person send brief text messages up to 140 characters in length to a list of followers.
Tumblr- http://www.tumblr.comTumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be.

Micro blogging
Squeelr- http://www.squeelr.com/ Anonymous, Geo-sensitive, Collaborative,Communications and Micro-blogging.
Beeing - http://www.beeing.com is a real-time micro-blogging and co-surfing application for quick discovery, gathering and sharing the web content you find. Create your content stream and embed it anywhere.

identi.ca http://identi.ca/ built on open source tools and open standards which allows users to send text-based posts up to 140 characters
Plurkhttp://www.plurk.com/Plurk is an easy way to chronicle and share the things you do, the way you feel, and all the other things in between that make up your life, with the people close to you

Emote.inhttp://www.emote.in/ is a lifestream service, where you can write and share short (140 chars or less) text notices called "dots"
Jaikuhttp://www.jaiku.com/ bringing people closer together via conversations by connecting people through sharing of updates -Web, IM, and SMS - as well as through third-party applications built by other developers using the Jaiku API. ( part of google)

Others – mostly enterprise based
Socialtext Signalshttp://www.socialtext.com/products/microblogging.php
Present.ly http://presentlyapp.com/
Communotehttp://www.communote.com/homepage/en
Sprouterhttp://sprouter.com/
wooxiehttp://www.wooxie.com/
cubeTree.com http://www.cubetree.com/
IBM lotus Connections http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/connections

Creation of infostructures using social medial tools
In creating infostructure the following key issues come to play :
Subject area – key issues
Design
For whom?
Content generation through experience and Online research
Relevance
Online Tools – eg Twitter and Delicious

Mapping roles in infostructures powered by social media tools
We are no longer information consumers but producers
We can contribute to infostructure by supplying information and knowledge from our area of expertise
We can only share information and knowledge if we organize it for easy access and search

Activity
List key information and knowledge areas of your work area
Who are the key stakeholders in your environment
What are the contributory factors to information and knowledge flow in your environment
What factors do you consider to be roadblocks for information and knowledge flow in your environment

Questions and Answers

Building a collective space
After creating individual online tools for information sharing and collaboration, the next step is to enable synergy
In this direction, we organize individual info sharing activities into a collective whole through re-using, re-mixing and synchronizing valuable information
This group collective space does have a direct consequence of amplifying individual information sharing output. Harnessing individuals efforts into a collective good.

Building a collective info space- examples
One good example is Focuss.Info, which is indexing personal collection from Delicious into a network (which is searchable via search engines) :http://delicious.com/network/focuss.marker
http://www.grouptweet.com/ (GroupTweet is a service that works with Twitter to allow users to form groups and communicate within those groups.
Hashtags - http://hashtags.org/

Creating network on social bookmarking platform
Your network connects you to other Delicious users - friends, family, even new people you run across while exploring Delicious. You can add people to your network and keep track of their latest bookmarks right . And when you save new bookmarks, you can share them with people in your network simply by clicking on a username. (source : www.delicious.com)

Conclusion
In conclusion information and knowledge sharing through face to face and online can go a long way to make a difference for scholars and professionals. Therefore all and sundry must invest in the development of a dynamic vibrant learning, information and knowledge sharing environment.

Thank You
Visit http://www.focuss.info
for regular updates

Lecture Notes Focuss Info Workshop Ghana Kwami Ahiabenu Ii

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