Slide 1: W.B.W.
Web 2.0 at Williams
Web 2.0 and its implications for resources and services in IT and Libraries, more or less
Chris Warren cwarren@williams.edu ficial.wordpress.com Database Integration Specialist Office for Information Technology Williams College
Slide 2: What's the current status of web 2.0 at Williams? How is it being used?
Slide 3: Overview
Overall, limited...
• • • •
BUT People have really embraced the wiki (Confluence) for documentation and collaboration among controlled user groups We’re continuously experimenting Individuals and small groups participate in web 2.0 technologies and activities outside their official capacities For students, web 2.0 is simply 'the web'
Slide 4: Student web 2.0
Hardware: laptops, cellphone, wi-fi Functionality and Tools: • social networking - Facebook - almost everyone • long video - P2P - unknown • short video - YouTube - unknown • messaging - cellphone text messaging, and various IM - most • blogging - various (about 1% of student body, as best can be told) • other - unknown - unknown
Slide 5: Administrative web 2.0
• wiki for documentation (shared for reading) and collaboration (private) • OIT security blog, for announcements / alerts • podcasting for Public Affairs, for special needs • Sustainability blog, for discussion / dissemination • wiki-ish back-end for library and some of WWW
Slide 6: Academic web 2.0
• blogs for classes • Wikipedia as a resource (de facto, not encouraged / endorsed) • Second Life as a platform (Art Mecho) and an object of study (the social and philosophical aspects) • our wiki, for closed discussion and collaboration • pod- and vod-casting by some individual professors
Slide 7: Alumni and community web 2.0
• • • • • • • • social networking on Facebook et al professional networking on Linked In et al Ephblog WSO forums Willipedia - the WSO wiki YouTube Flickr individual blogs
Slide 8: Web 1.7 - not quite web 2.0
Tools having some aspects of web 2.0, but falling short
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Blackboard Digital Storytelling workshops Daily Messages email tool data publication sites Master Calendar Peoplesoft Self Service OIT Workshops Signup Open Seats tool / service ContentDM
Slide 9: Under the hood
The technologies of web 2.0, even if not used for that
• • • • • • •
advanced CSS AJAX data driven open APIs data streams (RSS, XML, etc) standards compliant Scriptaculous & Prototype JS
Slide 10: What we're interested in
Slide 11: Specific Technologies and Tools
• • • • • • • • Google Docs Flickr Swivel, FreeBase Pidgin, iChat Slideshare Ning social sites YouTube publication Creative Commons • • • • • • Wordpress blogs Wordpress as CMS del-icio.us Google Earth - GIS Google Maps API RSS - making and using • Bloglines aggregator
Slide 12: • Google Docs – collaborative
writing, spreadsheets, presentations
• Wordpress blogs – electronic
publication and discussion
• Flickr – photo sharing and finding • Swivel, FreeBase – sharing
datasets and charts
• Wordpress - lightweight CMS • del-icio.us – social bookmarking
and tagging
• Pidgin, iChat – instant messaging • Slideshare – presentation sharing • Ning – custom social sites • YouTube – video publication /
sharing
• Google Earth – lightweight GIS • Google Maps API - mashups • RSS creation and consumption – human readable /
relevant data streams
• Creative Commons – legalese
for content sharing
• Bloglines – RSS aggregator
Slide 13: Some we're not using / doing
• micro-blogging (Twitter) • developing flashy UI • games (WoW, KoL, ARGs, PMOG, etc.) • news filters (Digg, Slashdot, etc.) • review / recommendation systems (GoodReads, Pandora, etc.) • ITunesU
Slide 14: Food for Thought
Obstacles, Opportunities, and Ideas
Slide 15: Obstacles
• • • • • • • • • adoption – how, and why support - how and by who culture - trust, privacy, hierarchy 1% rule - consumer vs participant tech environment - very varied reliability questions (and principles) lack of self-knowledge computer focused – vs cell phone et al limited resources
Slide 16: Opportunities / Applications
• • • • • • • • • intra-campus communication user-based support cross-group social connections student connections content creation / contribution know thyself re-cast existing services customized education experience bend space and time
Slide 17: Some Ideas and Observations
• We're not promoting web 2.0 to faculty, but trying to prepare them to survive when all students use it • The individuals that make up the college community use web 2.0 for themselves even if they don't in their official capacity • In many ways web 2.0 is more about individuals than groups or organizations • The cultural attitudes and expectations (connectivity, accessibility, adaptability, etc.) associated with web 2.0 are more important than any particular technologies
