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RSS feedsThe latest generation of web technologies promises to support teaching, learning and research in higher education in exciting new ways.
Collectively referred to as Web 2.0 , technologies such as blogs, wikis, RSS, instant messaging, social networking and podcasting promise to bring a step-change in collaborative working and participation.
The Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) has made it its business to develop best practice in higher education information systems through a process of evaluation and support of projects to provide examples of best practice.
Now that a researcher can set up a blog in minutes, the process of evaluation and system development is in danger of looking old hat, and JISC is having to look at how it should respond to this new landscape.
Web 2.0 development tends to be both informal and individualistic. For example, a researcher might set up a wiki on one aspect of their research, while a lecturer might make their lectures available by podcast. This is in stark contrast to the institutional information systems development of the past.
JISC has reacted rapidly to the Web 2.0 environment, which brings with it a number of issues. It commissioned the Techwatch report on the implications of Web 2.0 for the UK higher education sector, with a focus on library activities.
Do as i do
“Web 2.0 has thrown up exciting developments,” said Lawrie Phipps, manager of the JISC Users and Innovation programme. “There is more participation online than ever before. But there are issues around who owns what and issues of protecting ideas.
“Web 2.0 make it easy for students to cut and paste, which raises issues of intellectual property rights and copyright. We are taking a positive stance on this because as well as the issues, there are fantastic opportunities for collaboration. Intellectual property rights is an issue and we need to think about it. We will have some guidance coming out.”
Phipps describes JISC’s approach to Web 2.0 as “doing itself as it says to do”, or practising what it preaches.
He added: “We have tried to be a living exemplar. Our team is very dispersed; we have hundreds of projects and we use web technologies. Most people contact each other via Skype internet phones, RSS updates or instant messaging.”
JISC’s Users and Innovation project is bringing people together from Canada, New Zealand and Australia to thrash out the issues. Fifty institutions are working together to build project plans and JISC will offer up to £4m to fund bigger projects from September. “We are trying to identify what users in education need,” said Phipps.
The types of projects that are surfacing vary widely. A consortium of institutions from Western Australia, Coventry and the University of Auckland are looking at pedagogic issues of using immersive environments like Second Life.
Meanwhile at Leeds Metropolitan University a lecturer wants to use iTunes and podcasts to give students much faster feedback on assessments as he finds using the spoken word a quicker process.
While JISC acknowledges the informal nature of Web 2.0 technologies, it is attempting to create a framework for using the technologies. The Users and Innovation project has a support project called Emerge looking at emerging technology, harnessing and synthesising it and feeding it back in a structured way.
Risk rating
“I think it is most important that, when they are implementing Web 2.0 technologies, universities do risk analysis as it is often something built by very rapid startups. The implementation needs to be structured,” said Phipps. “We can take the risks on behalf of the community and we can see whether something works.”
JISC put Web 2.0 right at the top of its agenda at its recent annual conference when Web 2.0 maven Tom Loosemore, project director of BBC 2.0 , emphasised the importance of embracing Web 2.0.
According to Loosemore, the best web services anticipate needs not yet anticipated by users. He advised: “Make many small leaps last; kill failures fast. And don’t restrict your creativity to your own site.”
He urged institutions not to try to attempt to do everything themselves. “Link to others and use the wonders of API. Link to discussions on the web, don’t host them.”
Dave White, co-manager of the technology-assisted lifelong learning unit in the Department for Continuing Education at Oxford University, is doing JISC-funded work on Web 2.0 technologies in higher education.
He said: “The role of institutions is going to have to change. They may have to say to students, go and make a group somewhere on the web where they want to be – institutions don’t have to manage the technology. JISC is looking at these issues and funding a project looking into ways we can make the virtual learning environment connect through to these technologies.”
White is researching immersive environments for teaching and learning as well as surveying student take-up of Web 2.0 technologies. “It emerged from our survey that Wikipedia is enormous and lots of people use it as their main, if not only, point of reference,” he said. “And more work needs to be done to find out why certain Web 2.0 technologies are popular.”
He added: “Part of the challenge for JISC will be finding a way of being more agile. We may end up with two worlds – one more informal than the other.”
