Following a recent conference I was made aware of some free briefings on Web 2.0 issues.

Of particular interest for me were Web 2.0: Supporting Library Users and Web 2.0: Addressing the Barriers to Implementation in a Library Context.

The former includes examples of how the library can use Web 2.0 ideas in service delivery, including things such as the ‘wall of books‘ which displays book cover images for new items added to stock, and each image links to the relevant bibliographic record on the OPAC. Some LMS may already have features than can be utilised for Web 2.0-style interaction.

The RSC Wales del.icio.us account has a general section on Web 2.0 if you want to look into it further.

Monday 15th – Wednesday 17th October I was in Birmingham (Sutton Coldfield) for the RSC UK Conference. This was a chance for staff from all fourteen RSCs across the UK to come together, along with staff from JISC Services such as TechDIS, JISC Collections and TASI.

A social networking service, Ning, was used before the conference for networking and the setting up of topic groups. This partially drove the agenda forward, and the usage determined some of the sessions that ran during the conference, which is an interesting way of organising things. One advantage is that the online networking and profiles meant I had an idea of who was who before I even got there, which is valuable, especially with so many people attending.

Day 1 looked at how Web 2.0 technologies can be utilised by learning providers. Sessions covered Web 2.0 topics such as the following:

• Mashups
• Web 2.0 desktops – online services used for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations.
• Legal aspects – e.g. what happens when YouTube shows a fight at a local college; what are the libel dangers of FaceBook?
• Technical aspects of Web 2.0 – e.g. issues of access and security.
• Second Life – a useful medium for learning about ’social’ subjects such as psychology and business?
• Mobile technologies – how can smart phones and PDAs aid communication and help remote learners? Can they help teaching and learning on outdoor courses such as civil engineering and horticulture?

Day 2 was for topic groups. I attended the sessions on ‘access management of learning resources’ and ‘multi-user virtual environments’ (MUVEs).

The latter is a recent interest, mentioned in a previous blog entry. I suppose my interest in this is curiosity about the uses for LRCs; networking; education; and communications. Not just Second Life but any MUVE (Multi-User Virtual Environment). The low-requirement ones that can display in a browser or Moodle course sound very interesting. Anyway, I have just added the relevant JISCmail list to my growing collection of subscribed lists!

Two new JISC podcasts on the subject of Web 2.0 were released recently.

The first is ‘What is Web 2.0 and how is it impacting on education?‘ It lasts about ten minutes, and acts as a briefing on some of the implications of Web 2.0 for educational institutions. You can download it and play it on your PC or an MP3 player. The official blurb says:

“Students are increasingly becoming familiar with using social networking and other interactive web services such as Facebook, MySpace, Flickr and YouTube. This phenomenon has important implications for educational institutions as students increasingly expect such services – or at least aspects of such services – to be mirrored in the delivery of courses.

In this podcast, JISC’s Lawrie Phipps and Dave White from the University of Oxford speak about the impact such technologies – commonly gathered under the umbrella term ‘Web 2.0′ – are having on education and research and how institutions can harness them meaningfully and effectively in support of their students. “

The second is ‘TechWatch’s Gaynor Backhouse talks about Web 2.0‘. “The JISC-funded TechWatch service recently published a major – and hugely popular – report on Web 2.0 and its implications for education and research. In this Podcast Philip Pothen speaks to TechWatch’s director Gaynor Backhouse about the work of the service and why the report has been so successful.” (I haven’t listened to that one).

See the RSC Wales Del.icio.us account Web 2.0 section for these and others.

[Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth - photo courtesy of Lis]

The RSC LTRG group are the Learning Resources Advisors from each of the RSCs around the UK – LTRG stands for ‘Learning and Teaching Resources Group’. The meetings for both days were at the Holiday Inn Express, Portsmouth, at Gunwharf Quays.

Monday 17th July

As well as the general business of the meeting, there were a number of talks.

First was Liam Earney of JISC Collections, talking about recent developments and looking at how the RSCs can work more effectively with JISC Collections. JISC Collections is one of the main sources to go to in order to see what e-resource deals are available to LRCs.

Scott Gibbons from Coutts Library Services then gave a talk on the Coutts E-books service, MyiLibrary. A couple of Welsh FE colleges have already signed up to MyiLibrary.

[I interrupt this broadcast in order to have a ranting fit against the modern trend towards cutesy pronoun-appropriating egoism in names - from the iPod, to MySpace, to Windows ME, to the Nintendo Wii (pronounced 'We'). Coutts managed to beat that by combining two of the terms in the name of their e-books platform. I am just waiting for a company to offer 'MyIBookmineME'. Ah, the egocentrism of popular culture. Sorry, rant over, normal service is resumed.]

The Coutts platform has a number of features:

• Unlimited multi-user access (if you pay a slightly increased fee).
• Based around the idea of buying individual titles, not bundles you may not need.
• Their platform only shows what you have subscribed to.
• They don’t always have the latest edition of the textbook available online (often due to publisher restrictions, but still something worth being aware of).
• Their system has built-in DRM (Digital Rights Management) – so if you avoid DRM, then you need to be aware of this.
• You own the books you purchase in perpetuity, though have to pay an annual access fee (based on JISC banding, c. £150 for most FE institutions if they are in bands E-J). You can get the books on a CD if you ever stop paying the access fee.
• You can access titles via IP, referring URL, Athens or Shibboleth, or a combination.
• If you subscribe then you can send Coutts ISBNs from reading lists: they will then send you the prices and availability of the titles on MyiLibrary (a free service).
• Currently they have c. 70,000 titles, and are adding more all the time.
• About half of the titles are pdfs, the others are html format.

Peter Godwin from London South Bank University then gave a talk on ‘Information literacy meets Web 2.0′. This was especially useful because I am hoping to work on an information literacy course on the RSC Wales Moodle, that can be used by FE colleges (similar to Hannah’s Podcasting course). Let me know if there is anything you would suggest including!

Peter covered lots of the tools used in Web 2.0 – blogs, wikis, RSS, social bookmarking, media sharing such as Flickr and YouTube, podcasting and so on. It stimulated a lot of thought – in terms of LRC usage, maybe we could get media or drama students involved, and get them to do a video about your library/LRC, then upload it to YouTube: so that as well as being promotional you could use it in inductions or incorporate it into your VLE? YouTube can also be used as a trigger for discussion, e.g. the ‘Librarian’ video Peter played (or the start of this one here) which could be used as part of a student ice-breaker induction to show what the library ISN’T like! Another video we might use is this one – I went to University with the person who wrote the song in this clip (’Cursor Miner’). The video has the classic line ‘Librarians are often sexy’, so obviously that one could also be a debating point with new students…

Annette Crosbourne of Highbury College then talked about effective LRC use of Moodle at the college. VLEs have obvious uses for the lecturers, but sometimes it is less clear how an LRC can use them, so this was an interesting case study.

The evening involved exploring Gunwharf Quays; chatting with my colleagues; and sampling food, lager, and some fine whiskies.

[LTRG after hours - photos courtesy of Lis]

Tuesday 18th July

This day was given over more to discussion of various LTRG issues and relevant resources and tools. Lis and I gave a brief talk about Services Supporting Learning in Wales: A Quality Toolkit for Evaluating Learning Resource Services in Further Education Colleges (link). We discussed the background and how the quality toolkit has been used in Wales (advocacy, benchmarking, inspections and so on). Although the toolkit was created for self-evaluation, the next step in the development of the toolkit was a Peer Evaluation scheme, which has been trialled and is due to become more widespread across Wales in the near future. Basically one or two professionally qualified librarians from other colleges come and evaluate your service (operating on a reciprocal basis whereby you then agree to participate in the assessment of someone else’s service). Peer evaluation is becoming seen as an important counterpart to benchmarking, valued by assessors, so this is an exciting development.

Following the meeting Lis and I got two trains back to Swansea with no trouble; and after a quick meal at The Retreat, I got the bus back to Aberystwyth – home for 10.30pm!

[Me using a 'powerball' after the meeting - photo courtesy of Lis]

Yesterday I visited Barry College with my RSC Wales colleague Hannah Dovey. Hannah was running some staff development sessions, and I helped out a bit. Doing joint sessions like this has a number of advantages: there is more opportunity during the hands-on sections for us to help people one-to-one; there is extra support in terms of making points or giving examples; one person can get away for a bit when somethign is required (e.g. PC speakers); but the main advantage for me was learning things from Hannah’s presentations.

We did two sessions on Web 2.0, including descriptions of various tools and their implications for teaching (I covered social bookmarking); then there was a hands-on session using Blogger, where the teaching staff got to create a blog. There was a lot of thought-provoking discussion, since the lecturers wanted to come up with ways that the tools could be used specifically in their curriculum areas, and many good ideas came out of it – for example one lecturer intended to video various technical aspects to do with his subject area, then make them available to students as examples.

The other two sessions were on mind mapping using VUE – a free mind mapping package. After Hannah’s initial talk we helped the teaching staff to use VUE to create mind maps, and staff seemed to enjoy playing with it. Some very impressive mind maps were created in a short space of time, and there was some good discussion of potential uses. One lecturer, Tony Crothers, created carpentry tool types, then had nodes for individual tools. He was going to bring it up on the interactive whiteboard, and get the students to drag things into the correct category, then vote on if it was placed correctly or not, and discuss why. They could then drag it back if necessary, or to another category. It was an interesting way of combining different technologies to be both interesting and useful for the learners. I learnt a lot from the lecturers we were showing things to!

I was able to visit the Learning Resource centre as well, and spoke to one of the managers, Rupert James, about their services to students.

I can’t resist a section on my adventures with public transport – this time specifically the joys of buses. Since I have been working for RSC Wales I have seen arguments; physical fights; drunks; people being told off for making lewd comments; and many other sights. I am not talking about the conferences, but about the Arriva X40 service. Don’t get me wrong, I love the principle of public transport; I love getting to my destination without being stressed from driving; I enjoy being able to work while I travel. It is just the implementation of public transport by some companies that takes away a bit of the fun. Using that bus to travel to Swansea or Cardiff has its own challenges. Arriva stopped using proper coaches a long time ago. It is now just a normal hard-seated bus, so a 4 hour journey to Cardiff is a torture for your bottom. And your bladder, since there are no toilets – so you dare not drink any water on the bus or for a few hours before, therefore dehydration can be added to discomfort. Thanks, Arriva!