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A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK UKOLN is supported by: Acceptable.

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Presentation on theme: "A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK UKOLN is supported by: Acceptable."— Presentation transcript:

1 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath, UK UKOLN is supported by: Acceptable Use Policy Recording this talk, taking photos, discussing the content using Twitter, blogs, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised. Acceptable Use Policy Recording this talk, taking photos, discussing the content using Twitter, blogs, etc. is permitted providing distractions to others is minimised. http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/workshops/blogging-practices-jiscmrd-2011/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/briankelly/ Email: b.kelly@ukoln.ac.uk Blogs: http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/ Twitter: #jiscmrd Blogging Practices To Support Project Work This work is licensed under a Creative Commons attribution 2.0 licence (but note caveat)

2 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 2 2 You are free to: copy, share, adapt or re-mix; photograph, film or broadcast; blog, live-blog or post video of this presentation provided that: You attribute the work to its author and respect the rights and licences associated with its components. Idea from Cameron Neylon Slide Concept by Cameron Neylon, who has waived all copyright and related or neighbouring rights. This slide only CCZero. Social Media Icons adapted with permission from originals by Christopher Ross. Original images are available under GPL at: http://www.thisismyurl.com/free-downloads/15-free-speech-bubble-icons-for-popular-websites

3 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk About the UK Web Focus Blog 3 Introduction Launched in Nov 2006 1,000 posts, 4,684 comments & over 385K views Runner-up in IT Professional Blogger of the Year Award

4 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk About You How many are: Regular bloggers Occasional bloggers Non-bloggers Your interests: What would you like to see addressed in this session? 4 Introduction Your opportunity to shape the agenda

5 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk About This Session 1.Why have a blog? 2.Whats the purpose of your blog? 3.Who contributes? 4.What can go wrong? 5.How can you measure the blogs success ? 6.What technical issues should I care about? 7.Howe do I ensure the content is usable? 8.How to maximise impact of the blog 9.What additional functionality can we exploit? 10.Managing the blog when the project is over 5 Introduction

6 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Why Have a Blog? Group Exercise: List ~10 reasons why your project should have a blog Report back: Each group to share three reasons for having a blog Please do not repeat reasons already provided! 6 Why Blog?

7 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Projects Must Blog!? Twitter/blog discussion in Feb 2009: Projects may blog due to peer pressure If not done for right reasons may be counter-productive Projects should be open (wider than blogging) Need to develop productive blogging culture No, project must blog! 7

8 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Why Have a Blog? Possible Reasons We have to – its in the contact! To disseminate To speculate To challenge To encourage discussion To use as a CMS for content To ensure content can be viewed easily on mobile devices To produce RSS to facilitate reuse To act as a CV To provide a sandbox for experimentation …. 8 Why Blog?

9 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Why Have a Blog? Tip No. 1: Ensure you (and your project team) know the reasons why you are providing a blog. Note This should be done for members of the project team and the funders 9 Why Blog?

10 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Whats the Purpose of Your Blog? The need to publish the blogs purpose: To help users understand what your blog is about To ensure blog authors (possibly distributed) have a shared understanding So your funders understand the purpose So future evaluators /markers understand the purpose To help in the management of your blog To measure the blogs effectiveness in achieving its intended purpose 10 What is Your Blog For?

11 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Whats the Purpose of Your Blog? Summary: Brief summary of top left corner of UK Web Focus blog (visible from every page) Detailed description: Detailed summary on page linked to from navigation bar Covers: Purpose Audience Policies … 11 What is Your Blog For?

12 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Whats the Purpose of Your Blog? Things to consider: Is the About page about the blog or the project? Does the summary change about the project is over? 12 The About page for the JISC PoWR project was updated last week as the blog may have been regarded as the project.

13 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Whats the Purpose of Your Blog? Tip No. 2: Publish an About page for your blog which is: Easily found Clarifies whether the information is about the blog or the project Makes sense after the project is over Note This should be done for readers of your blog 13 What is Your Blog For?

14 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Who Contributes to Your Blog? Email is for everyone and we (should) understand the context and the risks. But blogs are a different environment 14 Who Contributes?

15 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Who Contributes to Your Blog? 15 Who Contributes? Starting a blog can be an intimidating experience …

16 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Who Contributes to Your Blog? 16 Who Contributes? … but so can writing a peer- reviewed paper

17 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Who Contributes to Your Blog? 17 Who Contributes? Some people are better at writing code

18 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Who Contributes to Your Blog? 18 Who Contributes? Whereas other can communicate complex ideas in visual ways Visualisations produced by Tony Hirst

19 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Who Contributes to Your Blog? Which channels do you prefer? (choose 1) [Research papers] – [synthesis reports] – [blogs] – [briefing papers] – [marketing materials] – [code] – [visualisations] Which communication channels are you happy to use? (choose all that apply) Which communication channels do you try to avoid? (choose all that apply) 19

20 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk The Belbin Model Blogging and the Belbin Model 20

21 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Who Contributes to Your Blog? Group Exercise: Provide one (or two) statements describing who will publish posts on your project blog What are the strengthens & weaknesses of your blog contributor policy? 21 Who Contributes?

22 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Who Contributes to Your Blog? Tip No. 3: Since not everyone should blog but every project must have a blog … Identify the good, keen bloggers Provide opportunities for reluctant bloggers Consider inviting guest bloggers to add variety Provide blog profiles to be able to differentiate different voices 22 Who Contributes?

23 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Group Exercise: What can go wrong with your blog? Feel free to include: Technical issues Content issues People issues Resourcing issues … When Things Go Wrong 23 When Things Go Wrong

24 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk When Blogs Break 24 Fatal error: Call to undefined method Arras_Widget_Tag_Cloud::WP_Widget_T ag_Cloud() in /opt/wordpress/wp- content/themes/arras- theme/library/widgets.php on line 328 blogs.ukoln.ac.uk/jisc-beg-dig-pres/ Problem Spam comments spotted in blog But blog not available?! Solution Arras theme incompatible with upgraded PHP library Blog viewed on mobile device, with mobile theme enabled Updated version of theme installed When Things Go Wrong

25 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Spam 25 Blog comments can attract spam: Comment moderation is a barrier to people Youll need a spam filter I try to delete spam daily 10 days of spam

26 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Managing Spam Comments 26 ~0.5M spam comments in ~ 4 years (~4K legitimate comments) Some legitimate comments may be trapped (& possibly retrieved).

27 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk When Things Go Wrong Tip No. 4: Things can go wrong, but planning can minimise problems Spam filters Spam management policies Managing switch-off of your blog after project ends 27 When Things Go Wrong

28 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Group Exercise: How should we measure the success of a blog? (Why do we need to measure the success of a blog?) Measuring Success 28 Measuring Success

29 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Measuring Success Is this blog unsuccessful? 29 The purpose of the blog was informal note- keeping using a familiar, easy- to-use tool. Should usage stats matter?

30 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk There are needs to identify indications of success Demonstrate value to funders Identify & learn from effective & flawed strategies … Measuring Success 30 Measuring Success Top 3% of all blogs Top 13% of technology blogs According to Technorati Tony Hirsts Ouseful.info blog is in: Top 3% of all blogs it has indexed Top 13% of Technology blogs based on index of > 1M blogs

31 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Comparison With Peers Search Technorati for jisc helps to spot blogs with high ranking: What can we learn from these? Can we help ensure JISC (outreach) blogs are highly ranked 31 Authority measures blog's standing & influence on scale of 0-1000 (high good). Ranking given for Technorati Authority of all sites (low good)

32 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Wikio Wikio also provides metrics for (registered) blogs List of top technology blogs shown 32 Together with display of trends for ranking, nos. of posts, links and backlinks, OUseful had peak at #18 in Nov 2008 What happened from Jun-Sep 2010?

33 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Measuring Success Tip No. 5: Think about (easy) ways for measuring success of you blog Note registering blog with Technorati & Wikio Is trivial to do May provide evidence of successful strategies The value may be in the aggregation of JISC blogs Funders understand that these dont provide league tables Youll need to understand risks of not doing this (which may be a legitimate decision) 33

34 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Interoperability Issues BKWhat technical advice should I give? TBDont truncate RSS feeds! Context (for end users): On the bus, catching up with RSS feeds on iPod Touch. If text truncated I normally dont see full post (and am likely to unsubscribe from such blogs) 34 Thanks to Amber Thomas for granting permission to share this example – she has updated her blog settings!

35 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Interoperability Issues 35 UKOLNs Web Team Blog aggregator: Harvests posts for Web team blogs Allows them to understand their community Allows us to observe Note that searches, auto-categorisation, etc. is based on RSS feed content. Restricted feed content = limited value.

36 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Interoperability Issues Tip No. 6: Provide a full RSS feed for your blog Its trivial to do If you dont: Humans may not see full post, especially if they use offline devices Software will not be able to harvest full post 36 Technical Issues

37 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Which Platform? Which blogging platform should you use? Wordpress.com: My choice. Limited range of plugins. Wordpress.org: Install locally; can install wide range of plugins. Blogger.com: What else do people use? 37 Platform Issues

38 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Platform Issues Tip No. 7: Several safe options available Wordpress.com or Blogger.com if no in-house options available WordPress.org if Wish to use wider range of plugins Technical expertise available Wish to consider use of WP as a technology platform (see later) May be advantages in using same platform as your peers 38 Platform Issues

39 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Usability Issues Who normally reads blog posts: On a mobile device On desktop PC 39 My mornings reading: posts viewed in mobile RSS client Less clutter than Web browser view But some features dont work (Java, Flash,..)

40 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Interoperability can be achieved by writing style and links, with no technology needed 40

41 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk In a mobile world: Which posts stands out? 41 Note: Growing importance of personalised newspapers Need to stand out form the crowd

42 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Usability Tip No. 9: You cant ignore mobile devices Even if you dont read blogs on a mobile device, your readers might Mobile usage will grow There are some simple techniques you can use to enhance experiences on mobile device 42 Usability

43 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk What About Twitter? Is Twitter: Trivial & time- wasting Valuable for rapid discussions with peers Useful for marketing 43

44 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Twitter Evidence (1) 44 URL Bit.ly/foo+ gives usage stats

45 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Twitter Evidence (2) What happened in June 2011 which caused spike for peer- reviewed paper on Openness in Higher Education: Open Source, Open Standards, Open Access 45 Probably: A tweet on 17 June A marketing opportunity (Promote #UniWekk campaign on Twitter day) Use of popular hashtags "Openness in HE: Open Source, Open Standards, Open Access" paper on ways of exploiting openness: http://bit.ly/a9wglM #UniWeek #UniofBath

46 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk What About Twitter? Tip No. 10: You cant ignore Twitter Build up your community (100-500 followers to ensure critical mass) Engage in relevant discussions Tweet about things you care about Tweet links you feel are useful 46 Twitter

47 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Commenting & Linking Many blogs publish automated links to their posts This illustrates benefits of citing posts 47

48 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Commenting & Linking Comments can be indicative of community building (but may be difficult on project blog) 48 You may prefer to be notified of comments: By email In your RSS reader You may also wish to have comments to blogs of interest in this way

49 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Comment on Others Blogs Comment in response to post on Google Scholar Citations (& question on proactive use of service) 49

50 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Email Matters What if your users: Are not into blogs Dont use RSS readers Encourage them to sign up to an RSS to email subscription service e.g. Feedburner (93 subscribers to all posts) WordPress (85 subscribers) 50

51 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Comments, Links and Email Tip No. 11: Comments, links and email matter You can encourage comments by your writing style (e.g. open questions Providing links to relevant resources helps users in following ideas Providing links to blog posts can generate traffic back to you blog Posts can be delivered by email (but youll have to make it obvious how to do this) 51

52 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk You Are Not Alone! Work collaboratively: You are not alone You gain benefits by sharing Research360@Bath MRD blog plans covers: Content for static pages Content for blog posts … 52

53 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk You Are Not Alone! Research360@Bath MRD blog plans covers: Content for sidebar Target audience … Provided under a Creative Commons (CC- BY) licence 53

54 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Searching Across the Community 54 A Google Custom Search Engine (GCSE) searches across (current) JISC MRD blogs GCSE can be embedded in Web pages Note should have OPML feeds to add blogs to RSS aggregators

55 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Browsing Across the Community JISC RDM blogs added to Google Reader Google Reader allows: Browsing (shown) Export of OPML file for import to other RSS tools Compare this with the silos of conventional Web sites! 55 Produced by Jez Cope, Research360@Bath

56 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk You Are Part of a Community Tip No. 12: Dont reinvent the wheel! Learn from what others are doing Share what youre doing 56 Why not write a post about how youve implemented your blog? Other may find this useful, and they may be motivated to give you suggestions on enhancements

57 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Advanced Blogging Blogs can provide: Easy-to-use content management system Tool for creating mobile-friendly content Mechanism for getting feedback But in addition: Can manage semantic content Content can be created by automated processes … 57

58 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Example from Southampton University 58

59 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Annotum Annotumss objectives are to develop: A simple, robust, easy-to-use authoring system to create and edit scholarly articles An editorial review and publishing system that can be used to submit, review, and publish scholarly articles 59

60 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk 60 Joss Winns session on WordPress at IWMW 2010 If youve 6 mins to spare see the video:

61 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Blog Engine as a Platform Tip No. 13: A blog engine can be a powerful technology platform 61

62 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Its All Over Now! 62 The projects over – and was a great success But the blog: Is full of spam Has out-of-date content Has stopped working Used as indicator of poor dissemination for next call

63 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk IWMW 2011 blog 63 Calendar removed Is this risky?

64 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk A Blog Isnt Just For Xmas! Tip No. 14: Your project blog will still be relevant after the project is complete: It can undermine future work if closure isnt managed It can demonstrate the value of previous work 64 See "Approaches To Archiving Professional Blogs Hosted In The Cloud, iPres 2010, Kelly, B & Guy, M.

65 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Conclusions You should Document blogs purpose Provide an About page Develop plans for content providers Have a spam management policy Consider ways of gathering metrics Provide a full RSS feed Ensure posts are usable on mobile devices Encourage comments – and comment Work collaboratively Understand additional opportunities for blog platform Manage the closure of your blog 65

66 A centre of expertise in digital information managementwww.ukoln.ac.uk Questions 66


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