A win at last!

Image by Paul Thomas UK found on Flickr.com

I can't write about Web 2.0 stuff all the time, so I'm very happy to report that my great passion (or stupidity depending on your view point) for Newcastle United FC has been duly rewarded with a well fought win.
This follows on from a great draw with Arsenal midweek. Here's hoping that the Toon are turing a corner...

UKSG Web 2.0 seminar Nov 07 London

I went to an excellent seminar hosted by the UK Serial Group, where the emphasis of the day was focused on Web 2.0 and what it means to library and information professionals.
The seminar had a range of speakers, most of whom were excellent, and I learnt a great deal.
Here are my highlights from some of the presentations. Full details of the programme and links to individual presentations can be found at: http://www.uksg.org/event/web20

The threads of Web 2.0
Leigh Dodds, Chief Technical Officer, Ingenta
* Gartner Hype Curve which is a graphical representation of the maturity, adoption and business application of technologies. See: http://www.gartner.com/pages/story.php.id.8795.s.8.jsp for details and follow the links to see the graph.
* Successful communities and social networks often spring from those communities which exist in real life.

There are real people in there?: blogging, IM and more in Worcester
Paul Williams, Library Systems Manager, University of Worcester
* Worcester achieved success with their blogs by altering the tone of the blogs to suit different audiences.
* Worcester were using an RSS aggregator to view collections of blogs
* Feedback has been that blog usage has helped raise information resources awareness as opposed to being used as a tool to alleviate information overload.


Web 2.0 and distributed services: good things for everyone
Mike Ellis, Eduserv
* I really liked Mike's presentation, he really seems to understand things from the user perspective.
* References to check out - Tom Standage, Victorian Internet
* Web 2.0 is about people and content, not computers
* Web 2.0 can be perceived as dangerous, but it is also powerful because it empowers users. We do face challenges around authority, voice, moderation and brand etc with web 2.0
* Embrace the user and the concept of Web 2.0, it's happening anyway. Web 2.0 is all about loosing some element of control.
* Users are the single most important thing about your site bar none.

The adventures of LASSIE: libraries, social software and distance learners
Jane Secker, Learning Technology Librarian, Centre for Learning Technology,
London School of Economics and Political Science
* This was a very interesting presentation and the LASSIE project is worth a look at: http://clt.lse.ac.uk/Projects/LASSIE.php
* The LASSIE project was set up to investigate how social software might be used to enhance distance learner's use of libraries
* Large numbers of US University libraries are using blogs as a means of communication
* Many publishers are now offereing RSS feeds and you can even get library applications in Facebook now.
* The LASSIE team have found that blogging was a good tool for publicity and as a research tool for reflection etc. They found that maintaining a 'light hearted' style to blogging got more responses.

Themes of the day
The theme that I noticed coming through loud and clear from this seminar was that Web 2.0 is not about technology, it's about people and content and allowing people to connect to one another. I thought that Richard Willis'(Talis) statement that Web 2.0 is 'more of an attitude than a technology' neatly summed up the feeling of the day.
Many of the presenters outlined the importance of reaching out to end users and providing them with information where ever they may need it; the days of expecting people to visit your website are over.

All in all a very informative day with a great range of speakers and plenty of scope for thought.

Research methodology

I've found trying to sort out what method of research I'm going to use quite difficult. It seems odd doing research about how to research....

Anyway, my literature searches finally came off (thanks in no small part to some excellent training that I received from a colleague at Pennine Acute Trust a few years back) in that I found this interesting piece by Bonnie Kaplan who suggests evaluating health informatics systems through use of the '4Cs'. The 4C's are:
communication
care
control
context

and Kaplan's approach considers how an information system 'fits' within an organisation, taking into consideration the 4 parameters above. The 4C's help us to assess the take up of systems through the consideration of social and professional, as well as technical factors. All very interesting and it made sense to me!

For more details see:

Kaplan, B (2001). "Evaluating informatics applications-some alternative approaches: theory, social interactionism, and call for methodological pluralism". International Journal of Medical Informatics 64, 39–56

My Bibliographic tool of choice...

... is the excellent Zotero which is a Firefox add-on.
If like me, you do a lot of searching of online resources, Zotero let's you automatically save resource details by clicking on an icon in the browser URL field. The resources which can be added in this manner are not only journal articles and book information, but news articles, blog postings etc.

If the resource that you have found cannot be automatically be added to Zotero, you can easily add resource details manually.
Zotero also allows you to tag your resources and make notes easily, and it will create a bibliography for you too although Harvard is not one of the export formats.
Other features include a search facility which is very handy if, like me, you keep forgetting which resources you have already found!

For more information see: http://www.zotero.org/

A good book for newbie researchers

I recently ordered a book on research methods to help me with err, my research methods!

This book is very well written, describing the different methodologies available to health and social science researchers in plain English without the jargon!

See: 'Doing Your Research Project: A Guide for First-Time Researchers in Education, Health and Social Science (4th Edition) by Judith Bell [Paperback - June 2005]'

share and share alike

The purpose of this blog.....

As I have been doing a bit of research and general background reading for my MSc in Health Informatics, it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to share experiences, any good literature findings, and general musings as I go along.

I hope that some fellow students, friends, and colleagues may find this useful and will feel inspired to contribute to the blog.

Ingrid