Google are always looking for ways of developing new products. Their latest which is still in beta testing is Google Scholar.
"Google Scholar enables you to search specifically for scholarly literature, including peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts and technical reports from all broad areas of research. Use Google Scholar to find articles from a wide variety of academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories and universities, as well as scholarly articles available across the web."
This is really useful in that it enables you to search specifically for academic sources and references. This deals, at least partly, with the perennial problem of sorting out poor quality websites from good ones. At least with peer reviewed articles you know that a certain standard must have been obtained
Monday, November 22, 2004
Friday, November 19, 2004
Global Learn Day and Blogging
Sunday 21st November is "Global Learn Day VII" (presumably that is "global learning day" in UK English). Worth having a look at, but particularly interesting is their blogging page...
"For more information on why we feel that blogging is "The Next Killer App", please see these articles:
RSS: The Next Killer App For Education
Weblogs at Harvard
Blogging as a Course Management Tool
Finally, for more information about blogging, we encourage you to read what Stephen Downes has to say: Content Syndication and Online Learning"
Also interesting is the following statement at the top of their page:
"Blogging is temporarily suspended until we find ways to keep the spammers out." Seems to be a growing problem. If you want interaction and feedback you have to have a comment facility (which only one person on the course has tried using!) but if you have that then the link might be picked up by the spammers
"For more information on why we feel that blogging is "The Next Killer App", please see these articles:
RSS: The Next Killer App For Education
Weblogs at Harvard
Blogging as a Course Management Tool
Finally, for more information about blogging, we encourage you to read what Stephen Downes has to say: Content Syndication and Online Learning"
Also interesting is the following statement at the top of their page:
"Blogging is temporarily suspended until we find ways to keep the spammers out." Seems to be a growing problem. If you want interaction and feedback you have to have a comment facility (which only one person on the course has tried using!) but if you have that then the link might be picked up by the spammers
Access to Sage Journals
You might remember I mentioned that Sage journals were providing free access to their online journals (which are particularly good for social science) until the end of October. I know that some of you made good use of them
Well SAGE Journals (http://online.sagepub.com/ ) are still available online for MMU staff and students, at least until the 5th of January 2005. This means that you can search and locate full-text articles in more than 350 journals. You must use the Athens login option to take advantage of this offer.
Well SAGE Journals (http://online.sagepub.com/ ) are still available online for MMU staff and students, at least until the 5th of January 2005. This means that you can search and locate full-text articles in more than 350 journals. You must use the Athens login option to take advantage of this offer.
Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Article about Wikipedia
Last Monday I talked about the free software/open source movement in software and mentioned Wikipedia as an example. There is a good article about Wikipedia at Tech Central Station "The Faith based encyclopedia" which describes what it has achieved but also provide a critque of its limitations:
"As of November 2004, according to the project's own counts, nearly 30,000 contributors had written about 1.1 million articles in 109 different languages...."
"One person's "knowledge," unfortunately, may be another's ignorance. To put the Wikipedia method in its simplest terms:
1. Anyone, irrespective of expertise in or even familiarity with the topic, can submit an article and it will be published.
2. Anyone, irrespective of expertise in or even familiarity with the topic, can edit that article, and the modifications will stand until further modified.
Then comes the crucial and entirely faith-based step:
3. Some unspecified quasi-Darwinian process will assure that those writings and editings by contributors of greatest expertise will survive; articles will eventually reach a steady state that corresponds to the highest degree of accuracy..."
"...Take the statements of faith in the efficacy of collaborative editing, replace the shibboleth "community" with the banal "committee," and the surprise dissolves before your eyes. Or, if you are of a statistical turn of mind, think a little about regression to the mean and the shape of the normal distribution curve. However closely a Wikipedia article may at some point in its life attain to reliability, it is forever open to the uninformed or semiliterate meddler..."
"As of November 2004, according to the project's own counts, nearly 30,000 contributors had written about 1.1 million articles in 109 different languages...."
"One person's "knowledge," unfortunately, may be another's ignorance. To put the Wikipedia method in its simplest terms:
1. Anyone, irrespective of expertise in or even familiarity with the topic, can submit an article and it will be published.
2. Anyone, irrespective of expertise in or even familiarity with the topic, can edit that article, and the modifications will stand until further modified.
Then comes the crucial and entirely faith-based step:
3. Some unspecified quasi-Darwinian process will assure that those writings and editings by contributors of greatest expertise will survive; articles will eventually reach a steady state that corresponds to the highest degree of accuracy..."
"...Take the statements of faith in the efficacy of collaborative editing, replace the shibboleth "community" with the banal "committee," and the surprise dissolves before your eyes. Or, if you are of a statistical turn of mind, think a little about regression to the mean and the shape of the normal distribution curve. However closely a Wikipedia article may at some point in its life attain to reliability, it is forever open to the uninformed or semiliterate meddler..."
Monday, November 15, 2004
class presentations
The class presentations based on the progress you have made so far on your community project will be held as follows:
Monday Nov 22nd
9.00 am Gemma Twigg
9.30 am Julie Pennington
10.00 am Daniel Kierczuk
10.15 am Victoria Barton
10.30 am Luke Pearson
Monday Nov 29th
9.00 am Rahim Katawi
9.30 am Joanne Redding
10.00 am Shahena Jalil
10.15 am Chris Leighton
10.30 am Amanda Blume
10.45 am Marc Fennel
I have still not got presentation times for John Clarke, Philip Jackson and Gavin Owens - please contact me ASAP to arrange times.
Remember, the presentations should last no more than 10 minutes. You should either use powerpoint or paper on the projector. They should give some indication of:
- how you chose your groups to study (and any problems with this)
- your progress so for in researching these groups
- what you intend to go on to do
If possible, think of some way of having interactivity in the session (eg: asking questions of your audience, getting them to discuss some issue that arises out of studying an online community)
The presentation will count 10% of the overall mark for the online community assignment
Monday Nov 22nd
9.00 am Gemma Twigg
9.30 am Julie Pennington
10.00 am Daniel Kierczuk
10.15 am Victoria Barton
10.30 am Luke Pearson
Monday Nov 29th
9.00 am Rahim Katawi
9.30 am Joanne Redding
10.00 am Shahena Jalil
10.15 am Chris Leighton
10.30 am Amanda Blume
10.45 am Marc Fennel
I have still not got presentation times for John Clarke, Philip Jackson and Gavin Owens - please contact me ASAP to arrange times.
Remember, the presentations should last no more than 10 minutes. You should either use powerpoint or paper on the projector. They should give some indication of:
- how you chose your groups to study (and any problems with this)
- your progress so for in researching these groups
- what you intend to go on to do
If possible, think of some way of having interactivity in the session (eg: asking questions of your audience, getting them to discuss some issue that arises out of studying an online community)
The presentation will count 10% of the overall mark for the online community assignment
dissertations on Ebay!
email from Bill Johnston to all staff...
The JISC Plagiarism Detection Service has recently alerted all colleagues to the increasing practice of selling dissertations on eBay.
One nice example currently being bid for is a dissertation on 'The Internet and Cyber-Plagiarism'! (It's carrying a grade of 72% and is on offer at £6.50. A bargain)
Well, I suppose it's one way to earn money from your old essays
The JISC Plagiarism Detection Service has recently alerted all colleagues to the increasing practice of selling dissertations on eBay.
One nice example currently being bid for is a dissertation on 'The Internet and Cyber-Plagiarism'! (It's carrying a grade of 72% and is on offer at £6.50. A bargain)
Well, I suppose it's one way to earn money from your old essays
Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Want Community? Go Online
Interesting article on online communities and social networking which reports a survey done for eBay - "Want Community? Go Online" by Pamela Parker (8/11/04):
"Nearly 40 percent of Americans say they participate in online communities, with sites around hobbies, shared personal interests, and health-related issues among the most popular. That's according to a survey conducted by ACNielsen and commissioned by eBay.
The survey was conducted in late September. Of 1,007 respondents, 87 percent say they are part of a community. Of those, 66 percent say they participate in shared personal interest sites. Next comes hobby sites (62 percent), health community sites (55 percent), public issues sites (49 percents), and commerce sites (47 percent). Others participate in social or business networking sites (42 percent), sports sites (42 percent), alumni sites (39 percent), or dating sites (23 percent).
"We are finding that affinity is quickly replacing proximity as the key driver in forming communities," said Bruce Paul, vice president of ACNielsen. "...
"Researchers note that among offline communities, only membership in religious congregations (59 percent), social groups (54 percent), and neighborhood groups (52 percent) are more common than participation in online communities (39 percent)
The study also shows that though 30 percent of online community members interact on a daily basis, only 7 percent of offline community members interacted that often. It also reveals that 47 percent of offline communities have an online component, such as e-mailing or chatting online."
"Nearly 40 percent of Americans say they participate in online communities, with sites around hobbies, shared personal interests, and health-related issues among the most popular. That's according to a survey conducted by ACNielsen and commissioned by eBay.
The survey was conducted in late September. Of 1,007 respondents, 87 percent say they are part of a community. Of those, 66 percent say they participate in shared personal interest sites. Next comes hobby sites (62 percent), health community sites (55 percent), public issues sites (49 percents), and commerce sites (47 percent). Others participate in social or business networking sites (42 percent), sports sites (42 percent), alumni sites (39 percent), or dating sites (23 percent).
"We are finding that affinity is quickly replacing proximity as the key driver in forming communities," said Bruce Paul, vice president of ACNielsen. "...
"Researchers note that among offline communities, only membership in religious congregations (59 percent), social groups (54 percent), and neighborhood groups (52 percent) are more common than participation in online communities (39 percent)
The study also shows that though 30 percent of online community members interact on a daily basis, only 7 percent of offline community members interacted that often. It also reveals that 47 percent of offline communities have an online component, such as e-mailing or chatting online."
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