Sarah Roberts publicou agora um artigo na Syllabus Magazine intitulado «Campus Communications & the Wisdom of Blogging». Nesse artigo a autora debruça-se, entre outras coisas, sobre as potencialidades dos research weblogs para a academia. Vale a pena ler (via B2OB).
Autor: Sarah Roberts
Título: «Campus Communications & the Wisdom of Blogging»
Meio/Local: Online Media, Syllabus Magazine
Data: 1 de Agosto de 2003
Tema: Blogging & Weblogs, Weblogs e Investigação
Palavras-Chave: blogging, research weblogs, edublogs.
Língua: Inglês
País de Origem: EUA
Syllabus Magazine Wed., Nov. 19, 2003
Campus Communications & the Wisdom of Blogging
Sarah Roberts
The advent of "blogging"—online journaling—has breathed new life into the Web. A contraction of the term "Web logging," blogging can best be described as a form of micropublishing. Featuring no or very low start-up costs, few basic infrastructure requirements, and ease-of-use, it has enabled users to publish their thoughts and ideas without barriers.
In a very short time, blogging has moved beyond a niche activity for the hyper-extroverted to becoming the backbone of a new Internet communications movement. Although often deeply individualized, Web logging has revitalized the idea of online communities: many blogs have moved from obscurity to having a large and devoted readership—many blogging sites enable people to link their blog to other blog clusters, based on topic and the interests of the authors.
Blogging has also transcended its first early use as a simple online diary. Enterprising alternative news outlets have expanded the concept by turning to Web logs to reach their audiences, easily bypassing mainstream corporate media. Family members use the software to keep in touch with each other. Musicians chronicle their tours for fans and press. Software developers document the development process of popular applications and solicit feedback from their user base.
Blogs in Academe
What, then, is the potential for blogs in higher education? Certainly, offering students space for creating personal content and commentary is the primary application. But the number of uses for blogs are limitless. As a tool for extending learning and encouraging communication and community, blogs are expertly designed to seamlessly integrate the endeavors of many students and faculty.
Consider the undergraduate year-abroad experience, traditionally undertaken during a student's junior year. What if students could have a place to chronicle their experiences in these different cultures and countries? A homepage for all active blogs by students abroad could be created, featuring the most recent entries and breakdowns by class, year, program, or country of study. Students could use the blogs to reflect upon their experiences, to directly address family and friends back home, or as part of an assignment. Media files in their blogs, such as images, audio or video culled from their experiences, could also be included.
Although those participating in a study abroad program become immersed in a range of different cultures, a blog site could create a sense of community among those away from home. Students might find reassurance and enjoyment in communicating with and reading chronicles of others going through the same type of experience. The nature of Web publishing means that the site would always be up-to-date, and that students would be unhindered by political borders when publishing their thoughts.
In other arenas, blogs could be used to continue particularly lively class discussions cut short by an in-class schedule. Students could further their arguments with links to other information and evidence to support their positions. The online discussion could also allow more timid members of the class or those more comfortable expressing themselves in writing another venue for joining in the discussion.
Researchers working across time zones and at different universities can use blogs to meet, update, brainstorm, and archive ideas and documents. Using a blog package's search engine, they can retrieve past postings, which might yield new analytic connections or relevance.
In the pedagogical realm, the uses of blogs are only limited by the imagination. For instance, campus writing centers could partner with academic departments and IT organizations to encourage and develop the writing skills of undergraduates. The site would likely be of interest to the greater campus community, as well, as blogs frequently produce entertaining or interesting writing from those who traditionally have not had such broad outlets for written expression.
In the classroom, a professor might document his or her personal research and allow students to follow their progress via the project's blog. Students could take an active role in following research developments, offering questions, or sparking new ideas both in the classroom and on the site. Such interaction could bridge the traditional divide between classroom instruction and research interests of faculty. Seeing firsthand how the instructor uses classroom concepts in the research could make the course material more relevant and actively engage students in the research interests of their professors.
Avoid Bogging Down in Blogs
Blogs are by their nature fairly easy to set up, with minimal risk of getting hung up in installation or application integration.
The low overhead, low-tech nature of blogs means that most every campus can put a blog site into production quickly and easily. All that is needed to get started is commonplace technology. That might be an Apache-based Web server, standard software packages (e.g. Perl) installed, and support people with rudimentary HTML knowledge. Depending on the needs of the users, the choice of blogging package, and the time and personnel that can be devoted to set-up, blog-based sites can be feature-rich, professional in appearance and easy to maintain. The best packages feature a complete solution that can be installed locally with a range of customizable options, such as calendaring systems, notifications, support for multiple authors, and syndication of content via the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) XML-based protocol.
The true overhead comes in the set-up. Once up and running, the blog site is quite self-sufficient, freeing both support staff and authors from the type of technical work that so often interferes with content development.
When considering a blog-based site as a replacement for an existing site or system, IT staff may want to introduce blogging alongside a current system to allow users to acclimate to the system. The easy integration of these systems should make the process painless, and chances are that the simplicity, accessibility and immediacy of the blogging tool will make it popular very quickly.
Toward a Blog-Powered Future
The rise of blogging suggests new ways to think about collaboration and communication in the university setting. The business and high-tech sectors have already begun to take note, with many companies already looking at how blogging might foster innovation within their organizations.
The company behind Google, for example, the premier Web search engine, recently purchased one of the most ubiquitous blog code developers, Pyra Labs, and its product, Blogger. With the purchase, Google underscored its commitment to the new medium and the company's intention to develop new search methods around blogs, their distinct link structure, and rapidly changing content.
Although relatively new, blogging is already evolving, expanding and re-inventing itself. One new approach is the knowledge log, or k-log. It is based on the idea that the modus operandi of blogs—the spontaneous transmission of ideas, analysis, knowledge—could be a valuable mechanism for preserving information for the research community. K-logs could serve as a repository to collect, organize and, later, search information that might otherwise not have been captured at all. From this, new relationships, insights, and discoveries could be drawn from the preserved data.
Other new systems, such as Wiki and projects based on it, propose allowing users to build a Web site—content and more—on the fly. In this model, an entire Web site is built with an open or blog approach, with individual users free to create and edit Web page content using any Web browser.
As blogging and blog-like site development and content management takes off, it will remain to be seen what its impact will be on institutional systems already in place. With thoughtful planning, careful monitoring, and the support of strong policies and guidelines, such systems can avoid being disruptive or threatening to publication and collaborative technologies already in place. Demand and interest in them will guide their usage, but those charged with the creation and maintenance of such systems must continue to be mindful of the power of the medium, the nature of the content, and the audience that may ultimately access it.
References
The following links contain information regarding the latest developments with blogging, some opinion pieces on blogging's importance, and examples of how blogs have been employed recently.
Blogs transcend their niche roots to become a viable tool in the business world: www.infoworld.com/article/03/02/21/08noise_1.html
www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56073,00.html
Russian citizens use blogs to circumvent censorship and communicate breaking news with a personal perspective: www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,56073,00.html
Free codebase for Web-based journaling: http://moveabletype.org
Apple Safari developer documents the process of creating and refining the popular new Web browser in his online blog: www.mozillazine.org/weblogs/hyatt
Musician Moby chronicles his tours and thoughts in his online journal: www.moby.com/cms/viewalldiary.asp
Wiki proposes a return to the Web's roots: www.infotoday.com/searcher/apr03/mattison.shtml
Sarah Roberts (sarah.r@duke.edu) is an IT analyst and supervisor of the Multimedia Project Studio in the Academic Technology Services branch of the Office of Information Technology at Duke University.
sarah.r@duke.edu
Chris Shipley (Chris Shipley Group), colunista do Wisconsin Technology Network, produziu um texto intitulado «The Blog Nation». Nesse artigo produz algumas observações e considerações interessantes sobre os blogues e o blogging.
Autor: Chris Shipley
Título: «The Blog Nation»
Meio/Local: Online Media, Wisconsin Technology Network
Data: 12 de Novembro de 2003
Tema: Psico-Antropo-Sociologia do Blogging
Palavras-Chave: weblogs, blogging, desktop publishing, technology.
Língua: Inglês
País de Origem: EUA
The Blog Nation
I have resisted the urge to write about weblogs - until now. Truth be told - and probably something a so-called trend-spotter shouldn't admit - I'm not much for bandwagons. If everyone is going right, I'll move left just to avoid the crowd.
I confess that my first take on blogging was that it was just another technology-enabled fad. Any fool with an opinion could create a blog so that any other fool could read it. Of course, there was, initially, a bit of a technical hurdle so you knew that the blogging fool had some technical chops at least. Sounds a lot like the early days of Web publishing, the early days of desktop publishing, no doubt the early days of the printing press.
It is true that there are thousands of blogs scattered across the internet. It is also true that the top 100 blogs receive about 99 percent of all blog readership. And just like personal Web pages a half dozen years ago, there are thousands of abandoned blogs, posted and forgotten, even by their authors.
But also like Web pages, blogging will have a profound impact that is not initially evident. And that is why it's time to write about blog media.
To be sure, there is a faddish element to blogging. Does the world really care about the minutia of anyone's daily life? Will everyone need a blog the way they need a cell phone and email account? Certainly not.
Yet every new medium spawns a new generation of visionary publishers who see the medium for its unique attributes and find ways to exploit those attributes in a manner that re-invents and re-invigorates old-world publishing. (And perhaps we're most lucky that for once it appears that it is not pornographers who are taking the lead in the brave new publishing frontier.)
Blogging may be the first truly disintermediated, widely distributed and democratic publishing medium. Because blog media is low- or no-cost, there is no barrier to becoming a blog publisher. Indeed, anyone can create a blog. Whether anyone else reads it is another matter, but it is at this point where the reader, rather than writer/publisher, is truly empowered. In print or even online publishing, publishers assume their access to the printing press (physical or digital) washes them in journalistic integrity such that they can say to the reader,
"Trust me," without necessarily earning that trust. As readers, we are trained that the media establishment is legit, that they more or less print truths. That trust relationship is turned on its ear in blog media. The reader who returns again and again to the source says to the publisher, "I trust you." Breech that trust, and the feedback loop of comments and referring links and the like will relegate your blog to the long, long list of the unread. Credibility, point of view, integrity are the lifeblood of the blogger.
For this reason, exactly, it is more than probable that bloggers will become the most influential commentators on all aspects of business and society. They can publish quickly to loyal and trusting readers. The blogger's perspective will carry tremendous weight, just as the venerable New York Times or - in our industry - PC Magazine do with their readership. And just as savvy product marketers learned to court the favor of journalists in other media, they must learn to reach out to bloggers who will become the king makers of the future.
As for myself, I resisted creating a blog, though I was often encouraged to do so. After all, I write this newsletter, read by thousands of people each week and often excerpted and syndicated for countless others. Why do I need a blog? Two reasons: frequency and breadth.
The frequency issue is perhaps not what you imagine. It's not that having a blog enables me to publish more often, but rather than I can publish in the moment. I can post when I am most engaged with a new idea, captivated by some insight or issue. Is the frequency daily, hourly, monthly? It doesn't matter so much when, but at what point - the point of inspiration.
My blog also lets me explore a breadth of topics that are tangential to the issues that you, dear reader, expect to be the purview of DEMOletter. If I wrote a column here about local high school football - as I am doing for my blog - you'd no doubt look for the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this newsletter. No, you expect me to write about technology, products, and the impact these have on our business (primarily) and personal lives.
So I write two blogs these days. One lets me riff on technology's greater social implications. The other allows me to give my quick takes on new products, something that I don't do often enough in this column. (You can find these blogs from my Web site at http://www.cshipley.com/.)