Fortnightly Mailing

Free stuff in a commercial world. Guest Contribution from Mark Berthelemy.

Since the beginnings of the internet there has been a possible conflict of interest between those who believe everything on the net should be free, and those with a commercial bent, who want to sell internet-based products and services.

So, how does the availability of “easy to use” free tools and systems, such as Flickr, Del.icio.us, Writely, Frappr, Nuvvo, Yahoo Groups, Google Calendar, Elgg etc etc, work alongside those commercial interests?

First of all, let’s set a context: I’m writing from the position of being part of a company that sells a range of learning “products”, from off-the-shelf face-to-face training through to bespoke formal, open and self-directed learning solutions (see Terry Anderson for a definition of these that works) that mix online and offline learning. So where does the free stuff fit into our world?

There’s no such thing as a free lunch

No matter how “free” something is, there is always a business model attached to it. Every service has a cost that must be met somehow, whether by direct payment for the service, grants and donations, or indirect subsidy from another paid-for service. The viability of that business model dictates the stability of the free service. If we sell a commercial solution that includes free elements, we must be confident that the free stuff will work consistently well, which means being confident in the business model that supports the free stuff.

For example, we may build a Google search as a prescribed activity into a learning solution for a client. It’s a pretty safe bet that that will work – as a society we’ve gained confidence in Google’s business model and its product. If however, we were to use Frappr as a way of showing the locations of people involved in the learning group this would probably be done an experimental option within the solution. Although Frappr has a superb product, it doesn’t yet have a demonstrably viable business model, which means confidence in the long-term viability of the product is not that high.

There are many start-up companies, like Frappr, that don’t appear to have a good business model, yet gain commercial confidence by being bought up by companies such as Yahoo (which bought Flickr) and Google (which bought Writely). As soon as that happens, then it is more likely that these services will be built into solutions.

There is also an accountability issue, in that most large organisations prefer to use systems and services with which they have some sort of contractual relationship. With free solutions, there is usually an explicit clause in the terms and conditions which removes any accountability from the service provider. But then, the providers could incorporate this into their business model, to provide paid for support and warranties for organisations that wish to have that level of protection.

We should remember that free stuff in the guise of open-source software (Open source primer) is actually well embedded within the commercial world, although it tends to be for the back-office applications such as Linux and Apache for servers, and systems like DNS and SMTP which underpin the internet. However, a number of front-office applications, such as Moodle are also gaining wide acceptance. Again, this is mainly because confidence in the sustainability of the application has increased to a critical level. This has happened through the exponential increase in the number of developers involved, and also through the business model adopted by Moodle.com which ensures that development and support will continue.

Building the free stuff into a learning solution

We have used a number of free services to provide access to open information that can then be integrated using RSS. For example, using Del.icio.us to provide a set of links tailored to a specific group.

But, as soon as you need to hide information, restrict access or brand the solution for a particular client, then the difficulties arise:

• Will we require users to register with each of the free services individually?
• Will we have to host our own set of services and information behind a firewall or a single login?

Many learning solutions require complex mixes of interactions, activities and resources. If each interaction, activity and resource comes from a different service provider, with its own branding, navigation and registration process we are likely to lose learners rapidly. The question is then, how do we make use of these “best of breed” services, at the same time as providing learners with branded, coherent, integrated solutions?

About the Author. Mark Berthelemy is a Learning Solutions Architect for Capita Learning and Development. He works with clients to help them understand the potential of new technologies to support effective learning and then to implement those technologies across their organizations. If you wish to contact Mark, please email: mark.berthelemy@capita.co.uk.

Comparative evaluation of proprietary and open educational technology systems

This is the latest Monthly Report from the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education - by Ken Udas, Director, and Michael Feldstein, Assistant Director, SUNY Learning Network at the State University of New York, USA.

Abstract

 Selecting a learning management technology has increasingly become a mission critical and strategic decision for higher education institutions. As technology supported and online learning has become more prevalent and learning management technologies more important institutional features, the selection environment has become increasingly complex. This paper presents a comparative model developed specifically for evaluating learning management software for adoption decisions in which open source software (OSS) and proprietary options are under consideration in higher education. It is intended to support senior academic administrators and policy makers who are responsible for or influence the software evaluation and selection process by proposing a methodology that accounts for organisational context and software system characteristics, while also providing the advantage of cross-organisational comparison.

The full text is available for free download (as a 31 page PDF) to individuals with an email address with an OBHE subscriber.

Messiness is a virtue - David Weinberger - 80 minute MP3

Presentation, with a faltering start, but some good insights about half way in about the Semantic Web and the "trouble with ontologies", given recently by David Weinberger at Harvard University's Berkman Centre:

My topic wasn't why you really should tidy up your office. (You know you should.) It's about knowledge and why we have thought neatness is a sign of a proper understanding of a topic, why it's good that our mental categories are messy, what Aristotle got wrong, and whether the Semantic Web is too much of a fuss-budget for its own good.

Download MP3 file.

Improving the accessibility of your web site - new W3C guidance

The World Wide Web Consortium has just published Improving the Accessibility of Your Web Site.

Abstract

Most organizations already have a Web site, and most of those sites were developed without considering accessibility. Thus most Web sites today have accessibility barriers that make it difficult or impossible for some people with disabilities to use the site. Some sites have several significant barriers; others have only a few minor barriers. Sites developed to meet Web standards such as XHTML and CSS usually have fewer barriers. While implementing accessibility on an existing Web site may seem overwhelming at first, there are  approaches to make the process more efficient and effective. This document provides guidance for fixing accessibility barriers in existing Web sites; in other words, repairing accessibility problems, or retrofitting a site to improve accessibility. It provides approaches and tips for:

• getting started, understanding the issues, and communicating your  commitment to improve the accessibility of your site;
• developing a retrofitting plan by identifying accessibility barriers and prioritizing repairs; repairing accessibility barriers on your site efficiently and effectively;
• addressing next steps after initial retrofitting.

Digital libraries - ten years on, "Ariadne is still the best guide"

February 2006 (decennial) issue of Ariadne, with articles by Lorcan Dempsey, Peter Brophy, Cliff Lynch, Derek Law, John MacColl, and Reg Carr and others.  Google Challenges for Academic Libraries by John MacColl from Edinburgh University ends with this (deadpan?) statement of principle:

As librarians, running pleasant study environments, containing expert staff, providing havens on our campus which are well respected, and building and running high-quality Web-based services, we will decide which of Google's offerings we wish to promote, and which we are prepared to pay for. And we will stand up - no matter how wealthy we assume our students and academic users to be - for the principle of free and equal access to content, and for the principle of high-quality index provision, whether free or at a cost, because without those principles we are no longer running libraries.

... which I hope makes you want to read the article in full.

Semantic Web - interview about early adoption in the life sciences

Worthwhile, if fuzzy enough to give podcasting a bad name, 10 minute interview done in December 2005 by Salvatore Salamone, senior IT editor of Bio-IT World, with Matthew Shanahan, chief marketing officer of Teranode, in which Shanahan provides examples of the Semantic Web in action in life sciences.

Google search syntax - summarised on one printable page (and a cross-platform keyboard reference)

Of course we all know how to use search tools efficiently. In which case this handy one-page summary of Google's syntax will be of little value. Personally I would like to have it as a mouse mat, backed up on the London Review of Books cross platform keyboard reference, image above.

All in a good cause - retrospective request for sponsorship

Over the Mayday weekend I ran two legs of a sponsored relay along the whole of the Pennine Way, which goes from the Scottish border through Northumbria, Durham, North Yorkshire, West  Yorkshire, Lancashire, finishing up in Edale in Derbyshire. Nearly 300 miles.

The purpose of the relay was to raise money (having fun did not enter into it) to bring some young people from South Africa on a visit to Sheffield organised by the Woodcraft Folk, a "national educational charity working with children and young people, with the aim of building a world based on equality, friendship, peace and social justice" - think of it as mixed scouting without uniforms, badges, or hierarchies.

Leg 1 I ran alone on Sunday morning from Middleton in Teesdale to the A66 near Brough. Good weather. Daylight. Up close to lapwings and curlews. 11 miles over fairly gentle and open terrain, with not much more that 400 m of ascent. All went smoothly. 

Leg 2 was different. By 00.15 on Monday morning, I was dozing in my car in Thornton-in-Craven with Dave Pearce, my running partner. The team handing over to us had got badly lost, chased by cows etc., and arrived at 01.45, by which time it was raining steadily. Our leg - 12 miles with 900 m of ascent - was across  broken moor and farmland, with plenty of stiles and cuts through walls, and pathless in many parts. Apart from the rather sparky shine of sheep's eyes in the light of our headlamps, it was pitch dark. About 2 miles in, Dave twisted his ankle on an old injury. From then on we had to move rather gingerly. By about 05.00 it was just beginning to get light (recommended - the transition from pitch black to indistinct monochrome, to the very palest of colours, to proper daylight). I ran on ahead across the wet and forbidding Keighley Moor, handing over to the next pair at 06.00 near Pondon Hall, where the Bronte sisters lived. Eventually the last team got to Edale only 1 hour behind schedule. 

If any reader wants to sponsor any or all of my 23 miles and 1300 m of ascent, please send a cheque - payable to "Woodcraft Folk" - to 312 Albert Road, Heeley, Sheffield S8 9RD, UK. If cheques are difficult we should be able to organise something using Paypal.

Marmots - so rich in fat that they are regarded as medicine

This memorable phrase in an article by social anthropologist Piers Vitebsky led me to his difficult-to-put-down Reindeer people - living with animals and spirits in Siberia and to his Arctic as a Homeland web site; and also to the quaint Marmot Burrow, which is a "single resource for marmot-related popular and scientific information, .... periodically up-dated with references, diagrams, photographs, and tape-recordings".

Dromography - making images by scanning objects

Here are some interesting images, and a method for making them, by Italian book-binder Carmencho Arregui, who writes:

Scanners are restricted to the mere reproduction of flat images. Some years ago I started to lay objects on mine and I realised that it was possible to get very interesting results.