Lecture notes

Kwami Ahiabenu,IIKwami AT penplusbytes.org

workshop on information, knowledge sharing facilitated by social online tools

Our Journey • Introduction & Background • Infostructures • Key words, tags, hash tags & tag clouds • Social media tools • Social book marking and micro blogging • Mapping roles in infostructures powered by

social media tools • Questions & answers and Activities • Conclusion

Introduction

• Online collaboration, information and knowledge is a key life line in our growing knowledge society

• Infostructures are now a key building block in development cooperation, academia and research

• Our journey will take us through how we can collaborate online, share info and knowledge within the framework of infostructures using social media tools .

Background

• Focuss.Info workshop aimed at promoting new information and communication (ICT) skills among peers in the domain of global development research and cooperation.

• The workshop is part of focuss info Initiative that aims at improvement of access to information, a fundamental right that strengthens democracy, and supports human rights.

• The objective of Focuss.Info also corresponds to the work of UNESCO, which helps to develop effective ‘infostructures’, including developing information standards, management tools and fostering access at the community level.

What are infostructures

• Infostructure is similar to Infrastructure• Infrastuctures refers to a set of physical systems designed

to deliver services. Eg. Road, telephone , internet etc• Infostructures on the other hand is similar to

infrastructures but it is not physical in nature. It connotes the layout of information which enables easy navigation.

• An infostructure is created when we organize information into a useful and organised manner.

• Examples - A table of contents, bibliography,an index, world wide web, etc

Some key Characteristics of Infostructures

• It must be designed with end users in mind to achieve its intended service of helping them navigate a maze of information

• Consistent navigation structure is core to any infostructure in order for users to navigate all documents related or non related.

• Clear ordering of information by theme, table of contents, searchable Index, what’s new, archives,

• Documents must easily be cross-referenced especially through the use of reasonable number of links

Key words

• One important tool for online collaboration and info sharing is the use of key words and tags

• Keyword(s) can be defined as a word or words identifying a content. Authors make use of them to reveal internal structure of their work.

• Key word(s) can be referred to as a significant or descriptive word, specific terms, reference point or code(cipher) used in the process of finding information.

• Using key words, a user can easily and efficiently search for information based on authors’ input.

Tags

• "tag"is like a keyword or category label which helps you find content with similar characteristics. They are non-hierarchical keyword/term in nature and assigned to a piece of online information. For example, we can tag all library websites in Ghana with “library Ghana” tag.

Hashtags

• On the other hand, Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. For example go to www.hashtags.org and search for hash (#) key word (focussgh) #focussgh – Focuss Info workshop in Ghana.

• Other services such as http://search.twitter.com, TweetChat, Tweetdeck, TweetGrid, and Twitterfall are also popular for following hashtags in real-time.

Tag cloud

• A tag cloud or word cloud (or weighted list in visual design) is a visual description of content tags used on a website.

• For example : http://tagcrowd.com/ enables you to create your own tag cloud from any text to visualize word frequency.

What are social media tools

• Supports the democratization of knowledge and information• Since 1980s, online means have made it possible for users to

communicate and collaborate. • But the advent of web 2.0 tools increased the popularity of

social media tools and also increased number of users on social media platforms

• Social media tools enable people around the world to contribute and collaborate on readily available online platforms invariably creating new knowledge bases that were not traditionally recognized as information sources. Also it has transformed a lot more people from content consumers to content producers.

Social media tools in action

Social bookmarking

• Social bookmarking is tagging a website address eg www.focusss.info and saving it for future use since it can easily be retrieved.

• You can bookmark web address to your web browser but saving them online means it can easily be shared with other users.

• Examples - www.delicious.com : most popular • www.citeulike.org : A free service to help

academics to share, store, and organize the academic papers they are reading.

Social book marks sites

Examples of Social bookmarking platforms

• DIIGO http://www.diigo.com is two services in one - it is a research and collaborative research tool on one hand and a knowledge-sharing community and social content site on the other.

• GNOLIA http://gnolia.com/ an online community built around link saving and sharing.

Examples of Social bookmarking platforms

• BlinkList http://www.blinklist.com/ is a powerful social book marking productivity tool.

• Simpy http://www.simpy.com/ is a social bookmarking service that lets you save, tag, search and share your bookmarks, notes, groups and more.

Examples of Social bookmarking platforms

• News/what’s new type social bookmarks

–Fark :http://www.fark.com/ –Slashdot : http://slashdot.org/ –Technorati :

http://technorati.com/about-technorati/– Reddit : http://www.reddit.com–Newsvine :

http://www.newsvine.com/

Enabling bookmarking on your website

• Most Website now provide visitors a link to enable them bookmark content from their sites. This is done by embedding a code. See http://www.addthis.com/bookmark.php

Micro blogging

• Microblogging is a form of multimedia blogging that allows users to send brief text updates or micromedia such as photos or audio clips and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, E-mail, digital audio or the web.(en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-blogging)

Micro blogging

• Twitter – is by far the most popular micro blogging tool in the cyber space with millions of users all over the world. www.twitter.com is a free social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets.

• Other micro blogging platforms include but not limited to pownce, tumblr, jaiku, mysay, hictu, moodmill, Frazr, Iratemyday, emotionr

Examples of Micro blogging platforms

• Twitter - http://twitter.com/ launched in 2006, is a very popular instant messaging system that lets a person send brief text messages up to 140 characters in length to a list of followers.

• Tumblr- http://www.tumblr.com Tumblr lets you effortlessly share anything. Post text, photos, quotes, links, music, and videos, from your browser, phone, desktop, email, or wherever you happen to be.

Micro blogging

• Squeelr- http://www.squeelr.com/ Anonymous, Geo-sensitive, Collaborative,Communications and Micro-blogging.

• Beeing - http://www.beeing.com is a real-time micro-blogging and co-surfing application for quick discovery, gathering and sharing the web content you find. Create your content stream and embed it anywhere.

Examples of Micro blogging platforms

• identi.ca http://identi.ca/ built on open source tools and open standards which allows users to send text-based posts up to 140 characters

• Plurk http://www.plurk.com/ Plurk is an easy way to chronicle and share the things you do, the way you feel, and all the other things in between that make up your life, with the people close to you

Examples of Micro blogging platforms

• Emote.in http://www.emote.in/ is a lifestream service, where you can write and share short (140 chars or less) text notices called "dots"

• Jaiku http://www.jaiku.com/ bringing people closer together via conversations by connecting people through sharing of updates -Web, IM, and SMS - as well as through third-party applications built by other developers using the Jaiku API. ( part of google)

Examples of Micro blogging platforms

Others – mostly enterprise based • Socialtext Signals

http://www.socialtext.com/products/microblogging.php

• Present.ly http://presentlyapp.com/• Communote

http://www.communote.com/homepage/en• Sprouter http://sprouter.com/• wooxie http://www.wooxie.com/• cubeTree.com http://www.cubetree.com/• IBM lotus Connections

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/products/connections

Creation of infostructures using social medial tools

In creating infostructure the following key issues come to play :

Subject area – key issues Design For whom? Content generation through experience and

Online research Relevance Online Tools – eg Twitter and Delicious

Mapping roles in infostructures powered by social media tools

• We are no longer information consumers but producers

• We can contribute to infostructure by supplying information and knowledge from our area of expertise

• We can only share information and knowledge if we organize it for easy access and search

Activity

• List key information and knowledge areas of your work area

• Who are the key stakeholders in your environment

• What are the contributory factors to information and knowledge flow in your environment

• What factors do you consider to be roadblocks for information and knowledge flow in your environment

Questions and Answers

Building a collective space

• After creating individual online tools for information sharing and collaboration, the next step is to enable synergy

• In this direction, we organize individual info sharing activities into a collective whole through re-using, re-mixing and synchronizing valuable information

• This group collective space does have a direct consequence of amplifying individual information sharing output. Harnessing individuals efforts into a collective good.

Building a collective info space- examples

• One good example is Focuss.Info, which is indexing personal collection from Delicious into a network (which is searchable via search engines) :http://delicious.com/network/focuss.marker

• http://www.grouptweet.com/ (GroupTweet is a service that works with Twitter to allow users to form groups and communicate within those groups.

• Hashtags - http://hashtags.org/

Creating network on social bookmarking platform

• Your network connects you to other Delicious users - friends, family, even new people you run across while exploring Delicious. You can add people to your network and keep track of their latest bookmarks right . And when you save new bookmarks, you can share them with people in your network simply by clicking on a username. (source : www.delicious.com)

Conclusion

• In conclusion information and knowledge sharing through face to face and online can go a long way to make a difference for scholars and professionals. Therefore all and sundry must invest in the development of a dynamic vibrant learning, information and knowledge sharing environment.

Thank You

Visit http://www.focuss.info

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