Thing 6

I already have some familiarity with Del.icio.us (despite not having my own account) so for this week's task I decided to look into Diigo in more detail.

My overall impression of Diigo is that it is incredibly comprehensive, offering not just one, but a multitude of functions and thus distinguishing it from other web 2.0 applications. To put it crudely, it could be said that Diigo is both a personal organiser and a social networking tool.  However, both of these facets have many layers. Diigo aims to provide all of the tools that a researcher might need including a means to bookmark favourite websites and the ability to develop a personal taxonomy to organise websites with personalised tags. Indeed the social bookmarking and tagging is one of the ways in which Diigo facilitates collaboration and social networking as it enables you to find others who have bookmarked the same pages or used the same tags.  I felt that one of the most impressive features of Diigo is that it takes interactivity to the next level, enabling users to treat the computer screen as if it were paper. Users are able to 'highlight' passages on screen,  add 'sticky notes', and 'photocopy' (take screen shots) of web-pages. This almost 3D-like interactivity that Diigo offers is, I believe, a glimpse into computing of the future.  Overall, I was very impressed with Diigo, it truly seemed to offer something different and exciting. For a PhD student it would be the ideal tool as it is a way of comprehensively managing all aspects of a large research project. However, I did get the sense that it is a tool that requires complete commitment; it seems that to get the most from it, all aspects should be fully embraced.

Thing 9

Useful wikis:

The following example has been added to the 11 1/2 Things wiki:
Wiki Surgery - The Free Surgical Encyclopedia
http://www.wikisurgery.com

Other wikis:

For my library users:
The Neurodegeneration Research Wiki
This is maintained by MRC Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases and aims to be an information point for students, carers and researchers.

For students:
TSR Wiki (The Student Room)
This is written by students, for students. It covers all aspects of university life - choosing universities, courses, accommodation, entertainment etc.

For librarians:
LIS Wiki
This was established to "give the library community a chance to explore the usefulness of wikis". It welcomes contributions on anything library-related, encourages debate on issues currently facing the sector, and links to other useful sites and articles of interest.

Thoughts on wikis...

• Searching for wikis on Google is not a good idea - it just returns lots of wikipedia articles!
• Wikis are more difficult to find and there is less of a snowball effect. If you find a good blog, the chances are that it will point you in the direction of other useful blogs covering similar topics. This does not seem to be the case with wikis. Perhaps because blogs are written by individuals and are even more narrowly-focused than wikis, whereas wikis are written by many and the purpose of a wiki is to distribute facts/information, rather than soliloquise?
• Wikis can be very powerful tools, using the collective intelligence of the crowd to refine and correct information. 
• They epitomise the benefits of web 2.0 tools generally - they can be accessed anywhere, are easy to edit, and can be updated/amended by anyone.
• Wikis have one big advantage over traditional encylopedias/reference books - there are no size limits. A wiki can continue to grow infinitely and indefinitely.  However, the larger a wiki becomes, the greater the need for good indexing and anchoring within the website, otherwise it becomes difficult to navigate for the user.

Thing 11

Overall I have really enjoyed the 11 ½ Things course – who knew there were so many web 2.0 tools! I have been meaning to get to grips with web 2.0 for a long time (I knew there must be more to web 2.0 life than facebook!) but I felt swamped by the possibilities and didn’t really know where to start. The course has provided a framework in which to explore these tools and it is this structured guidance which I have found most beneficial. My favourite application was Prezi. I’d never seen this before and I thought it was excellent and such a welcome relief from the uniformity of PowerPoint. Given that it is so engaging I think it would be ideal when presenting to children and students, or to those with short attention spans!

For researchers and academics, I believe that Virtual Research Environments have the greatest potential to really change working practices.  Although wikis and blogs are hugely beneficial in terms of disseminating information and facilitating instant feedback, at the moment they largely seem to be things that are done alongside traditional methods.  Virtual Research Environments, Office 2.0, and cloud computing on the other hand offer new ways of working by enabling global collaboration (as well as global communication).  It is easy to envisage scientists in different laboratories all over the world logging on and working on the same document. On an individual level, it means not having to remember to carry around memory sticks. Furthermore, problems encountered with sharing files/not being able to access them because they were originally saved in different versions of the application, will be a thing of the past. For students, I believe that web 2.0 tools that facilitate sharing (rather than collaboration) will be the most beneficial. Presentation sharing software such as SlideShare, and the utilisation of YouTube to stream university lectures and conference proceedings make it possible for students to experience lectures from all over the world.

Many people’s first encounters with web 2.0 tools are likely to be for recreational purposes. Students due to start at university shortly will no doubt have Facebook and MySpace accounts, be accustomed to sharing photos on Flickr, and to watching funny videos on YouTube. It may however require a change of attitude for them to realise and accept the potential of these tools for academic purposes.  The same is equally true for librarians; how many of us have personal Twitter accounts but have far too easily dismissed the idea of setting up a Twitter account for our libraries?

My least favourite week was week 3 (tagging, social bookmarking and social citation-sharing).  Even though I can appreciate the practicality and value of social bookmarking I have always avoided setting up a del.icio.us account. I tend to just use two computers (work and home) and the sites I use regularly are compartmentalised and bookmarked to these, which seems to work for me. In respect of tagging and seeing what other like-minded people may also be looking at, again I can see the appeal, but for me this would be a downward spiral to never logging off (even now I spend far too much time browsing the ‘Amazon recommends’ and ‘other readers bought...’ sections).

Overall, the course has opened my eyes to the potential that web 2.0 has. It has reinforced the fact that web 2.0 can be exploited for academic purposes and the advancement of research, and is not just for social purposes.  On a personal level, a few of the tools are featuring heavily in my radar. I will now turn to SlideShare to prevent re-inventing the wheel when writing presentations/conducting research.  And despite owning an ipod for 5 years, I have never downloaded a podcast. 11 ½ has given me the long-overdue (and much-needed) push to sign up to iTunes.

In terms of where web 2.0 sits with library services, then it is apparent that there is great potential, particularly for improving the relationship between the library and its users not least because of the friendly tone of web 2.0 tools. Indeed a quick Google search reveals hundreds of libraries with a presence on Facebook or Twitter.  However, it is this very informality that may prove dangerous – when using cute and colourful mediums it may be easier for levels of professionalism to slip or indeed harder to achieve authenticity and sustain high reputations. This seems particularly true for blogs, which are increasingly being used to update users with library news. However, by their very nature blogs are highly personal and it may be difficult for the blogger to remain completely impartial and to adopt the persona of the library entity.  Also, there is the danger of web 2.0 overload for both library users and library staff (who may fall in to the trap of thinking that just because the library at a rival university has a Twitter account, so should they). Although we should feel lucky that there are many different mediums available to us for communicating with our users, we should not forget that the introduction of any new service needs careful consideration. The benefits and disadvantages of each web 2.0 application should be reflected upon and only those that we believe to be appropriate for our own service should be implemented. After all, each set of library users are unique, and only the library staff in each library will have an understanding of localised needs and preferences. In my library, the only web 2.0 application currently in place is a Facebook page. However, given that 50% of our library staff are completing this course I can foresee some interesting discussions as to whether web 2.0 should play a greater role.

Finally, the only downside of the course for me has been the difficulty in creating and memorising yet more usernames and passwords. This may sound silly but with an abundance of login-credentials to remember for numerous work systems, personal email accounts, online shops and bank accounts (to name but a few), it feels that my ever-diminishing brain cells are having to be sacrificed for the memorisation of meaningless codes. The final straw came when I found myself trying to log in to this blog with our Aleph password! On that note, I feel it is high time for Thing 11½!

Things 7 & 8

Neurological Examination

View more presentations from Richard Brown

I found the above presentation freely available on SlideShare and thought it would be of interest to the postgraduate students who use our library. I am always asked for books on performing neurological examination so this seems like a good alternative to suggest when all of our books are on loan.

Thoughts on SlideShare...
I am new to SlideShare but it seems intuitive and very easy to use. I particularly like how it recommends other presentations that are relevant to your original search. There are also a lot of useful extras e.g. the number of views, options to follow the author of the presentation, ability to leave a comment, option to 'like' in facebook etc. Students will love SlideShare; it is easy to use and presentations can easily be linked to and shared using other web 2.0 tools that there are likely to already be using. It seems that presentations on nearly all subjects are available. Even if the presentations aren't from the student's home university, it is still a great resource for wider reading and for finding out extra information. It can also be used to share presentations from conferences, which is great for distributing information internationally or for people who can't attend.

The elephant in the room however is confidentially and plagiariasm. If somebody is uploading slides to SlideShare it is their responsibility to check that they are not breaching copyright. I checked the terms and conditions of SlideShare and it does go into some detail about copyright, explicitly stating that individuals must not post copyrighted material on to SlideShare. It also emphasises that by posting material on SlideShare users must accept that their slides are likely to be re-used by others. The danger of course is that people may not be aware that information on their slides is copyrighted (this is particularly true for images and logos that have been downloaded from the web and then incorporated in to a presentation). However, SlideShare does take some steps to try and prevent copyright infringement. Amongst other things, it asks users to use their real name/real trademark when uploading slides, and for users to report any breaches of copyright that they notice. However, these steps do seem rather 'woolly'. Another danger is that people may upload slides that they themselves don't actually own. An example would be university students uploading their lecturers' presentations to SlideShare, in the good faith that they are making them accessible to their peers who could not attend the original lecture (in our university many handouts are available to students on VLEs).

Overall, the overwhelming benefit of SlideShare is its ability to immediately distribute academic information and research to relevant global communities. However, as with most things web-related, the law has yet to catch up with how to effectively govern this.