Date:   Thursday, March 20, 2014

Time:   4:00 PM – 5:00 PM GMT

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

We’ll record the Webinar and make it available via the WST Web Site and the Vimeo Channel

http://vimeo.com/channels/wstnetwebinars/videos/sort:date/format:detail

Please use the link below to sign up for the Webinar and also make use of the HackPad to add any questions/topics for Dave before/during/after the session.

https://hackpad.com/Web-Observatories-with-Prof-Dave-de-Roure-Gox9Wo2SHxV

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:

https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/372549326

This webinar is a joint presentation of the Web Science Trust and the Oxford eResearch Centre (OeRC)

Prof. Dave de Roure is one of the longest associated members of the Web Science Trust and also chairs the W3C community group on Web Observatories.

David De Roure is Professor of e-Research at University of Oxford, Director of the Oxford e-Research Centre, Co-Director of the Institute for the Future of Computing in the Oxford Martin School and has a coordinating role in Digital Humanities at Oxford.

David was closely involved in the UK e-Science programme and held a national role from 2009-2013 as the UK National Strategic Director for Digital Social Research. He is a UK representative on the European e-Infrastructure Reflection Group, one of the UK PIs for the Square Kilometre Array telescope, a chair of the UK e-Science Forum, a partner in the UK Software Sustainability Institute and on the editorial board for IEEE Transactions on Cloud Computing. He is a champion for the Web Science Trust, chairs the W3C Web Observatory Community Group and in 2011 was elected as a Research Fellow at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The post WST 2014 Webinar Series – Web Observatories with Prof Dave de Roure appeared first on Web Science MOOC.

The Web Science MOOC features the current research projects involving a number of staff and students at the University of Southampton. The next generation of work in this rapidly developing area is now coming onto the radar.

Last month we held “Web Science Research Week” at the University of Southampton. A number of projects involving staff, students and external partners were kickstarted on the Monday, and then the progress made was reported in a series of presentations to a large audience at the Royal Society  on the final day.

Chris Phethean has written up the National Archives project report 

Gareth Beeston has reviewed the Personal Data project

My review of the final day’s presentations

More examples will follow in a later post!

The post New Web Science Projects appeared first on Web Science MOOC.

I recently had the pleasure of creating content for and facilitating the Web Science MOOC. Having previously taken part in MOOCs as a student, it was my first time being on the other end of a MOOC platform, and it was just as rewarding.

Having to create a concise but informative introduction to my research was a challenge, but I think I managed to get across some of the key points to spark a good debate amongst the participants. Looking through all the comments I was pleased to see that between them, they had covered a lot of ground.

The discussion step asked participants to try out a tool developed to estimate the value of their personal data. Having tried the tool myself beforehand, I was interested to see what results participants got. It was also a good opportunity to raise questions about the validity of the tool and how meaningful were the conclusions that could be drawn from it.

The week in which my section of the course was ‘live’, many of the issues were discussed in the media; in particular, in relation to the use of personal data by government intelligence agencies, which raised interesting perspectives on commercial data collection. I’m looking forward to the second round of the MOOC, and it will be interesting to see if opinions have changed in light of these media stories.

The post Contributing to the Web Science MOOC #FLwebsci appeared first on Web Science MOOC.

Speeches had been prepared, videos had been filmed and articles written and edited, when on the morning of the 11th November my alarm rang. Today there was no more preparation or planning; today it was time to facilitate. An email was already in my inbox: “Web science: how the web is changing the world – Week 1 has just started!” The first week was always going to induce a rather high bout of anxiety – both in an excited way (that’s all our work going out there to thousands of people at once!), and a slightly more apprehensive manner (I’m facilitating the very first day of a brand new course on an essentially brand new platform… what if it all goes wrong?!). Thankfully, it was the former that ultimately came out on top.

Facilitating – and tutoring (my content appeared as a part of Week 5) – on the MOOC turned in to a daily experience of checking the FutureLearn platform to see what comments and discussions were appearing on the activities in the course. The immediate interpretation of these was that the insights and experiences being spoken about in these conversations were almost as fascinating as the content of the course itself. The ideas of Web Science were mainstream. People all over the world were discussing and sharing stories on how their lives, work and leisure related to Web Science. Odd and rare technical mishap aside (for example Internet Explorer not allowing browser history to be copied in to a visualisation tool that had been created), the course kicked in to gear and before long it felt like a mature, living and breathing Web Science environment. Facilitation turned more in to a process of watching, reading and waiting to see if any issues arose, allowing the discussions that were happening to develop and progress naturally. I think this was a vitally important aspect of the course: from my own experience on ‘traditional’ University courses, many conversations about the content will occur outside of the teaching environment, with no input from the lecturer or academic, so it made sense to ensure that on the MOOC, these equivalent conversations were allowed the same room to grow and explore.

As the weeks went on, the topics of the content changed and some of my fellow facilitators stepped in to monitor specific discussions around their own content, meaning that there was always a good feeling that the best responses and feedback possible to the discussions for each activity were coming from the facilitation team. I found facilitating for the entire 6 weeks however provided a more holistic experience of the first venture into a MOOC – it was great to become familiar with particular learners on the course, recognise their names when they posted in discussions, and begin to build up an image of how people’s perspectives were changing throughout.

Week 5 was particularly interesting, as it featured some of my own content. It was a strange and slightly intimidating experience at first, taking what I’ve been working on for over 2 years now and extracting what are the core elements relevant to any Web Scientist, and then explaining them in a way that was accessible to all. Despite a few initial queries over one part of activity, a few replies to gently ‘push’ learners towards the sorts of things they needed to consider seemed to help a great deal and there was something incredibly rewarding to see people start to ‘get’ something that had initially thrown them.

Then, before I knew it, Week 6 was drawing to end and things were drawing to a close. The rewarding feeling grew as people said thank you and described how they had found the course, leaving the next-run of the MOOC in February as a bright spot to look forward to in the near future, with the hope that it can produce the same kind of reaction.

The post Facilitating the #FLwebsci MOOC appeared first on Web Science MOOC.

Over the past 3 years we have drawn upon the Digital Economy Research Group as a vehicle for pioneering multidisciplinary research-led and technology-informed educational innovation here at the University of Southampton. Students have been very much included as partners in this process through participating in research projects such as SMiLE, and acting as ambassadors and change agents via the Digital Champions and Curriculum Innovation programmes.

Many students have contributed directly to the MOOC as Educators, Facilitators and bloggers. The Curriculum Innovation module Living and Working on the Web aims to “eat its own dogfood” by encouraging students to create and then critique the course materials through blog posts and online interactions with their colleagues and tutors. It covers a number of key aspects of digital literacy, some of which have been explored in the MOOC:

• proactive, confident and flexible adoption of a range of technologies for personal, academic and professional use
• use of appropriate technology effectively to search for and store high-quality information
• curation and critical evaluation of the information obtained
• building networks and engaging creatively and productively in online communities
• creating relevant and compelling digital content in written, pictorial and video form
• awareness of the challenges in managing online identities and ensuring online privacy and security

This list of module topics shows that the key point about the increasing emphasis on digital literacy at all educational levels is that it’s not just about knowing the basics of how to use a computer. It’s many of the things we’ve discussed and practised throughout this MOOC. Whether we are consumers, learners or organisations, we increasingly are required to navigate our way through these activities regardless of whether or not we “work in IT”

There are still many jobs that don’t require digital skills, but this number is diminishing. BCS (the Chartered Institute for IT) states:

“Employers increasingly require validation of digital literacy skills and employability can depend on it. Why is Digital Literacy important to employers and employees?

Digital literacy is required in 77% of all employment
Digital literacy is expected to be required in 90% of all employment by 2015
Employability for graduates increasingly requires a broad range of digital literacy skills
Employers expect graduates to be able to communicate using digital media”
(http://www.bcs.org/category/17854)

BCS encourages digital literacy development in schools and universities to help people prepare for the workplace, as part of the Digital Literacy for Life Programme:

“Understanding the impact of new technologies on society
Understanding and being able to manage digital identities appropriately
Being able to locate, organise, understand, evaluate, analyse and present digital information”

The Living and Working on the Web module can be studied by students from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds, but it still forms only a very small part of a learner’s overall study programme. The next stage is to embed the principles of digital literacy much more broadly – we will see this come into effect next year when an innovative multi-disciplinary programme in Natural Sciences is launched by the University.

A common theme that jumped out at me from reading comments on the MOOC materials was that of the digital divide. Increasingly we will see benefits accrue to the “digitally literate”, while those without these skills may become more marginalised. So what can be done about this?

Firstly, publicity about the MOOC and participation in it should help to raise awareness about the value of online education, and encourage more tutors to experiment! Learners and tutors can practice their digital literacy skills by engaging with the course materials and the emerging online community within the MOOC itself.

Secondly, as tutors we can find out in real time what content and exercises learners are enjoying or struggling with, and address their feedback in real time.

Thirdly, there are obvious benefits to be gained from applying content and /or process from the MOOC directly into campus-based classes to introduce an online element – this could be in terms of a course entry “test” to aid the selection of high quality students, or the provision of supplementary resources to enable a programme to be completed in a shorter period of time. And probably many more…

More details about various university digital literacy projects and students as change agents can be found from these links:

http://www.hei-flyers.org/wordpress/is-digital-literacy-the-new-frontier-in-employability/ by Aaron Porter

http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2011/dec/15/digital-literacy-employability-student-experience by Sarah Knight

Many thanks are due to Cristina Costa of the University of Strathclyde for her enthusiastic and knowledgeable input to this post, the MOOC materials and indeed many of our digital literacy projects :-)

The post Digital Literacy and #FLWebSci : Some Reflections appeared first on Web Science MOOC.

It would be great to get some feedback from other staff and students who have been following the MOOC – have the discussions around the course topics changed the way you live or work in any significant way? Do let us know…

The post Learner reflections on the Web Science MOOC appeared first on Web Science MOOC.

The post Register your blog on the ‘social’ page appeared first on Web Science MOOC.

The post Web Science MOOC to run again in February 2014 appeared first on Web Science MOOC.

Current Web challenges and opportunities are keeping Tim Berners-Lee busy at the moment! Web Science MOOC learners may be interested in these links:

#radio4 @timberners_lee to edit the Today programme for a day http://t.co/SbfacdSrOT

— Wendy Hall (@DameWendyDBE) November 20, 2013

BBC News @TimBerners_Lee says 'surveillance threatens web' http://t.co/3W0EN8jP5l #flwebsci

— Web Science MOOC (@UoSFLwebsci) November 22, 2013

The post Tim Berners-Lee in the news appeared first on Web Science MOOC.

It’s tempting to believe that communicating on the Web is faceless, bodiless, and genderless. Indeed, this notion formed part of the basis of cyberfeminism, which envisioned a post-body, post-gender future inhabited by cyborgs. Without physical cues, an Internet user could be free to be anyone or anything without consequence.  While this may have been true 20 years ago (when this comic was published), it sadly is no longer. Persistent identities and data trackers which follow your digital footprint aside, communication itself is not as anonymous as one may think.  In social psychology, such a programme has been able to categorise samples of discourse by gender with an 80% success rate, lending further credence to theories of gender-based difference in language use.

There is also evidence to suggest that the ways in which men and women use the Web might also be different, as well as the possibility that using the Web can affect people differently according to their gender. High exposure to and use of the Internet has been linked with poor body image and desire for thinness in teenage girls. Additionally, highly explicit content has been made available to all, including children and adolescents. Exposure to pornography and other sexual media has the potential to communicate to teenagers, particularly boys, as well as reinforcing gender stereotypes such as objectification of women and masculinisation of men.

The post The Web and Challenges to Gender appeared first on Web Science MOOC.