Online Education Communities

IT used as a learning aid for education is pretty much as standard in the developed world as is using books and calculators. As online communities have revolutionised fields such as the music business and social networks, the question I’m asking is whether or not online communities as a learning aid will revolutionise educational practices.  

Discussed are two examples of online communities which have their uses in education – 

Wiki’s – Wikipedia (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page) is a widely used online encyclopaedia. Its content is edited by its members, whilst this makes its content wide ranging and needing minimal resources, it also makes it open to users uploading false content. Unlike Wikipedia, Google is launching an online encyclopaedia in which it is inviting experts to create the content (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7144970.stm), this will ensure reliable content. Unlike Wikipedia it will use advertising as part of its funding, this will be used to fund its many authors.   

3D worlds – Second Life (see www.secondlife.com) is a community in which members can congregate and interact in a 3D environment, which makes it an ideal platform to stage lectures and discussions. Ohio University (see promo video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFuNFRie8wA) is one university to adopt second life by uploading a replica campus.  

 I believe that online communities will revolutionise educational practices as they have the tools to change the way people learn and interact with tutors. I would argue that communities such as Second Life will be used in parallel with traditional teaching practices allowing students to attend and take part in lectures and tutorials streamed online. Also this environment could be used to link to other trusted learning resources, creating a learning mesh.  

Advantages of such a system would be allowing students (who don’t need physical care) to save time travelling to a real-world campus, and would come in use with foreign students as it is a borderless model. Also this type of community model will impact on developing countries which have limited physical resources. 

The approach would have the disadvantage though of taking away the face-to face social side to campus life. Also advertising used on sites might be a concern. Such an approach would need piloting to iron out any unexpected flaws which may crop up.      

By taking more learning out of the classroom and online, students will find themselves researching topics individually and use mediums such as message boards for help from peers and tutors.  

Online Community Business Models

Has Web 2.0 brought about new opportunities for Internet entrepreneurs? The increase in network bandwidth has brought about an array of online community types, each having income streams to stay afloat. Examples two community models are compared –   

3D Virtual Worlds – Second Life (www.secondlife.com) is a 3D virtual world which has its own economy, using its own currency the Linden Dollar which is bought and sold on its LindeX exchange. Members make money as they would in a real life environment with virtual products and services. Second Life has become such a success one member is reported as becoming the first Second Life millionaire (see http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/techbeat/archives/2006/11/second_lifes_fi.html) by starting out in virtual real estate, to setting up a ‘real-life’ company creating 3D environments.    

Wikis – Goldcorp (www.goldcorp.com) is a traditional gold mining company which took a gamble by utilizing wiki technology to aid its mining strategy. It took an unusual step of posting its entire data one of its mines (Red Lake), and offered awards totalling $575,000 for anyone able to identify where 6million ounces of gold might be located. (See – http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/59/mcewen.html). The “open-source” gamble paid off when they literally struck gold from the idea; from producing 53,000 ounces in 1996, it was producing 504,000 ounces in 2001.   

Whilst both community types give a stage to entrepreneurial initiative (from anyone) they differ in their makeup, Second Life gives individual members an opportunity to setup on a small budget and create their own virtual business with minimum risk. The wiki approach lets a business attract and access untapped talent from across the globe, and where the model is applicable it has proven potential for success. Although such an approach is not without risk, posting before classified data online is available for all competitors to see.    

The mining wiki community was made up of members with an expertise in mining looking for a final solution to a problem, the Second Life community is a diverse ongoing and evolving community who’s members have differing aims. Both communities have the ability to turn the individual into the many to for real world action.     

Both community models are not confined to economics. Second life offers staggering potential of uses for its members, examples are staging real-life lectures, business conferencing and group meetings to name a few. Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org) is an example of using a wiki for educational purposes.

Online Defamation

In my previous blog post (entitled Political Online Communities) I compared the Labour and Conservative political parties approach to online community. In that post I originally started that the website http://www.bloggers4labour.org/ was an official Labour site. This was a mistake made on my part, and one that would have probably gone unnoticed had I not had a comment correcting this from the Labour promoted www.labourhome.org. I promptly edited the post to correct the mistake. Whilst this was an innocent and minor mistake, it raises a question as to what the possible ramifications of such actions.

In a landmark case in 2000, Internet Service Provider Demon settled a libel case with a Dr Laurence Godfrey (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/695596.stm). The case was brought about when Demon refused to remove a defamatory message (of a personal nature) posted in 1997 on a newsgroup it hosted. Damon argued that it shouldn’t be their responsibility for the millions of items posted every day; as far as English Law is concerned an ISP is a ‘secondary publisher’.  Under section 1(1) of the Defamation Act 1996 (see – http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/docs/defamation2.pdf) “a secondary publisher has a defence if he took reasonable care in relation to its publication; and he did not know, and had no reason to believe, that what he did caused or contributed to the publication of a defamatory statement”. 

More recently in 2006 UK Independence Party’s Michael Keith Smith successfully sued for libel Yahoo member Tracy Williams who posted persoanl defamatory (see – http://news.cnet.co.uk/software/0,39029694,49259050,00.htm). In this case a court order was obtained by Mr Smith ordering Yahoo to reveal Tracy Williams identity, as she posted her comments under a psudonym name.  

Both cases highlighted show that as far as online defamation is concerned, a victim has rights to sue the publishers, and it is up to the law to decipher who that is. Also a user can’t hide behind a psudonym name and act lawlessly. The law is one of the few areas of online community life which is not so much subjective, but clear-cut, for a primary publisher (community member) each case will be examined on its merits, and for the secondary publisher, they are subject to the defamation act as mentioned. This raises a problem for secondary publishers who may have to handle, and keep up with many complaints. Having user’s self-moderate communities by reporting indecently published material is one method commonly used.

As there is potential for an ISP to be accountable for user remarks, it’s not beyond the realms of possibility for a user to set-up its ISP and post defamatory remarks to themselves.

It is in both the online community members, and hosts interests to act responsibly online, and perhaps user education on participation should be made clearer, and not just in the terms and conditions (does anyone actually ever read them?)

 As the types of online communities have expanded with Web 2.0 programs such as Second Life, the scope for such cases has expanded, with one law firm even opening an office in Second Life (see http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/d80834d0-2a08-11dc-9208-000b5df10621,dwp_uuid=1d928f30-2984-11dc-a530-000b5df10621.html). With an increased potential for future cases it’s clear who are going to be the winners in the cyberspace   

Political Online Communities

Political parties and organisations have utilized Web2.0 technologies which provide an ideal environment for community convergence and debate. This week I have taken a closer look at the two largest UK political parties (to keep the word-count down!) in a bid to gain an insight into how they have embraced new technologies.

 

The Conservative party website lists all relevant party blogs online (see http://www.conservatives.com/tile.do?def=news.blogs.page). They range from the party leader David Cameron’s aptly named website www.webcameron.org.uk, to local MP’s and councillors. David Cameron’s website has video posts featuring himself, and a forum where members can discuss topics. One category in the forum is ‘David’s responses’ where topics that David Cameron has posted a response to get featured. Many local MP’s and councillors update their blogs regularly, but get few responses. (see http://davidnuttall.info/ for example)

 

Labour has a well organised section on its website called Labour Central. It allows members to upload blogs, videos and news stories. Labour also promotes two social network sites on its main website which are independently run from the Labour party – http://www.labourhome.org/, and http://www.bloggers4labour.org/. The former is a site for members to post blogs, the latter a blog, with links to other Labour related blogs. The Labourhome.org site states that it was setup in 2006 to ‘to reinvigorate the party’s base and grassroots’. The local MP blogs of which there are few don’t get very many comments on their own blogs (see http://www.edinburghnorthandleith.org.uk/blog/ for example).

 

Whilst the Conservative site links to a number of related MP and councillor blogs, Labour only links to a couple of related communities (which do provide MP and councillor blog links). None of these local issue blogs get much interaction with the public. This could be down to the fact that if MPs constituents wants to contact them, they can do via email or in a surgery which are more personal environments. The main difference in the parties approach is that the Conservatives are much more engaging, with their leader responding to some topics personally (or a close aide pretending to be him maybe). The Labour community doesn’t have any real bond from top to bottom. 

 

Been in power a government is often seen as on the back-foot, whilst in opposition it’s much easier to criticise. This might be the reason for the opposition party being more proactively engaged with its members.

 

Blog identity must be an issue with political blogging. In the 2005 election Labour were accused of ‘astroturfing’, which is a tactic originating from America, and used by George Bush after 9/11 to ‘drum up’ support (see http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election/story/0,,1489797,00.html). The technique involves using party members and supporters to pose as ordinary members of the public in various environments, in a bid to promote their own agenda and criticise their opponents. Labour utilized email in the 2005 campaign, to get supporters to ‘astroturf’.

 

As participation in online communities is relatively simple, and anonymous, the temptation for activists of all parties to pose as neutral-minded people or even opposition followers in popular political blogs and forums must be tempting, especially during a general election when needing the electorates support.