News forum

Re: Thank you!

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 07:15:56 CST

by simon fenton - jones.

Hi Claire (and Kathleen),

I don't think the old ideas of living inside institutional domains can survive for much longer. As you say "I guess how one sees it depends very much on the role one has, and the technical privileges and power one has too". I'd say authority instead of power but we understand one another. It all depends on how the me.edu.au (or me.gov.au) authority is used to enable levels of access to various domains.

The role seems pretty apparent (at least to these old eyes). It's the one which Kerry calls "humble moderator". The hard thing is going to be getting institutionalists to believe in the concept that communities of interest are more important than their own silo. Silos' information might be managed efficiently but their inhabitant's knowledge is never represented by web sites.

I tend to take the pulse (from years of commiserating) of the secretariats who are pulled together to run .gov inquiries - both here and OS - stick up the submissions, and are then disbanded. And if you lurk around the Wikipedia traps you'd see this disconnect between the "repository and the discussion based network" = the information (web) ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and the communications (email) networks.

So don't go too far. A "real digital identity" is not too far off now. EDS has to deliver by this year's end. The real interesting part is going to be how Nick's ideas about taxonomies for folksomonies get realized. As our institutions find some agreement here we might start to see some real learning institutions (as opposed to the old teaching ones).

I Like the Carrick exchange. Reminds me a little of http://www.janetcollaborate.ac.uk/
(Janet is the UK's aarnet). Pity we can't get closer co-operation between the techs inside the NRENs isn't it? So much duplication, so little time.

And thanks. I really need an interesting distraction from the silence.

Re: Thank you!

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 06:20:06 CST

by simon fenton - jones.

Thanks Mark,

This probably slipped your mind, so i did track down and talk to Kerry. She convinced me that her terms of reference (ACT only) are too limited to be of much interest here.It is specifically this australia.gov.au, using me.edu.au as the single sign on, which has my hopes up. Either we are to be participating citizens in .gov.au inquiries, or lifelong learners working toward a new institution, which revolves around communities of interest.

Could you keep this community across the developments here. My interest is in the development of the position of moderators, and the development of their tools and skillsets. You'd be aware that the idea of a domain like inquiries.australia.gov.au or forums.gov.au (in conjunction with an SSO like me.edu.au) is becoming obvious to many long suffering bureaucrats (and teachers).

One thing which they may not have considered is that "the process" of an inquiry will want to be common to both the business of government and education; that is, if it is to grow legs. So please keep us informed. There are quite a few others in .gov.au and .edu.au silos who may get their hopes up and change their ways, if education.au's communities are given their head(s).

PS. Paul Hogie is EDS's Australian Federal Account manager. And EDS is being folded into HP, so this cross border development has implications globally for Australian engineers and content managers.

Re: Thank you!

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 14:46:29 CST

by Claire Brooks.

Hi Simon, so sorry to hear about your loss, and glad that you can continue to think deeply and participate in this forum.
I'm not participating much here these days. I am following with interest the development of the ( beta apparently) ALTC network for higher ed ( a.k.a Carrick exchange) will be interesting to see how they deal with these same issues. At present is seems to be a sort of a cross between a repository and the discussion based network a bit similar to this one ( but I guess how one sees it depends very much on the role one has, and the technical privileges and power one has too. In some ways it would be good to have some overlap between the two ( although I understand there is close co-operation between/amongst the technical developers). I guess I'm thinking if I had a real 'digital identity' I'd be able to connect to posts in both ( and more) places.Thanks for the link to media futures.

Re: Thank you!

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 14:46:28 CST

by Mark Tranthim-Fryer.

Hi Simon,

The ACT consultation is Wednesday 23 12 o'clock at Canberra Institute of Tech Reid Campus

I'll put you in touch with the ACT contact/host of the consultations (Kerry Manikis) when I'm back in the office on Monday.

We have a working relationship with AGIMO and are meeting next week also regarding connections between education.au services and australia.gov.au

cheers

Mark

Re: You Whinger

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 07:44:43 CST

by simon fenton - jones.

Thanks Nick,

Yes. We'd like to do that, too. Unfortunately the whole "closed environment" of Moodle makes that not quite as easy as it may appear at first.

Amen to that. I think Martin (Mr. Moodle) and other Moodlers are going to have a hell of time working to this model, especially on a global basis.

No. me.edu.au deliberatly uses a bottom-up folksonomy for classification. We dont' want to try to force people into preset boxes - we'd prefer to let them adaprt the site to them.

That's fine. All I'm getting at is that, You've seen the list of forums Kerry has set up in this space. When I click on a tag for a "Community of Interest". It's page would point at its community's discussion forum (and library and archive), either at edna or another domain. Discussion about Moodle in this domain, for example, would probably be more useful if held over at the Moodle site's appropriate forum. It'll take some cross domain moderation and some agreement about single signing on, but that seems to be happening.

Re the classification. Appreciate what you say about "not wanting to force people into a box". Your ideas about taxonomies directed folksonomies is something every (organising) domain manager has to consider. But in the clouds, domains (as you know) are just placeholders. Unfortunately they've usually tended to be placeholders for institutions (or projects or events) not communities of interest (especially in the edu space). But with an authentication and authority like me.edu.au or me.gov.au the domainal divisions are going to get a bit blurry and start rearranging.

Some communities of interest are quad lingual, sometimes even more. So we need a taxonomy which is based on numbers, not one language. At least that's the only way i can see we might get to know where they are, and moderate their learning. Besides, now Skype and a few others have started to treat any mobile phone like a computer, we need to consider how, when reading something on the web, a person can find their (cross domain) community of interest, and talk and conference, etc.

Re: Thank you!

Thu, 17 Jul 2008 06:15:36 CST

by simon fenton - jones.

Hi Kerry, Claire, Kathleen, Nick (guys),

Sorry i haven't been around for a while. I laid my darling to rest last month, so I could really use some help to stop being a chain smoking alkie. Went to to my first outing for two years last week. Cups of tea, and more!

I'm reading that there's a consultation on about the future of edna and me. The main day(s) i was interested in in Canberra next week. You might know that EDS has been awarded a contract to do in the me.gov.au space what education.au is attempting in the me.edu.au space. If you want some relevant background material, its here.

Is there anyway I could attend, and perhaps invite some of the people from agimo (which has been folded into the dept of finance and deregulation). It would also be nice to have some people from innovation.gov.au attend as their consultations touch on edna's future interests. Might even be able to get some journos from Fairfax to attend ( I'm a stringer for them again).

And Kerry, what's this humble moderator bit? This is the most important (and misunderstood) position in the global learning space at the moment. Don't ever underestimate what a flea between elephants can do.

Re: You Whinger

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 10:58:13 CST

by Nick Lothian.

Where do i add my edna groups Memberships (Participants) ?

That should be automagically updated. It's not at the moment due to a number of issues with the way Moodle works

Where can i add my links to exterior groups?

I guess "About Me" would be the most appropriate location. The plan is for that to support HTML, but we haven't coded stuff we need to do that securely yet.

Can I have a What I've been doing at Edna Groups Feed or simply Edna Groups Posts (feed)
running from this page?

Yes. We'd like to do that, too. Unfortunately the whole "closed environment" of Moodle makes that not quite as easy as it may appear at first. For example, we need to decide how to deal with forum posts from closed, hidden forums - presumably they shouldn't show up within me.edu.au. We also need to work this out these permissions without tying the me.edu.au product too closely with Moodle. It's hard, but it is on the roadmap.

Now that we're starting to classify things into "theme rooms" around here, can we consider how we have a common classification between these two directories (groups and communities) .
http://me.edu.au/c/ and http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/

No. me.edu.au deliberatly uses a bottom-up folksonomy for classification. We dont' want to try to force people into preset boxes - we'd prefer to let them adaprt the site to them.

You've conflated Interests with Communities. It's either one or the other.

It's communities of interests. Communities of people held together with a common interest.

A lot of work on this I see. Very nice functionality, layout and aesthetics. And I'd love to continue the compliments but really! an index of My Public profile (on the left, pointing back to simon fenton- jones?) What the ...?

This was a pretty unfortunate oversite, which is fixed in the next build (probably in the next week or so)

What's the difference between My Whiteboard and My Blog (apart from the obvious huge amount of development?) One or the other.

My Whiteboard is designed for communication with a person. My Blog gives a person a way to broadcast their thoughts and opinions.

Your going to have to start a forum soon for the development horizon, so people can get some idea of what you're capable of, when it might be delivered, and in what order

We do have http://me.edu.au/c/me-edu-au which covers some of this. As for what we're capable of - well - I think someone said I was capable of anything, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't supposed to be a good thing.

Correction of spelling / terminology ..

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 10:09:14 CST

by Kathleen Zarubin.

Sorry I meant allegory NOT Analogue (got to love spell check!)

Re: TAA and rocky 27.. and boxers umpires and trainers do not talk to each other!!

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 08:57:37 CST

by Kathleen Zarubin.

Hi Simon thanks for the encouragement (re posting above in reply to my email direct to you ..) some points in 3 areas .

1. Reactivation of forums (re your comment emails + 200 more)
I know what you mean I have gone from a reader to a poster and now I find I must be strict with myself or I can just spend all my time responding and not working and that is what pays the bills!!! BUT I must admit I am finding it really inspiring and learning heaps of new stuff ..

2. Your suggestion
re I'll start a thread over at the TAFE's forum as that seems to be the logical one if we want to engage with IBSA, TVET, tc. Better still, why don't you cut and paste what you sent us. It's not a bad idea to overstate your case as it allows for discussing the extremes. I liked what you sent"

I agree and that sounds great (Thanks) 3 Questions: -
a) can you post a link to it so I can get to it AND
b) will I be allowed in? (I dont work at TAFE) AND ..
c) are you sure it wont make people angry?

Thanks for the liked what you sent comment & given my comment in point 1 Ill have to do it later (lol) as I have heaps of paying client stuff to do today!!!

And lastly ..
3. More on the analogue used in the heading
It is amazing in trying to get guidance on what to do re versions .. in the last week I have
a) Had an email from the QLD department saying they dont know what fact sheet I was talking about / asking for .. EVEN though earlier last week they were the ones on the phone that TOLD ME they were putting together a fact sheet .. I emailed them that .. and havent had a response

b) A person NTIS also responded that as the TAA is currently being worked on and they have not been advised of a release date - they couldnt tell me when the updated version would be on NTIS - I responded with a cut and paste from the IBSA website saying it HAD been released and havent heard anything else ..

Seriously, I feel like Alice in Wonderland with all my questions being answered in a circular manner and I am just wondering around, meeting colourful characters, none of whom seem to know what is going on.

Cup of tea anyone?

Thank you!

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 16:55:26 CST

by Kerry J.

Hi Simon and Claire

Love that you have thought about this so deeply and I know the people working on the me.edu.au site will too.

Everyone- if you have feedback on the me.edu.au site that you want to contribute -- please send an email to groups@edna.edu.au and our help desk will pass them along.

I just want to be a humble moderator and contributor rather than the edna rep, so using the email address will allow me to focus on the group and what I can do to support it.

Cheers!

KerryJ