Hannah Whaley . com

The 33rd Annual UKSG Conference was in Edinburgh this week, with a varied programme and over 850 attendees. A number of themes started to recur through the sessions and discussions, as summarised:

- Big deal bubble must burst, as it is unsustainable for many institutions

- We must move further towards open access, but it is not yet clear how

- Journal impact factor isn’t good enough anymore, we need to review the commentary and produce new ranking factors

- Linked information is nearly here, allowing informal and pre-publish conversations to be viewed and measured in a structured way on the web

- The age of the article is here, meaning metrics, usage and discoverability will increasingly be at article level rather than the ‘journal container’

- Just-in-time must replace just-in-case, as no one can maintain a full array of items that may only occasionally be required

The discussion around these issues is healthy, as is the growing volume with which librarians and researchers are willing to speak them out loud.  However these key themes are notable for representing problems, not solutions. It is clear that licensing models, researcher metrics, electronic and open access still have some way to evolve to meet the growing needs and expectations of the community.

I gave two presentations and spoke in a panel session at the Durham Blackboard Users Conference in January 2010. As a few people have asked for access to the slides, here they are:

Blackboard 9 - Driving change, but in which direction?

During the last eight years there have been rapid development in pedagogies for online learning and the underlying technical systems to support these pedagogies. These systems have matured to form a next level environment, encapsulated in systems like Blackboard 9, and the expectations for Moodle 2.0.

Challenging experiences in deploying Blackboard 9.0 have highlighted the significant issues that these change processes are raising for our field, and fuelled concerns that central VLEs should be making way for more agile socially driven solutions. As many institutions are at the point of deciding what direction they believe will provide that next generation experience that we are all aiming for, this presentation opens the discussion about the extended issues they may face.

Teaching and assessing group skills

This presentation discussed the rise in the use of assessed group work in many disciplines within Higher Education over recent years because of efficiency gains, employability agendas and notably, the increased availability of online collaboration tools. An approach to collaboration was introduced that teaches about team work by focusing on assessment criteria and peer evaluation aspects of group working. A building block has been developed to deploy this methodology in a Blackboard environment. As well as discussing the concepts and challenges of groupwork assessment and introducing the methodology, the key features of the building block were highlighted.

The year is starting with the UK Blackboard Users Conference in Durham this week. One of the presentations I am giving is looking at change in the elearning field, what can be attributed to the release of Blackboard 9, and what institutions can learn from this period of change. Here is the abstract for my presentation:

During the last eight years there have been rapid development in pedagogies for online learning and the underlying technical systems to support these pedagogies. These systems have matured to form a next level environment, encapsulated in systems like Blackboard 9, and the expectations for Moodle 2.0. These platforms have looked to bring the technologies implemented up-to-date (look and feel, underlying code, standards compliance) and to provide a sound platform to build on in the future.

However, the move to Blackboard 9 has been demanding for many institutions in many ways - bugs, stability and performance, staff training, staff engagement and expectation management to name but a few areas. These experiences have highlighted the significant issues that this change process is raising for our field, and fuelled concerns that central VLEs should be making way for more agile socially driven solutions. As many institutions are at the point of deciding what direction they believe will provide that next generation experience that we are all aiming for, there is value in discussing the extended issues they may face:

• Do we want the change we say we do?
• Are we capable of moving large scale VLEs forward?
• Are jumps away easier than jumps forward?
• How do we focus attention on learning and teaching and not the underlying technology?
• How can we manage expectations and change processes?
• Is our understanding of the elearning infrastructure at institutions the same as our users?

This talk will refer to the University of Dundee as a case study example, but will be discussing the broader conceptual and strategic direction of the field at this time. Discussion welcome.

Although growing steadily in popularity and function,  eBooks and eReaders have not yet reached critical mass. The platforms that we use to view them on have been evolving, and we now stand at a crossroads with 5 different directions of travel to choose from. Which will lead to the mainstream adoption of ebooks?

1. Amazon Kindle - sales of the Kindle have been impressive in the US (although unconfirmed), and it can now be ordered from the UK. It is also the most wished for item on Amazon. The Kindle 2 showed genuine progression in terms of functionality and it remains the main contender to become the iPod of the eBook world. With a catchier name than others (e.g. The Sony eBook Reader) and respected internet book giants Amazon as creators and sellers then it stands a good chance.

2. New Kids on the Block - some companies have come late to the game, allowing them to jump a step. Barns & Noble qualify with their new touchscreen Nook reader (although they are already getting sued) but a better example is CoolerBooks. Smaller companies retain the ability to be more agile in design and development will lead to better innovations, and therefore a path more likely to be travelled by the masses.

3. Mobile - why carry an ebook reader when you already have an iPhone at hand? The use of iPhone as an ebook platform has been increasing in two ways. One is through apps such as Stanza that effectively turn your iphone int a reader, letting you browse, download and read ebooks from a selection of over 100,000. The other is the Jamie Oliver route, where specific books are sold as iPhone apps in their own right, with additional video and voice content. Worth noting that Amazon have also released an app to read their proprietary book format on the iphone. Battery life and screen size remain reasons why this is unlikely to be adopted by the masses as a platform of choice.

4. Anywhere as a Platform - Google announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair this year that their ‘Google Editions’ ebook store will be launched early 2010 and will sell ebooks with no digital rights management attached. This means that ebooks become platform independent - you can read them on your PC, phone, Kindle or any reader. When Google step into any market it is significant, and these seems a well timed piece of the jigsaw puzzle that has taking shape for years with Google and their interest in books. Not surprisingly, a month or so later Amazon have announced a Windows application to allow you to read their ebooks on any PC (really covering all the bases now).

5. Not yet concieved - there is a good chance that the ebook platform of the future is still an unknown entity, an idea forming in the back of someone’s mind right now. The most obvious suspects are the unconfirmed (but widely known about) apple tablet or the Harry Potter style newspaper. The Apple tablet has the chance to combine the size and battery life of ereaders, with the flexibility of the various apps available, and the general functionality that Netbooks offer in internet, email and applications. Sounds good…

So which direction? I firmly believe that current ereaders are transitional technology - they exist to help move the mindset onto the concept of books being an electronic entity. This is why they are shaped like a book, come in covers that you can open and hold like a book, and some even have the graphic effects of page turning. Remember that the first MP3 players were the size and shape of walkmans - they could have been hexagonal but this wouldn’t have helped people make the jump! So that said, it seems hard to imagine that readers in their current format will still be here in 10 years - at some point people will find it needless to carry multiple pieces of technology that should be able to do the same thing. iPhones and the like are also not designed for purpose - too small and poor battery. They help sell the concept, but aren’t really workable.

So the answer has to be a combination of the final two - we’ll expect to read ebooks on whatever device we choose - and we expect the devices available to mature beyond eReaders and Netbooks. Agree?