Landing : Athabascau University

Activity

  • Colin Pinnell published a blog post Blog Projections December 7, 2011 - 9:20am
    Just a note, or warning, for everyone here. I intend on doing a blog post a day for the next while, so expect Landing to fill up with my particular inanities.I have a few reasons for doing this. Firstly, a personal reason is to get my brain working...
  • Colin Pinnell published a blog post Fort McMurray in Review December 6, 2011 - 2:45pm
    I'm coming up on my concluding days of a three year contract in Fort McMurray, so I thought it'd be a clever thing to look back, take stock, and summarize the experience. Mostly, in order to ensure that I never have to endure a similar experience...
    Comments
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  • Colin Pinnell uploaded the file An Internet Spaceship December 6, 2011 - 10:37am
    It's fueled on tears.
  • Colin Pinnell joined the group AU Zombie Research Group December 5, 2011 - 7:15pm
  • Colin Pinnell published a blog post Landing, Learning, Social Spaces and Games December 5, 2011 - 3:06pm
    Internet Spreadsheets Spaceships My last blog post had to do with Landing and how it fit into AthU's grander scheme of providing a next-generation online learning environment. Looking at all of the research projects in my own School (SCIS), it's...
  • Colin Pinnell uploaded the file It's not Rocket Science December 5, 2011 - 2:57pm
    No wait, it really IS Rocket Science
  • Colin Pinnell uploaded the file Internet Spaceships are Serious Business December 5, 2011 - 2:57pm
    EVE Online is super serious. For cereal, guys.
  • Colin Pinnell commented on the blog Landing Rhapsody December 5, 2011 - 11:36am
  • Colin Pinnell published a blog post Landing Rhapsody December 5, 2011 - 8:54am
    I've been fortunate enough to spend a good amount of the day last Friday poking and prodding at Landing between the phone calls at work, and have noticed some things. None of them will come as a surprise to the regulars here, but I thought I'd weigh...
    Comments
    • Jon Dron December 7, 2011 - 9:51pm

      Thanks Colin - this is really useful stuff!

      There are quite a few newcomers. We started with about 600 users from an earlier pilot, mainly grad students, and are now up to about 2800, but the growth has been steady rather than exponential so we are not seeing much in the way of a network effect, which suggests at least partly that there is not much of a network among (in particular) undergraduate students. Bit of a chicken and egg problem there! We really need more links in and more ways to spread the word.

      This is not a social network, however, like Facebook or LinkedIn - it *has* social networking tools, but it's a much more flexible social space than that, catering for a very different set of social organisations and very different distribution of interest and power than a more generic system, so we would expect a different kind of growth. I'd very much like to see more ways in, though, especially from places like Moodle and MyAU: numbers matter. Networks are valuable but not as important here as large sets and groups with shared interests, I think, at least when starting out and at this point in the development of the site where we have some passionate users, some interesting content being shared and the makings of a vibrant community. Once it gets bigger there will hopefully be more of a need for the differentiation you get from networks.

      I am especially bothered by the problems of preferential attachment and confirmation bias, whereby those who tagged and added stuff early on define the shape of the space far more than those who arrived later and appear therefore to 'own' the site - particularly worrying that it seems biased to graduate students, especially those studying distance education and literature. It is rather tempting to play with the dynamics of things like tag clouds so that the early adopters don't have quite such a strong say: in a system I built some time ago I introduced a dynamic ageing factor that gave a massive boost to new tags so they could compete with the existing population, but (if they didn't get used) killed them off equally fast. From what you and others are saying, I think we need something similar here.

      Hard to say for sure what the proportions of different designation of user might be. We can fairly reliably identify staff (they have an AU email address) and can associate some students with formal courses but, because the Landing deliberately makes no use of AU administrative hierarchies, those who enter the system for reasons other than formal courses don't get coralled into groups that we can easily count. In fact, because people tend to stick around when courses finish (we encourage alumni to stay) even those course groups give an inaccurate perspective. It should be technically possible to link class databases with a query run against the Landing's user database but we'd need a bit of FOIP clearance on that. I'd rather, in accordance with the principle of ownership that underpins everything else on the site, get that information from people who are totally in control of it and who can choose whether or not to be counted. Unfortunately, most of those who fill in the 'course' fields of the profile are asked to do so formally, so it is a bit skewed.

      We are working on some quite big interface improvements and greatly value all suggestions and conversations about that - this is everyone's site and we'd really like anyone with an interest to contribute to it.  The current look and feel is a work-in-progress by designers in the Advancement department who do most of the AU outward-facing stuff. I think the idea was to provide a sense of place and continuity with the rest of AU sites, only slightly less formal, but it isn't super-inviting and I'm liking some of the ideas coming out of this and other conversations at the Friends of the Landing group. Some of the new improvements will come from the new release of Elgg, which is the 'interface' release that makes many of the standard tools notably more friendly to use and improves navigation a little. We are additionally thinking of shifting from a deliberate tools focus to a social focus for the main organisation of the site, so it should be easier to get a sense of different ways of engaging with others - making groups, networks, sets, whole community, etc modes of engagement more explicit. We are also exploring things like breadcrumb trails to help get a sense of where you are now, and we are very keen to encourage people to share ideas, stories, help and hints that we can point to when new users (especially) log in. Each and every criticism, suggestion, reflection or story is very welcome! Please keep those great ideas coming.

      Jon

    • Jon Dron December 7, 2011 - 9:54pm

      ps and of course, anyone and everyone with a login ID is very welcome indeed to join the advisory group, Friends of the Landing, and help to shape the site and how it develops!

    • Colin Pinnell December 8, 2011 - 7:13am

      Hi Jon;

      Sorry if this post is a bit of a word salad. Just started typing and everything fell out onto the page in no particular order ;)

      I'm actually a touch embarrassed about the original post here! I've learned a bit more about the timeline of development, and the goals, of Landing, and I was a bit off the mark. I thought it was older than it was now! Given that it's rather new I think it's doing well, all in all. The bias towards distance ed. and like is concerning, certainly, but I don't think it's as bad as all that. We're all interested in the topic after all - at least, interested enough to sign up for it!

      I do understand the concern for the Founder's effect, though. On that note, I wonder if you've considered a change to the "Recent Activity" widget on the main page? I feel rather self-conscious about my icon showing up five times in a row, especially if it's for something silly like changing permissions on a blog post or adding personal bookmarks. It's been a (very slight) deterrent for me. I don't want to be seen as spamming the place after all!

      The fact that Undergrads don't have a network is pretty apparent - speaking as one, anyways, the chat on the Moodle boards I've been in has been polite, but stilted. In a brick-and-mortar school you sit with them three days a week, have to get notes from people if you're ill and miss a day, etc, etc. Many more ways to make friends and get networks started. I like this problem, though, it's interesting! Sounds like blog material, iff you don't mind.

      I'm curious what the overall intention with Landing is, if it's not a social network. To my knowledge, a social network is just a place where people can make connections and interact; no other requirements. This would seem to meet that criteria. What else do you want to do with it? Sharing notes and ideas about courses, learning together - these are all social ctivities. Wouldn't it just qualify as a type of social network? Maybe my terminology is jumbled.

      I look forward to seeing where we go from here!

      - Colin

  • Colin Pinnell commented on the blog How I've Arrived Here December 5, 2011 - 8:06am
  • Colin Pinnell commented on the blog How I've Arrived Here December 2, 2011 - 1:26pm