Using leisure-based communication tools in an educational setting

This paper, written by Juliet Eve and Tara Brabazon, and published in the Journal of Literacy and Technology, volume 9, number 1. April 2008, pp. 36-61, hypothesises that, "when using platforms most frequently positioned in leisure-based environments, such as the iPod, text messaging, and discussion fora, there are institutional and ideological blockages to creating a successful learning experience and scholarly environment."
It was written after an incident in which a group of first year media and communications students attended a lecture and were shown a short video. Issues for discussion were given. The students then logged into their 'Virtual Classroom' (Blackboard, included an online chat room and discussion board) to discuss issues arising from the video.
Unfortunately some students hijacked the issues-related discussions between some other students using inappropriate language, despite the lecturer being online as well. Their language, and what they talked about, might have been acceptable in a peer-to-peer exchange about leisure activities, but it wasn't right for the learning and educational context.
The authors have provided an indepth review of previous writings on the impact of computer mediated communication on education, and a discussion on changes in the culture of education.
However, I couldn't help but wonder if the experience could have been turned around by making it an opportunity to raise awareness of communication styles being appropriate for any given context. Perhaps, too, some lessons on manners would not have gone astray!

Preservation of ejournals - how far have we come?

Earlier this year (2008) Portico and Ithaka, with encouragement from the Portico Advisory Committee, surveyed library directors to fnd out their opinions on digital preservation of ejournals and to gauge their feelings on progress to date.
The resulting report, titled Digital preservation of e-journals in 2008: Urgent Action revisited, found that library directors believe that ejournal preservation is important. However, thinking it's important, and taking action to ensure it happens are two different things. Libraries were not involved in a preservation program for a range of reasons - wide range of opinions on how urgent the need is, wanting to wait, e-preservation is seen as complicated, who should do it, and competing priorities meaning that preservation has not become a strategic budgeting priority.
In conclusion, some questions were asked:
- who is responsible?
- when will the responsibility for such preservation be spread more widely than amongst the "trailblazers"?
- if libraries wait too long, will they run out of options?
- what can we do to simplify the preservation landscape?
- where does preservation sit in the priority scale?

More on ebooks - they still have a way to go?

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) has published a report on ebooks titled E-Books in Research Libraries: Issues of Access and Use.
After a brief history of ebooks (definitions, ebook readers,who invented ebooks, growing importance), the report discusses the themes drawn from a literature review. These include:

• confusion and instability in the ebook market - vendors, technologies and business models are evolving;
• issues of access and management - licensing models can be grouped into broad categories including print, database, and open access;
• rights, values and strategies for management - libraries and vendors have differing values;
• differences between access and use of print books and ebooks and the impact on scholarship;
• use for interlibrary loan (or not);
• jurisdictional conflicts (as with journal licenses);
• how different licenses deal with reserves, multiple copies and persistent URLs;
• digital rights management (DRM) - a major difference between ebooks and ejournals; and
  
• impact on scholarship - the 'literature does show that ease of access and ease of use will determine the success of e-books in the academic environment'.

The report concludes with recommendations for future action for the CARL Copyright Committee and expresses concerns about reductions in user rights.

Cloud Computing

Background Briefing, on ABC Radio National on 14 September 2008, looked at cloud computing - the good, the not so good, and the ugly.
Stan Correy describes cloud computing as "taking the information off your laptop, off your desktop computer, out of your office, out of your home or apartment and putting it into giant data centres owned by Google and others."
So what's good about it? Well, it means that using the internet will be much simpler, as the applications and other programmes that you use do do whatever you do will be hosted somewhere out there and you won't have to worry about set up - just click and go. Furthermore, in theory big companies can get rid of their IT departments as all the work is done somewhere out there.
The ugly side is loss of privacy.
The bad is that the end user has no control over whether or not an application that's vital to what they do will continue to be available (see Kerry Webb's item about the disappearing Google Page Creator in the October 2008 issue of InCite.
The issue of cloud computing has come to the fore recently with the launch of Google's browser, Chrome, designed to make online life simpler and faster.

eBooks – The End User Perspective

This report discusses the findings of a survey by Springer of end users at five institutions to ascertain how they use ebooks and what they think of them.
The majority of users were aware of them (52-84%) and had used them at least once (58-80%). Users didn't always get to these ebooks via their library catalogue - many found them somewhere on the Internet, eg by using Google Book Search. They accessed these ebooks with 50-100% of the frequency with which they accessed online journals.
Most users accessed ebooks on a weekly or monthly basis, primarily for research or study rather than for leisure or teaching.
Age of an ebook's content appears to have little impact on usage levels.
Users liked the ease of finding and accessing an ebook (compared to print). They also liked being able to do keyword searches of ebooks for relevant content. The portability of ebooks was also an advantage.
Having to read on the screen was seen as a disadvantage, especially if reading cover to cover. However, when searching for specific information ebooks did have the edge.
Ebooks complement print books - both have a place, depending on needs, and print won't disappear soon.