Tag: sociallearn

SocialLearn is recruiting

For these initially short placements we’re anticipating internal OU staff as the most likely candidates, but get in touch whoever you are if this interests you…

The SocialLearn Project

The SocialLearn Project is a strategic university initiative under the “Freemium” priority, investigating the intersection of social networking, collective intelligence, adaptive platforms and web business models to connect people with resources for learning (covering informal<->formal) and sensemaking in epistemic communities (covering amateurs<->pros).

The closed beta test version of the platform will be live shortly, with public launch end of the year. Public beta signup/blog/twitter:  www.open.ac.uk/sociallearn

Vacancies

We have several short term positions available as consultancies or secondments over some/all of the period Jul-Oct, with the possibility that they may be extended. These are ideal for highly motivated staff looking to contribute and learn from one of the most exciting projects in the University.

* Research Associate (Learning and Pedagogy)
* Research Associate (Web Analytics/Recommendation Engines/Semantic Web)
* Developer (Web Analytics/Recommendation Engines/Semantic Web)

Research Associate: Learning and Pedagogy

Research associated with the Closed Beta test will address the question: ‘Is this a pedagogically sound, enjoyable and achievable model for social learning?’ Relevant data will include system analytics (including Google Analytics), questionnaires, interviews and records of participant observation. The research associate will focus on analysis of the quantitative data provided by the system analytics. More broadly, the role will include consideration of how in future this data can be selected, combined and presented in order to benefit users of the SocialLearn system. The post therefore requires experience of quantitative analysis as well as some familiarity with social networking and learning theory. It will be of particular interest to researchers who enjoy developing creative approaches to the use of system analytics.

Research Associate/Fellow and Technical Developer (Web Analytics/Recommendation Engines/Semantic Web)

These two posts are designed to build the university’s capacity in areas critical to the future of socio-semantic computing. As the platform generates vast amounts of data on user activities, interests and social networks, we will need to mine these both for business purposes, and to provide a coherent user experience through very large social and resource networks. You will bring doctoral/postdoc level research expertise and/or technical development skills to help develop this capability, which might include the fields of data mining, social recommendation algorithms, and semantic learning technology.

Please contact me or Joel Greenberg (Technical Director: j.greenberg at open.ac.uk) with a CV and cover letter to discuss consultancy, or secondment from an OU department (which will of course need to be in agreement with your manager).

SocialLearn update

It’s hard to keep the lid on our enthusiasm for the platform we’re developing in the SocialLearn project. Quite alien for me as a researcher who’s used to telling the world about what I’m doing whenever I want, to be working on a strategic initiative closer to the business end of things here at Open U. But what’s not different is that I’m working with an awesome team, and things are getting really “interesting” now as we move into closed beta testing.

So, as we head for launch at the end of the year, you can track progress on the blog, and from today… signup for a beta account 🙂

SocialLearn goes into stealth mode (and takes over my life)

I recently became Director of the Open U project codenamed SocialLearn. This is a strategic, institution-wide project, bringing together some of the brightest thinkers on the future shape of learning, both internal and external. We’re developing a platform with networks of people and learning services, for free (as in Open Source/Open Educational Resources) and for fee.

We’ve moved into stealth mode now so not a whole lot else to share right now I’m afraid, but I’ll simply say this is worthy of the Open U’s track record in rewriting the rules of the game. Watch this space…

Social Computing 2008

Elan Lee's Trust Game: look, no seats!...

I recently attended this year’s annual Social Computing Symposium sponsored by Microsoft Research’s Social Computing Group [photos]. Well over half the participants were from industry, so a slightly different feel to the usual academic gigs I inhabit. This year’s was hosted by Lili Cheng (Microsoft Research), Tom Coates (Yahoo!), Liz Lawley (RIT), Elan Lee (Fourth Wall), and Brady Forrest (O’Reilly). Those names speak for themselves.

The event website was architected by Pathable, which took on the interesting challenge of helping us network and spot relevant people in advance, based on our profiles. This has a nice UI, and worked reasonably well, pointing me to some interesting people. The videos and talks will go online at some point. The line-up went:

Location (Monday morning, 10:30 – 11:30 AM)

  • Brady Forrest
  • Tom Carden (Stamen)
  • Felix Peterson (Plazes/Nokia)
  • Mary Hodder (Apisphere)
  • Tom Coates (Yahoo! Fire Eagle)

Boundaries/Context (Monday afternoon, 1:30 -2:30 PM)

  • Liz Lawley (RIT)
  • Lili Cheng (MSR)
  • Molly Steenson (Princeton)
  • Kevin Marks (Google)

Play (Tuesday Morning, 10:30 – 11:30 AM)

  • Elan Lee (Fourth Wall Studios)
  • Jesse Alexander (Heroes/NBC)
  • Paolo Malabuyo (Microsoft)
  • Merci Victoria Grace (GameLayers)

Social Objects (Tuesday afternoon, 1:30 -2:30 PM)

  • Jyri Engestrom (Google)
  • Matt Webb (Schulze & Webb)
  • Kati London (Botanicalls)
  • Rob Faludi (ITP)

It was all interesting stuff and a good way to catch up with devpts in a world which is impossible to keep up with, but partic. highlights for me:

  • Liz Lawley reviewed the different ways in which people use Twitter [lifecasting, mindcasting, conversations, org. informing], with some observations on how well different tools support the socially sensitive process of dropping people from your friend and feed lists, and pointed to Clive Thompson’s blog on social proprioception.
  • Kevin Marks (Google OpenSocial “advocate”) discussed the “homophilic” ways in which social networking sites reflect cultural boundaries, and connect like-with-like.
  • Joi Ito reported on his Free Souls project
  • Tom Carden [Stamen Design] reflected on the future of mapping, starting with: “GoogleMaps is Yr Zero.” He talked about the shift from tiles to flows, and gave me pause for thought on what it might mean for our own work on knowlege cartography to follow the geo-spatial web trends we’re now seeing. In my Compendium map, I have 3 questions: “What is conceptual/epistemic location?”, “What are epistemic blindspots/shadows? (critical geography)”, and “What will discourse flows look like?”
  • Tom Coates [Yahoo!] introduced the concept of Personal Infomatics, which is described in this slidecast, a way to think about how new apps will bring together data in new ways, and how individuals will manage their data (and privacy) through iterations of capture data -> review/edit/explore data -> publish/recombine data.
  • Elan Lee gave insights into the design of and experiences with some of the groundbreaking alternate reality games he’s been involved in, including the NIN Year Zero album, The Beast (following Spielberg’s AI), and Open Source Resistance. The engaged followings that these have sparked are intruiging. Oh, and spot yours truly in Elan’s Trust Game, part of the Play session