Sarah Steiner, Learning Commons Librarian at Georgia State University, posted a link to the following video Does what happens in the Facebook stay in the Facebook?. The video makes interesting and disturbing claims about privacy concerns regarding the site Facebook. It quotes from the terms of service posted on Facebook, which I have to admit, I’ve never read. Here’s a quote.

“When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.” Facebook. 25.May.2007 http://colostatepueblo.facebook.com/terms.php

Naturally, I wanted to find out more about the validity of the claims presented in the video, so of course I googled the author. The video was created by Georgia web designer Vishal Agarwala (http://www.vishalagarwala.com/index.html). When I searched for his name, I ran across another post by Fred Stutzman on his blog, Unit Structures (here) that references this video. Stutzman points out seemingly contradictory statements in the Facebook Developer section of the site (which I couldn’t actually find myself). Some of the comments to Stutzman’s post include good counter arguments, especially refuting the allegations in the video about Facebook ties to the CIA and Department of Defense, which were provocative, but not well grounded in fact.

So what’s the bottom line? Well, it sounds like Facebook users grant Facebook the right to redistribute their user generated content, and Facebook promises to be ethical in its use of this content. Also, it requests that Facebook developers likewise respect user privacy. It sounds like Google’s “Do no harm” mantra. I suspect that most users, who like myself haven’t even read the terms of service, will only really become concerned about the possible privacy violations that could occur when they do occur. Until then, we’ll just keep posting with a refreshingly naive and trusting attitude. Be gentle with us Google and Facebook!

If you want to talk about this, sit with Ivan Gaetz (Dean of Libraries at Regis University) at lunch at the CALC Summit on June 1st. He will be facilitating a table talk regarding Privacy!

Meredith Farkas’ new book called Social Software in Libraries will soon be published.
According to the forward by Roy Tennant, posted on her blog, “This nuts-and-bolts guide provides librarians with the information and skills necessary to implement the most popular and effective social software technologies: blogs, RSS, wikis, social networking software, screencasting, photo-sharing, podcasting, instant messaging, gaming, and more.”

I was interested in her definition of “social software”. She says it must meet two of the following three criteria.

1. It allows people to communicate, collaborate, and build community
online.
2. It can be syndicated, shared, reused, or remixed, or it facilitates
syndication.
3. It lets people learn easily from and capitalize on the behavior or
knowledge of others.

Using these definitions, it is easy to make a strong argument for the role of social software in supporting instructional technology in today’s colleges and universities. It provides a very flexible platform for promoting dialogue between students and faculty, for supporting student research and writing, and for enhancing group interaction. At our campus, we use Blackboard. This system has some nice features, but if it doesn’t incorporate more social networking tools such as blogging, personal pages, and RSS among others, I think it is in danger of being replaced by a suite of freely accessibly open source products.

My 2 cents for the day.

Rhonda

Today, in English101 class, we evaluated different Barack Obama websites as examples of different types of sites for different information needs. This site is his campaign site and I found it very interesting. It’s essentially a MySpace for Obama supporters. It has many Web 2.0 features, including the ability to create ones own profile, invite friends to join, create a blog, and more. Here’s a screen shot:

BarackObama.com
This quote is from the blog on barackobama.com as an illustration of the personal connection Obama is able to generate with this type of site. “Andrew from Denver, Colorado has set up his own fundraising page where people take their height and then donate $10 a foot. He even enlisted “Hiro” the ice cream man to create his own graphic to help you understand…classic!
If you’re interested in helping Andrew reach his goal of $5,280 (for the mile high city of course), click here to help out – especially if you’re REALLY tall.”

Today must be wiki Friday A report from Inside Higher Ed, quotes Wikipedia officials’ reaction to policies by university professors that ban the citing of Wikipedia in student bibliographies. Note that neither policy mentioned was designed to stop students from using Wikipedia as a starting point for research, but rather to keep them from stopping there!

Jobs, News and Views for All of Higher Education – Inside Higher Ed :: A Stand Against Wikipedia
Wikipedia officials agree — in part — with Middlebury’s history department. “That’s a sensible policy,” Sandra Ordonez, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mail interview. “Wikipedia is the ideal place to start your research and get a global picture of a topic, however, it is not an authoritative source. In fact, we recommend that students check the facts they find in Wikipedia against other sources. Additionally, it is generally good research practice to cite an original source when writing a paper, or completing an exam. It’s usually not advisable, particularly at the university level, to cite an encyclopedia.”

Here’s a follow-up to an earlier post, (http://rhondagonzales.wordpress.com/2006/10/30/can-wikipedia-ever-make-the-grade-chronicle-of-higher-ed-discussion/). While some studies have shown that Wikipedia is similar in reliability to traditional encyclopedias including Britannica, many academics have still felt nervous about the fact that anyone can contribute to Wikipedia. While the content is usually accurate, it is often incomplete and, what’s of more concern, it changes so frequently that it is very difficult to rely on. Today, a new project that has been in the works is, for the first time, allowing the public at large to register. Read the announcement below. Think of it as Wikipedia with an Editor! If you are an academic with special knowledge to contribute, think about signing up today.

Citizendium
The Citizendium (sit-ih-ZEN-dee-um), a “citizens’ compendium of everything,” is an experimental new wiki project. The project, started by a founder of Wikipedia, aims to improve on the Wikipedia model by adding “gentle expert oversight” and requiring contributors to use their real names. It has taken on a life of its own and will, perhaps, become the flagship of a new set of responsibly-managed free knowledge projects. We will avoid calling it an “encyclopedia” until the project’s editors feel comfortable putting their reputations behind this description.

One of our librarians, Sandy Hudock, thinks we should host a matchmaking night at the library. If you want to meet someone you come and hang out in the call number section of the library that represents your interests. Then you look for someone else with the same interests as yourself. In general, I think the idea of playing in the library is wonderful. Below is an example I read about on Jenny Levine’s blog. It’s for a game they played at the New York Public Library – kind of a combination of tag and hide and seek with a book twist. Check it out.

Come Out and Play Festival » Blog Archive » Hot Books

This interesting article from D-Lib, discusses the inherent problems with using tags or folksonomies to categorize resources. The author bases the analysis on philosophical principles regarding relativism and categorization. I think that current technology might be able to provide a solution to the problems illustrated. Could not an algorithm be devised that analyzes the tags applies by readers to a given resource. Then, in effect, the algorithm would perform authority control on the tags that are used to “officially” describe the item. The reader could maintain his or her individual tags, but the tags used as “subject headings” in a catalog for instance would only be those that were agreed upon by the majority of readers. A type of “see reference” could be devised for non-standard tags.

Beneath the Metadata: Some Philosophical Problems with Folksonomy

I love this idea. Does anyone know of a wiki product that is robust enough to handle this? Also does anyone have ideas about how this might be made to be compatible with campus website design guidelines? Finally, are any academic libraries doing it?

Library 2.0: An Academics Perspective: The Ideal Library 2.0 Academic Library Web Site
In a nutshell, such a site would run on a wiki-based content management system. This system would be flexible enough to easily restrict individual pages from being edited and open up others. In addition, links to blogs would be strategically placed throughout the site to enable conversations between librarians and users about library resources and services.

The Chronicle: 10/27/2006: Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?
“Are Wikipedians good historians?” he asked. “As in the old tale of the blind men and the elephant, your assessment of Wikipedia as history depends a great deal on what part you touch.”

The Chronicle article discusses the pros and cons of Wikipedia as well as studies and experiments that have been done to test its accuracy. The results may surprise you!

Some of the key issues include:

1. Some studies have shown that Wikipedia is practically as accurate as other more reputable published encyclopedias. At least one experiment demonstrated the rapidity with which most errors are corrected. However, opponents argue that the time during which the mistakes are available as well as the ever changing nature of Wikipedia are problematic.

2. Proponents of Wikipedia argue that the knowledge of the masses is sufficient to ensure that errors will be caught and corrected. Others argue that the knowledge of experts is needed to ensure quality. Co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, is a strong voice for this point of view. In an article posted October 24, 2006, he argues for the role of the expert in Web 2.0 projects and describes a new effort to create a scholarly wikipedia called “Citizendium”, http://www.citizendium.org/roomforexperts.html.

Whatever experts think about Wikipedia, the truth is that students are using it. Therefore, my mantra is that we must teach Wikipedia and explain both its strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, experts who denigrate Wikipedia should perhaps jump into the fray and help to correct it or, alternatively, join Larry Sanger in creating an expert driven wiki encyclopedia, Citizendium.

Exactly my point! http://www.travelinlibrarian.info/2006/10/on-google-purchase-of-youtube.html

From the TravelinLibrarian.info