One of the feedback to my last post triggered this video in which the use of the personal profile pages are explained in detail.
Another more general fear is that the personal profile pages substitute the personal web space provided by ICTS. That the replacement of the later or better the disappearance of it coincides with the introduction of the personal profile pages is indeed confusing. But inevitable. An improved substitute for the personal web space is in progress. For this reason I invite everybody to send me some suggestions.
Such a discussion is fruitful and my attempts to trigger them have been recently revitalized and I hope to gather a lot of responses. My goal is to incorporate them into a solution that meet the needs of the individual researcher and the capacities of the faculty. So if you have some ideas, let me know! And thanks for pointing me to this video tutorial.
Tuesday 27 November 2012
Monday 26 November 2012
Open Letter: Personal Profile Pages
Dear All,
I see that
you are busy updating the new personal profiles. From the feedback I got everything
is going smooth while some problems reoccur. Some of which I try to solve
together with Katinka Bastin and Edward Peters. Please see the attached PDFfile for more information.
Two major
inconveniences stand out from your feedback.
1. Your information does not show up on
your public profile page
Two major causes for this can be identified: 1. Every profile page
exists in two language versions – one English and one Dutch version. In order
for your personal profile page to be visible please make sure that your
information is put into the text boxes of both language versions. You can
switch between language versions using the text link on the upper right side of
your browser window. 2. We take privacy serious! That’s why you can choose what
information is visible to people who have no access to My UM. To do so you have
a checkbox underneath each textbox. Check it on and the information contained
in the textbox is visible on your public profile.
2. My information is running over the
whole page and looks not like it should.
Information is copied in the text field which cannot handle it. When you
copy & past text you also copy invisible “rich information” with it. This
“rich information” is responsible for the formatting. The text field however
cannot handle this information which causes the problem mentioned by many of
you. The only functional solution is to type in the information manually. There
is no workaround. Please fill it out manually and use the formatting functions
that comes with each text box.
On my blog
you find a Manual, FAQ and the DAI
numbers in the hope to help you with managing your personal profile page.
For now
there are only two more developments I would like to bring to your attention.
Due to a general upgrade of the schools IT facilities the SBE webserver (www.fdewb.unimaas.nl) will be shut down
and all necessary websites migrated to a new webserver. All websites whose
owner I could identify have been contacted. The old webserver will be switched
off by the end of this year. The new web server is already in place. If you
have any websites or documents please secure them on your local hard disk or
USB stick in time.
Another new
development is My Talkinbusiness. It replaces SBE weekly which facilitated
communication for students and employees. My Talkinbusiness builds upon it and
wants to do the same in an improved way. It is far from finished and a work in
process. It comes in three editions and is a well-integrated solution for the
internal communication challenge. Ideas on how to improve it are very welcome!
Have a look and drop me a line.
Please
share your frustrations about the profile page system with me. Dialogue is the
first step to any improvement. For faculty members who look for a way to
maintain a personal website I recommend for years the two free services: Researchgate and Academia. Many researchers at UM have already
their personal website hosted on these services. For any questions regarding
websites and web server space please contact me. Attached you find a flyer I
distributed half a year ago about the web services offered by the School of
Business and Economics.
Kind
regards,
Thursday 15 November 2012
ITunesU and Open Innovation
"MIT has a programme that lets anyone watch hundreds of its lectures free online, even the co-founder of Microsoft, and it turned out Mr. Gates had become a fan of Prof Sadoway's solid state chemistry course." ... "He said to me, if you ever decide to take this off campus in the form of a start-up company, let me know, I'd be willing to put some money into it." <FT, Article: Batteries required by Pilita Clark, 12 November 2012, print edition>
This is an example of the worst possible outcome of opening up the "old" containerized form of educational content. But why being so modest about success? Or is it the fear of loosing ones identity in times when privacy invasion is the biggest knowledge industry on this planet?
After a refreshing talk yesterday the ITunesU saga got a new twist. The university has no clear regulation on who gets the kudos of the intellectual property it holds. But while private-public partnerships reign in the ivory tower the logos of the dispute is: How to pay for it all?
But this is not in the cards. In 2012, close to the Frank Zappa's birthday, the university's legal department issues concerns about Apple's terms of contract. Not because Apple is not clear, but because UM has a no policy. It does not regulate the performing rights and other copyright related rights. What is interesting is that non of these rights matter to the story told in the FT.
The proposal I send to the Leading in Learning programme got rejected on different grounds. It proposed to use the recorded lectures, post produce them and distribute them via ITunesU to all current student of UM and Alumni. Thus contributing to the interdisciplinary stance UM takes towards education in general. The resistance caused by the publication of the proposal is only matched by the irrelevance of it. Nothing that is taught within these walls can match the experience provided by services such as iTunesU. No single teaching unit taught at UM is not to be found in audiovisual format, including lecture notes, exam questions and in most cases a well connected community of youngsters who are passionate about it, on such platforms like ITunesU. Free of charge, on demand 24/7 selbstverstaendlich!
How is this possible? One reason is certainly open innovation. The internet is based on open source software from which MIT took over the idea to create Open Education. It is also a strategic component to assert its leadership position in the market. By creating disruptions (Does anyone remember the book Disruptive Innovations, Christensen's 2003 ?) in the market, such as opening up the content of education for free for everyone (by the way that's the same thing that Google does towards Apple), MIT creates a new arena and forces its competition to take a back seat.
Nothing is lost on this proposal but an important lesson learned. The UM has a legal gray zone it could bridge in the hope to get in touch with the emperors new clothing. But as time shows, those industries that have already digested the information revolution, suffered terrible from the resulting restructuring processes. Since the pace and scope of this revolution is far from reaching its limits it would be a benefit to start anticipating the effects before they happen.
Tuesday 13 November 2012
Response to last weeks presentation
When Mr. McKinney in "The Commando Way" argues that "we would spend 20% of our time on strategy and thinking and 80% of our time on rehearsing and doing" he is obviously not talking about how we do our job. As an ex Royal Marine who slipped into a business consultant suit the following statement is paramount in that it resonates with UM's Branding objectives: "Make your values personal and real; focus on your vision, follow the mission, build the spirit to win, live up to the responsibility of leadership and make sure it works". Lets talk about Leading in Learning?
My last presentation triggered opposite reactions which I try to reconcile with no success. I doubt that UM's resistance to innovation is only matched by the obsolescence of its teaching methodology. But it is hard to find factual evidences that would contradict that statement. There is a sense in which online forms are vital to the operation of a business school. And there is a sense in which they are not. But the fact is that no improvement will take place as long as there is no willingness to ask important question about elementary processes.
For one "inspiring" and another "a creative way to get fired".
The major points of surprise were for 1. that I did not involve the house style department for the programme pages redux 2. that I offer a service to the rest of the family which I already offer to my nearest cousins of this faculty. My honest comment that I am bored with talking about online forms that don't work, personal profile pages that after two years of planning don't work properly, the impossibility of online payment, agenda items that cannot be sorted by dates and disappear suddenly, RSS feeds that don't deserve the name, a webTV implant that cannot be fit onto a page without loosing its user insulting navigation and more, all well documented in this blog, did not excite anyone. Or that all the projects I presented are discussed already in 2011 in a report I wrote and published on this blog as well. I send this report around to gather feedback with no response whatsoever. "I come into the business world and it is about 90% planning and meetings and 10% in actually execution" said Damian McKinney. His former experience thought him the opposite.
Updating the programme pages before consulting the house style department saves time and costs. And it has a major benefit: You see what you talk about! I will certainly consult the house style department and if necessary implement major changes or take them down. Like in so many other areas where taste is involved it is the Good and the Bad that takes refuge from wit. It is often the case that blind people talk about Picasso's paintings when the same people discuss websites or web designs. This is to say that it makes it easier for everybody involved in the process to judge things they experience first hand - implemented and ready.
I offer "Free Web services" that include Hosting, Domain-name, Development, Content Creation, Support and maintenance of websites to the school. For this purpose I printed a Flyer and distributed it to all pigeon holes. The idea behind this service is to maintain effective control over the school's web presence by offering a compelling service as compared to my competitors. The only condition is that the website's intention or purpose has to relate to the first money stream. Competitors are one.com, webhosting.nl, nederland webservice and a host of New Media agencies that offer their services to the department secretaries and faculty members. The service is a complete package that involves more than the hosting solution offered by ICTS for 100 Euro/year and support costs for 65 Euro/hour. I go to people and discuss their needs, I give them advice on what they need and should have or what is not necessary at all. Most of all I give them the feeling that they are in control of things. And maybe the idea that building a website is not so difficult and does not need to be expensive at all. During this process I make sure that the UM logo is on their and that the basic house style (font type and colour scheme) is considered. That the website adheres to contemporary expectations and is overall functional. Since for most of the web-thingies it is a side project and should not cost too much time.
All of this is not offered by ICTS. It's offer is a "one size fits all" hosting package which is not competitive. All the hosting companies mentioned above offer more for less. Take one.com for example: 5 GB web space, Unlimited Traffic, MYSQL database, Control panel to install Joomler, Wordpress, Typo3, Web user interface and 24/7 Support line for 35 Euro per year. This also includes a standard domain. Support is important and one of the aspects ICTS is often criticized. However, this "soft fact" is not important since only the price matters. The plain fact is that for one third of the price that ICTS charges one gets more of the same ICT service + Free support instantly from One.Com!
This is also the reason why many of the schools domains and websites are actually running on One.Com. Since over 15 years it provides services that ICTS starts offering effectively next year. In a room full of reasonable, educated people this fact is not discussable. It's as if ICTS has bewitched everybody to believe that security can justify monopoly. It obviously can do so but the price is high! And when I offer services in addition to ICTS hosting package to faculties of the same university I am a heretic. Because only a heretic is asked the WHY question. A strong apologetic of the conventional believe system is never ask this. Its presupposed by other members of the community. It's as if I try to compete with ICTS with my free service. There is no way I can do so nor do I want to do this. Does One.Com compete with ICTS? Well, as a hosting provider it obviously does so.
My last presentation triggered opposite reactions which I try to reconcile with no success. I doubt that UM's resistance to innovation is only matched by the obsolescence of its teaching methodology. But it is hard to find factual evidences that would contradict that statement. There is a sense in which online forms are vital to the operation of a business school. And there is a sense in which they are not. But the fact is that no improvement will take place as long as there is no willingness to ask important question about elementary processes.
For one "inspiring" and another "a creative way to get fired".
The major points of surprise were for 1. that I did not involve the house style department for the programme pages redux 2. that I offer a service to the rest of the family which I already offer to my nearest cousins of this faculty. My honest comment that I am bored with talking about online forms that don't work, personal profile pages that after two years of planning don't work properly, the impossibility of online payment, agenda items that cannot be sorted by dates and disappear suddenly, RSS feeds that don't deserve the name, a webTV implant that cannot be fit onto a page without loosing its user insulting navigation and more, all well documented in this blog, did not excite anyone. Or that all the projects I presented are discussed already in 2011 in a report I wrote and published on this blog as well. I send this report around to gather feedback with no response whatsoever. "I come into the business world and it is about 90% planning and meetings and 10% in actually execution" said Damian McKinney. His former experience thought him the opposite.
Updating the programme pages before consulting the house style department saves time and costs. And it has a major benefit: You see what you talk about! I will certainly consult the house style department and if necessary implement major changes or take them down. Like in so many other areas where taste is involved it is the Good and the Bad that takes refuge from wit. It is often the case that blind people talk about Picasso's paintings when the same people discuss websites or web designs. This is to say that it makes it easier for everybody involved in the process to judge things they experience first hand - implemented and ready.
I offer "Free Web services" that include Hosting, Domain-name, Development, Content Creation, Support and maintenance of websites to the school. For this purpose I printed a Flyer and distributed it to all pigeon holes. The idea behind this service is to maintain effective control over the school's web presence by offering a compelling service as compared to my competitors. The only condition is that the website's intention or purpose has to relate to the first money stream. Competitors are one.com, webhosting.nl, nederland webservice and a host of New Media agencies that offer their services to the department secretaries and faculty members. The service is a complete package that involves more than the hosting solution offered by ICTS for 100 Euro/year and support costs for 65 Euro/hour. I go to people and discuss their needs, I give them advice on what they need and should have or what is not necessary at all. Most of all I give them the feeling that they are in control of things. And maybe the idea that building a website is not so difficult and does not need to be expensive at all. During this process I make sure that the UM logo is on their and that the basic house style (font type and colour scheme) is considered. That the website adheres to contemporary expectations and is overall functional. Since for most of the web-thingies it is a side project and should not cost too much time.
All of this is not offered by ICTS. It's offer is a "one size fits all" hosting package which is not competitive. All the hosting companies mentioned above offer more for less. Take one.com for example: 5 GB web space, Unlimited Traffic, MYSQL database, Control panel to install Joomler, Wordpress, Typo3, Web user interface and 24/7 Support line for 35 Euro per year. This also includes a standard domain. Support is important and one of the aspects ICTS is often criticized. However, this "soft fact" is not important since only the price matters. The plain fact is that for one third of the price that ICTS charges one gets more of the same ICT service + Free support instantly from One.Com!
This is also the reason why many of the schools domains and websites are actually running on One.Com. Since over 15 years it provides services that ICTS starts offering effectively next year. In a room full of reasonable, educated people this fact is not discussable. It's as if ICTS has bewitched everybody to believe that security can justify monopoly. It obviously can do so but the price is high! And when I offer services in addition to ICTS hosting package to faculties of the same university I am a heretic. Because only a heretic is asked the WHY question. A strong apologetic of the conventional believe system is never ask this. Its presupposed by other members of the community. It's as if I try to compete with ICTS with my free service. There is no way I can do so nor do I want to do this. Does One.Com compete with ICTS? Well, as a hosting provider it obviously does so.
Tuesday 6 November 2012
Friday 2 November 2012
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