muddiest point

Cloud computing and Web 2.0 are a great development, but don't they pose a security risk for sensitive data? How do you ensure that protection is adequate if you are relying on software and hardware outside of your local network?

Muddiest Point -- Wikipedia

How exactly does one get picked to become a part of the volunteer hierarchy at Wikipedia?

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http://eweisman2600.blogspot.com/

Readings Week 12 -- Social Software

This week's readings were about blogs and wikis. Until I started in the MLIS program, I'd read a few blogs here and there and certainly looked up a few things on Wikipedia, but really hadn't used wiki's all that much. During the past few months, however, I've gained a whole new perspective and appreciation for them. What they really bring to the table is a new way to connect and collaborate.

Blogs allow us to carry on a web-based discussion, be it a scientific or engineering-based discussion as the Reichert article talks about, or a discussion among student from different classrooms in different parts of the world. They open up new possibilities for how teachers can teach or politicians can carry on political debates. I've been quite intrigued by the whole thing and am sure that as a school librarian I'll be using blogs and encouraging teachers within my school to use them as well.

Wikis bring a new face to collaboration. Once skeptical of the validity of Wikipedia, my viewpoint has shifted. I am beginning to look at Wikipedia as a source with as much validity as an other encyclopedia. After reading about the creation of the OED and learning about the process of creating Wikipedia and the standards to which it is being upheld, it seems to be a valid resource. In using wikis for writing collaboratively, I am finding them to be incredibly useful. They force compromise as a group moves toward a finished document. I wonder what an experiment would be like if we took a section of US Copyright Law and put it on the web as a wiki for a year for all to tinker with? Would something reasonable come out or would it be an utter failure? Maybe Lawrence Lessig should give it a try just to see what happens...

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http://vac14.blogspot.com/

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Muddiest Point -- OAI

Can you spend some more time on OAI? It seemed like you flew through this part of the lecture at the end and I have too many questions to list...

Readings Week 11 -- Digital Libraries and Institutional Repositories

This was quite an interesting topic to read about this week as it has been something that I have been delving into at work for the past 6-8 weeks as a side project. I work part-time at the University of Delaware as the newsletter editor/writer for the Center for Composite Materials. I'm interested in moving the web page in the direction of a DL so that our researchers work gains wider access. Some of it is already online, but it is often outdated and not well organized. We do have a small archive of old material on DSpace, but are not leveraging properly. I'm trying to learn as much as I can so that I can pull together a team to organize a project that will revamp what we currently have. To that end, all three of these readings were helpful, but the Lynch article was extremely interesting. One of the issues I am struggling with is the copyright issue and what we are allowed to publish. The MIT model is amazing, but won't work for CCM as we are part commercial. I'd like to see more models of open access archives and how institutions are setting them up.

Webpage

I have not been able to get FileZilla to work on my Mac, so after several tries, I am giving up. I have plenty of space to host my website on my Mac site as well as Comcast, so hopefully that is OK.

http://web.mac.com/melissajosef/iWeb/Site%202/Welcome.html