Group items tagged

This article is a testimony on how Delicious site is a useful and precious to be treasure as one of the online collaboration tools. The use of Delicious site has become one of author habits in the use of bookmarked stuff that related to usability, social media, collaboration and the like. As one of Delicious user, Smith felt that he was building up a useful resource online, as listed in his blogs, Delicious definitely useful for retrieving items we are looking for or rummaging around other users bookmarks. In relating to RSS feeds, Delicious as well has potential to be an RSS news reader, it is a personal taxonomy which helped users to organize other items such as subscription and connection to other site, as for examples Delicious as well connected and collaborates with hashtags on Twitter. There is one concrete example the use of Delicious, named Horizon Report as a way of working where a group of people share interesting stuff with tags label on short-term, mid-term and long-term, then everyone need to votes on what is been collected. Thus is an interesting way of what kind of aspect organization must focus on in the future. What is more Delicious as well integrates into people's everyday work, with the use of bookmarkets, plugins and so forth, every individual able to mark things of interest and collectively build up useful archive. By looking at this article and author opinions, we have kind of information and other people opinion on how useful Delicious site is. Reference: Smith, T. (2011). The Death of Delicious. Retrieved April 10, 2011, from http://www.theotherblog.com/Articles/2011/01/02/the-death-of-delicious/

Personally, I found that delicious is useful tool to use. Maybe I didn't found that bookmarking is important after I entered university and has a lot of reading to do. You can bookmark an article and read it anytime you want. Also it's easy to shared to others. The tagging also make your bookmarks arrange well and easy to access. That why I'm disagree with Smith (2011) when he said that he didn't found that the tagging will encourage people to explore more. Tagging makes everything simpler, in my perspective. You don't have to search around any search engine for particular article that you want, you can go to Delicious and sees the available tags. Wouldn't it be easy? I also think that Delicious would be a good collaboration tools, especially in education sectors. Students can exchange information and article, sees how different people have different sources to a specific topic. The closing down of Delicious will be unpleasant thing to have. It means that we going to lose one of the most common bookmarking website that have certain advantages for people. Smith, T. (2011). The Death of Delicious. Retrieved from http://www.theotherblog.com/Articles/2011/01/02/the-death-of-delicious/

This article mainly highlighting and discuss about the reason and the use of Del.icio.us in terms of social-bookmarking sites, which is called as Del.icio.us lesson. This article mention on how Delicious creates framework named folksonomy - to redefine web navigation, this folksonomy consist of users could tag (their own bookmarks) and navigate them by using direct tag-based interface, hence Delicious will come up with folksonomy for every user on the occasion that Delicious able to aggregate the bookmarks over all users. Potter stated that, "One of the hardest problems in web design is to speak the user's language", therefore by using Delicious along with the folksonomies and tagging features, the web site might be designed and evolved with user's own words. As for the lesson, Potter mentions out a value called personal value precedes network, whereas means as users by the time we build networks of value, as each person on the network we need to find value for ourselves before we contribute to the network, likewise in Delicious where people find their value first and end up with saving their personal bookmarks, in order to find it later they use tags as a patch to their resources and as easy way to locate it. In addition, Delicious able to aggregate tags in terms of find out how worth or value inside other people content. Again, this article has mentioned out one of Delicious specialty, is Del.icio.us tags which provide personal value by the time users uses them to recall back their bookmark links. Furthermore, Potter also commenting and comparing on how Del.icio.us are not the same compare to other sites feature in tags such as Flickr, Danny Sullivan or Search Engine Watch. This article discusses about the specialty of Delicious in terms of sharing and behind the reason of why people chose it. Porter, J. (2006). The Del.icio.us Lesson. Retrieved April 10, 2011, from http://bokardo.com/archives/the-delicious-lesson/

According to this article, delicious is the world's largest social bookmarking site, in here users are allow to save, manage, and share their pages. This article would be a useful guidance for those who not familiarize yet with Delicious site or find it hard to maximize the use of Delicious's features, in further this article provides simple explanations along with examples on how we as users can use Delicious site in eight innovative ways. This article provides eight innovative ways which emphasize the use of URL and RSS feed in terms of sharing the links and bookmarks. What is more, Hines as the author provides some screenshot which gave illustration and simplifies the explanations rather than explaining merely based on words from the articles. As in further, Hines mentioned out several reason why we as users will consider and find out Delicious is useful in terms of sharing and collaborating online. This is one of valuable resources since it list out the use of Delicious site, thus users will find it as guidance in case they are missing some of the features or might be work as tutorial for the first time users. Not forgot to mention that Hines as well listed out a complete set of Delicious features, including the reason and how the way we use it, which is really helpful to familiarize ourselves with the features provides in terms of expedite the use of Delicious site. References: Hines, K. (2010). How to Use delicious: The King of Social Bookmarking. Retrieved April 10, 2011, from http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-to-use-delicious-social-bookmarking/

My topic is the collaboration practices of open source software development. OVERVIEW: Open source software has popularised the concept of free, open collaboration through the huge success of projects such as Linux, Apache, and Mozilla. This article from Wired Magazine explores how the concept of open source, propelled by the success of OSS projects, is being applied to all aspects of information compilation, from free scientific journals, to liberally-licensed gene-transfer technology, to freely-editable encyclopaedia Wikipedia. Although this article takes a somewhat liberal interpretation of 'open source', it does a good job of explaining the origins and future of the open source ethos. It also pinpoints two factors behind open source's success: the rise of the Internet, and general exasperation with stifling intellectual property laws. By concentrating on open source as "a broad body of collaborators ... whose every contribution builds on those before" (p. 1), this article successfully links the concept of open source with the broader theme of online collaboration. Open source software developments, along with other incarnations of open source such as Wikipedia, are prime examples of the power of online collaboration. Relying on the work of semi-anonymous participants and loose organisational mechanisms, open source projects create something of value without many of the restrictions of intellectual property. As exemplified in this article, all kinds of organisations can learn from the success of open source's collaborative online approach.

I wanted to comment Emily on what a fascinating example of collaboration this is and a good resource to share. The open source software movement, particularly Linux, was one of the first online examples of the gift economy at work as identified by many anthropologists. Indeed, what makes some scratch their heads when trying to get others to collaborate on projects is the eagerness of those to contribute without reward to the programming process. Much has been made of the fact that niceties are attended to in the community, such as making sure the other programmers know what you did on the code. Anthropologist Coleman (2004) commenting on Project Muse shows not only the power of collaboration practices, but also how political they can get. For example to clarify this point, Zeitlyn (2003) studied the motivations of programmers who get involved in such collaborations. Much open source work is built on an ideal and goal, it is just that the sheer size of these collaborations make them very interesting in the way they are organised and executed. I do think mass scale collaborations such as Red Hat are different to Wikipedia. To me Wikipedia is somewhat anarchistic. There are rules but there is no actual valued goal; not everyone is out improve Wikipedia, whereas Linux has a greater degree of concern for the end goal, which is often being the alternative to Windows. I enjoyed reading all your postings on this issue and it seems that both Zeitlyn and Hertel et al did a lot of work to try to understand open source software and collaboration practices. References Coleman, G. (2004). The Political Agnosticism of Free and Open Source Software and the Inadvertent Politics of Contrast. Anthropological Quarterly, 77(3), 507-519. Zeitlyn, D. (2003). Gift economies in the development of open source software: Anthropological reflections. Research Policy, 32(7), 1287-1291.

Due to the global financial crisis, companies globally have been finding ways to cut costs. Instead of staff travelling to attend meetings, businesses rely on methods such as video conferencing to assist in facilitating meetings with geographically dispersed teams. This article published on the technology blogging site Read Write Web discusses four main trends in regards to video conferencing. The four trends stated are consumerisation, mobility, interoperability and providing a social layer. Mobility and the social layer are interesting trends when thinking about collaboration via video conferencing. Smartphones being released are beginning to include video conferencing as a standard functionality. Through the use of smart phones, mobility allows team members to participate and collaborate whilst on the move. It unshackles team members from the restraints of being restricted to an office. For team members that travel regularly being able to videoconference from hotel rooms or other offices through their smart phone provides them with flexibility previously not seen. Social layers being added to software is becoming the norm (Flinley, 2010). The social layer extends video conferencing beyond just audio and video. By adding social layers to videoconferencing software, users are able to communicate in the one location rather than utilising multiple platforms. A social layer provides "social networking, instant messaging, voice and video into one system" also including the ability to share files. By encapsulating all means of communication in the one destination, team members save time and recording communication becomes easier. References: Finley, K. (2010). Four Trends in Enterprise Video Conferencing. Read Write Web. Retrieved on 12 April 2011 from http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2010/10/trends-in-enterprise-video-conferencing.php

This article introduces some video conferencing applications, such as Cisco, Skype, Nefsis Basic, BlackBerry Playbook, and Google Voice, and shows how they are used as collaboration tools in enterprises. Burke (2011) summarizes that the use of such tools helps to establish instant communication, save travelling time, and cut business cost. One of my selected articles, iManage Unveils the First Multi-Platform Collaborative Content Management Suite, announces a new Internet content management application suit called iManage WorkSite MP which is an online collaboration tool as well. Both video conferencing tools and Internet content management applications are network-based, so users' contributions will be available instantly, and shared information can be distributed globally. Both of them aim at improving business efficiency, reducing cost and resource, and finally developing organisational service and product quality. While video conferencing tools focus on communication by audio and video, Internet content management applications, such as iManage WorkSite, has more to do with information management, such as text, image, and spreadsheets. It can be said that online collaboration tools can facilitate meetings among team members geographically, provide access to shared knowledge and ideas, and manage organisational information effectively. I argue that the combination of both video conferencing and content management tools can offer a comprehensive service to an organisation to compete in the global economy. As Fedorowicz, Laso-Ballesteros, and Padilla-Melendez (2008) state, the development of online collaboration "will facilitate multidisciplinary innovation and reduce barriers and inefficiencies among people working together" (p.1). Reference: Burke, M (2011) Comment on Four Trends in Enterprise Video Conferencing. Retrieved from http://groups.diigo.com/group/cur

Video conferencing as one of online collaboration tools, able to change the way people communicate as well as their perceptions towards the work day in nowadays. Video conferencing has become a part of communication strategy, this article shows that about 37% of Skype users use the service for business purpose, which is they use Skype to make conference video that is more convenient and less traveling cost, users would be able to meet up without consuming traveling time which normally required in order to meet face to face. I found out this article are useful in terms of explaining the way video conferencing been used in business as well as introducing 4 new trends on how people use it, and as resources itself, it is credible enough, this article took from ReadWrite Enterprises web sites that mainly focusing on business purposes. By relating on my own topic, which is talk about the use and features of social bookmarking site (delicious), video conferencing as well provides specific features in order to facilitate the video conference, hence users would be able to use the features and communicating online, same as the way delicious using it special features, such as tags, where people would be able to collaborate their bookmarks as long as they are sharing and using same tags. As for value, this article shows and recommends how useful video conferencing is and there is multiple ways and benefits we could get by using it online. References: Finley, K. (2010). Four Trends in Enterprise Video Conferencing. Read Write Web. Retrieved on 12 April 2011 from http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2010/10/trends-in-enterprise-video-conferencing.php

Face-to-face communication is not always an achievable goal for companies that have team members who are geographically dispersed. Video conferencing has been available for a number of years but has not always been accessible. Traditionally, video conferencing was an expensive way to communicate due to phone, software, hardware and high-speed Internet connection costs. Most computers now have in-built cameras and microphones. Skype builds on this hardware by providing software to facilitate video conferencing. Skype was originally only able to facilitate two-way conferencing but Version 5.1 allows users to videoconference with multiple users. Skype is a free download, video conferencing is free, calls can be made to landlines/mobiles for a discounted price and exchanging files and instant messaging can be utilised within the program. When face-to-face conferencing is unavailable, video conferencing can be a great alternative. Maintaining interest in an audio only conference can be difficult, attendees have the opportunity to switch off and work on other tasks whilst conferencing. Incorporating video into the meeting provides attendees with the ability to observe one another and see when a person is losing interest. Providing visual cues that assist receivers and senders to decipher messages enhances communication, attendees can also see vital hand/head gestures that help facilitate the flow of the conversation. By seeing these gestures the other attendees are able to grasp pauses in conversations or misunderstandings much faster. Skype and videoconferencing will not be effective if the Internet speed is not able to sync the video and audio. If there are delays or echoes this could have a detrimental rather than a positive effect on communication. Members in this situation may prefer to revert back to audio only or instant messaging as communicating with a delay/echo is annoying and in no means a productive way to communicate. References: Isaacs,

This resource outlines the advantages of using video as oppose to audio only. As mentioned face to face communication is not always possible, and it is important for companies and organizations to consider the advantages of using video conferencing as oppose to audio calls only in order to discuss decisions and have conversations relating to work. Video conferencing seems to be a vital tool for many organisations; more then 50% of mid-size businesses use video conferencing (Finley, 2010). An important part of using conferencing software is to be able to enable natural collaborative behaviours. In this article Tang & Isaac's outline the advantages of using desktop video conferencing and suggest that as oppose to audio only calls, video conferencing can be more beneficial and influence more natural ways of collaborating and communicating. In internet communications we often contrast online communication to face-to face communication. In this article we are not comparing these two, but rather exploring the advantages of video conferencing over audio conferencing. Using this source we can conclude that video conferencing has strong advantages over audio conferencing because they show an employee's facial expressions which can make communication much much easier. Despite these advantages, it is vital for organizations to have a accommodating internet speed as well as hardware in order to enable individuals to effectively use video conferencing without experiencing technical issues (e.g. screen freezing) . Videoconferencing is definitely a valuable way to communicate when there are geographic boundaries between members, however in this situation the workers still face the obstacle of time zone differences. Never the less video conferencing is becoming increasingly cheaper and easier (Finley, 2010) and is clearly an important part of many organisations. This is a useful resource if you are interested in understanding how organisations benefit from video conferencing

Finley, K. (2010). 4 Trends in enterprise video conferencing. Retrieved from http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2010/10/trends-in-enterprise-video-conferencing.php

My topic is the collaboration practices of open source software development. OVERVIEW: This article compiles data taken from online OSS-management tool SourceForge, and provides an excellent overview of the features, advantages, and limitations of this particular tool. SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/) is an online tool that facilitates collaboration on Open Source Software (OSS) projects. Among the most significant tools that SourceForge provides are forums discussing each project, a file-release tool, a basic task management system, the ability to post documentation (eg. instruction manuals) online, and the all-important Concurrent Versions System (CVS). This article goes into satisfying detail of how CVS works and why it is advantageous to software developers, explaining the CVS process as follows: 1. CVS holds the current version of a program's source code, and allows developers to 'check out' (i.e. download) this source code so that they have their own version to play around with. 2. Once done, developers can 'commit' (or upload) their changes. If possible, the CVS automatically merges this code with any other changes that have been made since the code was checked out. 3. The CVS system retains a copy of all previous versions of the code, and thus allows reversion to previous versions, as well as the existence of multiple 'branches' of the same source code. The main advantage of the CVS tool is that it "[allows] multiple developers to be working on the source code at the same time without conflict" (p. 6), although teams are may be limited slightly by SourceForge's basic task management system which "lacks capabilities for resource and personnel management" (p. 4). SourceForge is one online tool that greatly aids in the co-ordination of open-source projects. Any software developer considering the use of a pre-made online tool for collaboration would bene

This article elaborates some overviews about data SourceForge which is from online OSS-management tool, with its characters, advantages, and limitations. SourceForge is a very altruistic platform to benefit people for the development of software tools. It is good example of a social networking platform that is geared towards producing collaborative work, which is productive. Its purpose is not entertainment or socializing, but its about bringing together people with specialized skills and providing the framework and tools to allow people to work on a product in a virtual workplace. I don't totally agree by collecting statistics on the software development process,especially one that is non-commercial and can potentially be worked on by any member of the public to be a totally useful study. Software was development which is not a static work flow. There are many standards, development methodologies, languages, platforms, not to mention the human factor that can make interpolation results of the data difficult. However, I strongly believe the success of SourceForge Projects is not the collaborative effort that causes success, but those developers to press ahead and work on their masterpiece. There are some projects that are very successful, but on the whole a majority of the projects are half started and incomplete. There have been many studies in the past to try to quantify the efficiency of Software Engineering and to date. There is no ideal solution to completing a Software Engineering Project. It is still a maturing engineering discipline.

This article reviews SourceForge (http://sourceforge.net/) which is an Open Source software (OSS) development tool and provides free services to Open Source developers. By explaining how SourceForge collect, manage and apply activity data, this article points out the strengths and weaknesses of SourceForge as an online collaboration tool. An (2011) comments that the purpose of SourceForge is to bring "together people with specialized skills and [to provide] the framework and tools to allow people to work on a product in a virtual workplace". This feature is similar to Optimize Solutions which is mentioned in one of my selected articles: Optimize Solutions launches to help professional services organizations better manage - projects, resources, expenses. Both SourceForge and Optimize Solutions are collaboration tools with powerful functions for data management and user communication. With their network-based interface, distance is no longer an issue for collaboration and interaction among users. SourceForge deals with data and statistic; and Optimize Solutions manage various business resources, such as documents, images, and spreadsheet. While SourceForge is open for users to develop softwares, Optimize Solutions is used within an organization and external clients for business purposes. Although these two applications offer services in different fields, they both aim at enabling global collaboration and improving processing efficiency. I believe that with the development of information technology, especially online collaboration, such applications will be widely used in most organizations and for personal use. Reference: An, R (2011). Comment on Collection of Activity Data for SourceForge Projects. Retrieve from http://groups.diigo.com/group/curtin_net308?view=recent&page_num=1

My topic is the collaboration practices of open source software development. You can access this article by logging into ACM via the Curtin Library website. OVERVIEW: Because the production of Open Source Software (OSS) relies heavily on the work of volunteers, the motivation of those volunteers is imperative to the success of any OSS development. Recognising this, this paper seeks to explain the motivations of those who work on OSS projects, using the learning theory of Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991) as a guide. Building on this theory, the authors assert that the transient and open nature of an OSS development community appeals to user/developers as an environment to learn and hone their skills through 'legitimate participation'. Having identified the desire to learn as a key motivation for participants, the authors suggest that to attract more users to become OSS developers, leaders of OSS projects should create a list of progressively difficult tasks to foster the learning process and "enable newcomers to move toward the center of the community through continual contributions" (p. 9). Although this paper focuses on learning as a motivation, the authors acknowledge that because OSS is "a very complicated phenomenon" (p. 10), other motivations no doubt play a part. Informed by this and other articles, I would postulate that these other motivations include dissatisfaction with current software options (because "the best hacks start out as personal solutions to the author's everyday problems" (Raymond, 1999)), the desire for participants to gain reputation within the community, and the egoistic benefits of contributing to a program with a flatteringly large population of users. Raymond (1999) recognises the importance of satisfying the egos of "hacker/users" by providing them with a "piece of the action" (p. 29), while an internet-based survey (Hertel et al., 2003) has found that activities within OSS te

determined by participants' own "perceived indispensability and self-efficacy" (p. 1159). Overall, I believe that the community surrounding any given OSS-development is a key factor in the production of motivation, as it provides participants with the opportunity to gain reputation, satisfy one's own ego, and learn through legitimate participation in a project that the participants are personally interested in. References: Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Raymond, E. (1999). The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 12(3), p. 23-49. Hertel, G., Nieder, S., & Herrmann, S. (2003). Motivation of software developers in Open Source projects: an Internet-based survey of contributors to the Linux kernel. Research Policy 32(7), p. 1159-1177.

My topic is the collaboration practices of open source software development. You can access this article by logging into ACM via the Curtin Library website.

OVERVIEW: Open Source Software is software, built largely by volunteers, for which the source code is publicly available (p. 310). Such an approach is useful as a cheaper, high-quality alternative that can compete successfully with commercial products (p. 309, p. 343). This resource delves into the intricacies of Open Source Software (OSS) development by examining two prominent OSS projects: the web server Apache and the Mozilla web browser. In addition to providing detailed findings on the development processes that led to the early releases of both products, this comparative case study gives useful insight into the working practices and organisational structures of open-source developments, along with the tools that shape (and are shaped by) these working practices. As outlined in this paper, "decentralized workspaces" and "asynchronous communication" are very significant concepts in relation to OSS development (p. 317). Because there is no set schedule and contributors can do as much or as little as they like, constant communication through email and USENET groups is identified necessary to keep all contributors up to date. Other key tools used in the development of OSS are Concurrent Version Control Archive or CVS, which keeps track of each change made to the source code (comparable to wiki software); and bug-reporting databases, which enable the wider community to submit reports. The specialised nature of these tools suggests they are often purpose-built for the project, and the paper gives three examples from Mozilla - Bugzilla, Bonsai, and Tinderbox - which support this. In short, both through examining the control mechanisms, contributor involvement, and defect control practices; and through outlining specific tools that are invaluable in OSS development (and how they are used), this paper provides valuable insight into the nature of OSS development processes.