Following our conversation on empowerment through reading, let's use this second report to explore how we can be empowered to use wikis in your every day relations, either at the UAA, or any other organization you are associated with. Also, use this reflection to work with your team members in your Zoho Wiki.
- Briefly discuss why an ethnographic study can be so useful to understand the impact of new information and communication technologies.
- How research methodologies impact what we know about a phenomenon?
- What do you understand by disruptive technologies?
- Can you identify the affordances of the technologies you are using?
Choose one of the Future Research Questions and propose a way you would conduct research to answer it.
Be sure to submit your report via e-mail by June 13, 2013
I will post here 4 summaries written by some of you. At any time, you can claim authority by indicating who you are!
ReplyDeleteRJGV's summary:
ReplyDeleteReading the investigation that Dixon and McNamara made left with a profound and lasting impression about the potential that lies in the web 2.0 paradigms when we apply them to different contexts where knowledge is the main currency, which is pretty much anything in the XXI century, and the great versatility that comes with these tools to empower the users.
Before entering the Master’s program I used to work in a software development department at a state university. My duties as a member of the development team were to program the web tools and modules needed to automate several administrative processes (saving grades in the system, admission management, providing medical insurance information, etc) along with the maintenance and adaptation of existing modules.
One thing that always bugged me was the blatant lack of documentation in the code and information about how the developed tools and modules worked; development was always done against the clock (school calendar schedule and bad resource planning), we were always understaffed and there was never enough time to document the code nor encouragement from the higher ups to devote time to do so.
And so, when the time came to give maintenance to an old module, more often than not one would find truly undecipherable pieces of code with no documentation or information in sight; so one would have to ask the programmer that originally wrote the code about the logic behind the code. That was, until said programmer left the department along with all the knowledge about the modules he/she developed inside his luggage, and at that precise moment, maintenance in certain modules would become nothing short of a nightmare, usually being easier to rewrite entire modules rather than spending days trying to make sense of esoteric lines of code.
After reading this paper I realize what a bliss it would have been to have had a wiki to manage all software development information, to concentrate all the information behind tricky procedures and implementation details and the version controls, and having a place to discuss different ways to tackle a problem with all the team in a manageable way, all this while leaving a tangible record as a reliable reference for any new team member.
JJMH's summary:
ReplyDeleteThis article is very interesting because shows the two sides of the reaction on the people: those who accept and think that Intellipedia is very useful to share their job with another peers, and the other side is of those people who think that it is dangerous and causes distraction among their mates.
In my opinion the wikis are a good way to share information. I think that if I share some article with my knowledge, and after some person who knows the theme better than me read this article and wants to complement, this is a good way to offer the best information to another people. Obviously there are a risk that someone modifies the information and probably some things may be wrong, but if exists some mechanisms to know when somebody did changes, this can ease the control the content. At this case Intellipedia counts with notifications to advice of these situations, so I think that this can make a more reliable Intellipedia.
The case of Intellipedia gives me some ideas to implement something similar in many places like mi former job. Sometimes we did not know some themes and the solutions were to go to internet and search books, blogs or something with useful information, sometimes this needed a lot of time. In some cases, when the research was done another mate come to say “hey dude, I have that information! Why you did not tell me that you needed that information?” If it had been a wiki, this partner would have written an article and the research take less time.
I think that the people must trust on the wikis, this can be a useful tool to do the job more quickly. Furthermore as the article says, we can find people with similar interest and this can help to learn more and do a better job.
JRLG's summary:
ReplyDeleteIn resume, the paper shows the results of a study about of Intellipedia and the way as this tool is related to organizations and the sharing information. Intellipedia is based in wiki behavior, a wiki platform is a website which allows people to add, modify, or delete the content via a web browser usually using a simplified markup language or a rich-text editor. Wikis use specialized wiki software and are usually created collaboratively [1].
The study had ethnographic sense in order to identify emerging use patterns around Intellipedia adoption in the Defense Intelligence Agency. In this sense, theirs study indicates that social software like Intellipedia could dramatically enhance the development of cooperative and collaborative networks among intelligence analysts across organizational boundaries.
They could identify 7 core observations with their study, and I will do mention of the principal observations in my point of view.
Not everyone contributing to Intellipedia is a member of the Web 2.0 generation, and not all twenty-somethings are thrilled with Intellipedia.
o With this observation, I can see that the use of wikis in a global point of view, the collaborative platforms are not only used by young people with the paradigm 2.0, the experience and interest in some topic of somebody can be the trigger of a potential collaborator totally independent of age.
Intellipedia demonstrates that when analysts are provided an accessible space to share information they do so enthusiastically.
o In this observation, I see that Intellipedia provide an excellent opportunity to share the collaborator's work whoever isn't familiar with the feature of the tool, but it can be a new way of do the things.
Intelink blogs and Intellipedia enable analysts to project a professional identity across historically stove piped agencies.
o I think that this way of do the shared information between these agencies, not only by intellipedia, the blogs and intelink websites also contribute in show the information with more credibility than others sources. And this way of sharing information enable to see a new need of to create and project a professional identity in a community.
Analysts are using Wiki software to create innovative ways of communicating.
o I think that when a technology comes to new sector, the human ingenuity can be a key factor for get the most out of the technology.
Intellipedia has the potential to change the nature of intelligence analysts’ work.
o Like that happens with the technology that facilitates some aspect of life, Intellipedia facilitates the sharing information making that this tool can become the change of paradigm in some organizations.
The study talking about some implications that has the last observations, for example, Intellipedia is not yet formally incorporated into the official production cycle at DIA. mainly caused by the dangers of pooling information in an online environment.
They have the clarification that the observations in the study may be a consequence of the phase of development that Intellipedia is currently in at DIA.
Finally, one section in the study does mention of future researches like the use of patterns, factors that influence in the adoption of technology and how intellipedia impacts collaboration. Concluding, Intellipedia is a technology worth watching, like it has the potential for changing the way analysts work. Wiki software is very easy to learn causing a wide variety of uses, discovered multiple emerging use patterns for intellipedia.
In my point of view, the paper let me see that the collaborative software can do the change of the work way of an organization. To have a tool that helps us in the sharing information can be a two-edged sword, because can better the communication and achieving greater efficiency in the information exploitation between organizations. And on the other can be dangers to have pooling information in an online environment.
JCC's excerpts:
ReplyDeleteI was surprised about the fact that there are young people not interested on using this info due to lack of trust on the tool, or because they find it as not structured for decision makers. And I was more surprised to find out that people in their fifties were thrilled about the opportunity that this tool offers. My conclusion is that experience outside the informatics environment also helps people to recognize the benefits of a good tool like the wikis are.
The point that gets me the most in this part of the document is “get our stuff out there”; this is a very meaningful expression that represents our era and the WEB 2.0. We need to share our work and information, because if there is no exposition of that info, how do we expect to get recognition, and even most importantly authority of certain material or work. Also if an article or document is well written it can reach thousands of people as the authors suggest in the article.
This part of the document is relevant for me because it reflects the importance of taking all the affordances of any tool, and also the creativity of the people to find ways to use any application.
Other part that helped me a lot in this section is the fact that with a well-structured wiki I can create a site that can be farther than social, it can be a powerful tool that can assist me to:
-Manage and share my files.
-Direct the focus of people to certain important information.
-Organized the times and schedule of the collaborators and myself.
-Structure and gather information dispersed on a blog.
-Relate and collaborate with other professionals.
-Complement static ways of working.
-Increase creativity on new solutions.
I really like this paper a lot. I didn’t know about Intellipedia or any other repository used by top secured agencies like DIA or CIA; I thought that all this agencies were super “closed” and reluctant to share any info but just a few people. That gives me the conclusion that with the proper security and authority controls we shouldn’t be worry of sharing information to other people.
Other conclusion is that when a tool is correctly design for the community, social wise, it can even help users to change the way they do their work. The present and future of technology is not just about using tools for a certain need, it’s about changing the way we communicate, collaborate and work with other people in order get better results for us as individuals and as a community as well.