Subject village web-site for Invite: an overview and architecture
John Morgan
AberystwythUniversity
Contents
1.Executive summary2
2.The subject village as web community and professional resource3
3.The design and architecture of the Invite subject village7
4.Architecture of the site8
5.Bibliography12
6.Appendix13
Executive summary
This report provides background detail into the nature of a subject village. It moves on to describe the design and rationale for the subject village web-site designed as an outcome of the Invite Project.
A subject village is a collection of web pages that are based on an editorial policy and it aims to bring together users with similar interests and experiences to disseminate, share and exchange ideas on effective practices in a subject area; in this case video conferencing in education and training.
The report moves on to give an architectural profile of the web-site, followed by brief explanations of each of the pages. It closes with an appendix of printed pages from the web-site itself.
By its nature, a subject village web-site should never be viewed is a final document in the same way as a published text. This subject village web-site is effectively a starting point for the sustainability of the Invite Project. An effective and meaningful web community can carry the usability and development of a project for many more years beyond the finalisation of the sponsored stage and this is the ultimate goal of the Invite subject village web community.
The subject village as web community and professional resource
One of the greatest advantages of using the internet to disseminate project information lies in identifying some of the different ways in which information can be meaningful to users. Information is no longer as fixed as it would be in a printed and published, paper-based document and it is possible to suggest that a text is something that never needs to be considered finished, or complete. In this context, text and information evolve, and their significance to users can adapt. The emphasis on continuous evolution and adaptation becomes integral to writing and communication processes and through it, social or professional response to text can be viewed as a means of editorial review.
The internet has provided opportunities for users to access resources, share resources and make decisions based on information exchange. The types of decisions can include, in this project, ways in which teachers and learners use video conferencing resources and how the design of the web-site enhances their understanding of information and their capacity to engage in practical activities. These actions can be referred to as “affordances”(Gibson, 1977, 1979); what a user is able to do as a result of choices made by the designer of the web-site.
Affordances can be divided into two broad categories (based on Norman, 1988, 2002):
a)Real affordancesare based on the human actions that are facilitated by the properties of a web interface, e.g. accessing a forum or blog through web links (within the web medium).
b)Perceived affordances represent what a user identifies as being possible through the real affordances. Not only is a user able to access a forum or blog, which is the same real action for all users, but now an individual user may perceive this as being particularly important for specific social or professional reasons,which may be different to those of another user. It may also be related to learning processes advised by the web resources, but which are external to medium, e.g. learning how to operate video conferencing equipment through on-line instructions.
In a well defined user group in en educational or training context, it is relatively straightforward to conduct a needs analysis and identify a user profile that will inform the design of training materials. This works well in single user groups and it is where notions of “best practice” emerge as needs are defined in relation to fixed learning outcomes. As user groups are transferred to on-line environments however, a much wider range of needs emerge as different types of users—organisations, companies, primary schools, secondary schools, further and higher education institutions—begin to access resources that support their own needs, but which may have been designed for narrower user groups, e.g. how to use video conferencing in any one of the settings listed above.
To design a resource that will serve the needs of disparate user groups, it is necessary to identify policies and procedures that will work with the real affordances of being able to use video conferencing equipment and with the perceived affordances of what types of practice may be best for different users. One way of approaching this is to consider the notion of subject village (Glazier, 2002). Glazier was instrumental in setting up the ElectronicPoetryCenter at the University of Buffalo, NY and has argued (ibid: 3) that this type of web resource has been central to the proliferation of poetry on the internet. The subject village itself operates as a web-site and may include structured discussion areas and other areas for more formal educational development. He also argues for the limitations of the subject village, which does not necessarily offer a comprehensive account of the subject in question, nor does it control the actions and interests of the users in the way that a formal training programme might.The more important aspects of Glazier’s notion of subject village are listed below:
a)the collection of materials based on an editorial policy;
b)the dissemination of materials through agreed policies related to bibliographic maintenance and payment of royalties where appropriate;
c)the dissemination of materials that may not be possible in print-based publishing;
d)the provision of a focused collection of web pages and links to similar resources;
e)the creation of a community of practice based around the collection, dissemination and discussion of materials;
f)the possibility of developing educational resources either within the on-line community or as a result of the on-line community.
(based on and adapted from Glazier, 2002: 3)
The main point that is not listed in Glazier’s description of a subject village, which is used in the Invite subject village, is a means of interactivity that can elevate the resource from something similar to on on-line catalogue of resources, into an actual web community. In terms of creating a social or professional dialogue on theories, practices and resources, it is necessary to provide a definition of interactivity that leads to critical subject development.Lippman (date not cited: in Brand, 1987 & Stone, 1995; in Ryder & Wilson, 1996: 6) has identified five useful criteria of interactivity:
a)interruptability, where either party may interrupt at any time;
b)graceful degradation, in which unanswerable questions are set aside without disrupting the discussion;
c)limited look-ahead, through which it may not be possible to determine a finite closure to a discussion;
d)no default, where the directions of a discussion may evolve according to mutual interests of the communicators;
e)the impression of an infinite database, through which many definitions and qualities may be the result of the ongoing discussion
Interactivity will be further developed by using the subject village as a means to creating new resources, not initially linked to a specific project such as Invite. Further collaborations, exchanges of information and projects will emerge, independently of the original resource.The subject village provides a means of interacting through the materials collected and disseminated for given projects that can be made more sustainable by cooperating users groups in different communities.This affords a strong profile for a community of practice towards the development of training and educational resources that can be adaptable to any number of different contexts. Ryder and Wilson (1996: 6) neatly summarise the role of such affordances:
“There is nothing inherent in the Internet that guarantees learning. But in a specific context involving learning activities, such as research collaboration, self expression and reflection, the Internet offers multiple affordances, so numerous that it may be a mistake for us to treat it as a medium. It is really an infrastructure which brings together media, tools, people, places and information, expanding the range of human capabilities.”
This text also appears on the Invite subject village web-site at:
Working papers
The design and architecture of the Invite subject village
A successful web community depends on much more than the web design itself. Throughout the Invite Project numerous versions of the subject village web pages were put online. The difficulty in creating a community though, lies in the useful dissemination of materials and ideas and the ability to network with other people who have similar interests and experiences. As a result of this, the site has gone through various updates to arrive at its current layout and content.
Current content reflects the findings of the project from an objective standpoint. We are able to disseminate reliable and quality material. Notable among recommendations for developing web communities (Nielsen, 2000), is the provision of free documents, materials, services, etc. that updated on a regular basis. Materials should not be provided all at once, or users will download all material only once and will not necessarily return to the site. This may make a good reference source, but will not create a community where people are willing to exchange ideas. The goal of the Invite subject village is to encourage the exchange of ideas towards ongoing ideas and developing practice.
As the community evolves, materials will be archived on a weekly, bi-weekly or monthly basis, depending on how much material is created or submitted. Material now needs to interpret and build upon project findings, to look for variables, alternatives or reinforcement of ideas. It is only through this further development that we will be able to achieve a sustainable project that does not end with the end date of the period of Leonardo da Vinci support. In this case, as well, it needs to be a resource that can be maintained at minimum cost.
Architecture of the site
Invite Project home page at MasarykUniversity
- About the project
- Results
- Events
- Forum
- Partners
- News
- Subject village
Welcome to the village
Developing practice in video conferencing
Getting started
Learning and teaching
Examples from class
Links and resources
Working papers
Share your own links and ideas
Discussion group (external to subject village)
Welcome to the village
This is an introduction to the idea of a community based on the Invite Project. It identifies background information, indications of contents of the site and a description of what users will be able to do with the information and links.
Developing practice in video conferencing
No written introduction is provided for this as research also suggests (Nielsen, 2000) that readers do not spend time reading on-line, but move quickly to clearly worded links to find what they are looking for.
Getting started
This provides information from the Invite Project Video Conferencing Quick Guide. It does not provide the entire resource in one page, but suggests that people will be able to find updates at staged periods when they can return for more information. It provides ISDN details and advises people to go to the main project web-site for the complete version of the document. This will be archived and recycled on a regular basis.
Learning and teaching
This provides information from the Invite Project Methodology Quick Guide. Again it does not provide the entire resource at once, but is tied thematically to the getting started stages. The following instalment of this on “anxiety” will be tied to the “how to begin a VC session” and “problem solving” stages of the VC Quick Guide. This way the resource will be providing something similar to a self access course on using video conferencing.
Examples from class
This provides information on how video conferencing has been used in classes during the Invite Project. Project members write short papers and examples of use that act as exemplification to the getting started and learning and teaching stages. In this way we will be guiding users through stages of what we have done on the project in a sequential, developmental manner.
Links and resources
In this section we provide links to selected resources that have been checked in advance, for quality of information. Some resources are more up to date than others, but all provide further links into the world of video conferencing on the internet. Users of the web site can submit their own links and they are credited for doing so.
Working papers
This section provides a deeper level of information through short working papers, theoretical and simple technical essays. This is to give users stronger grounding in theoretical practices underpinning the Invite project. Again we will link ideas to earlier stages to make thematic links between the areas.
e.g. The current selection as of November, 2008, works with the idea of creating a subject village, or social discussion community, around project topics. Again it works in parallel to the sections on getting started, learning and teaching and examples from class.
Share your own links and ideas
This page provides an interactive web form for users to submit their own links. All submissions are screened prior to inclusion to ensure they are suitable for inclusion, according to our editorial policies.
Discussion group
The discussion group, “invite-vcv” is set up in Google groups, which is external to the subject village and is not a dedicated part of the web design and management process of the main web-village site. This is essential to the ongoing maintenance of the dissemination of the project, but as a Google group, the intensive management of a forum is fully automated by Google. The web village editor only needs to accept requests to join. This restriction has been set to ensure all members are in fields of education and training and that no offensive or spam messages will be included. All messages can be traced directly to the person sending them.
The second reason for choosing Google groups is that it is widely recognised around the world as a means of communicating and it is listed within specific categories and search areas to enhance dissemination opportunities.
Bibliography
Glazier, L.P. (2002). Digital Poetics: The Making of E-Poetries.Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Morgan, J. (2004). “Affordances and Effectivities in Creating an Interactive Learning Infrastructure.” [On-line]
Nielsen, J. (2000).Designing Web Usability.Indianapolis: New Riders Publishing.
Norman, D.A. (1988). The Psychology of Everyday Things.New York: Basic Books. In Norman, D.A. (2002).
Norman, D.A. (2002). “Affordances and Design.” [On-line] (Accessed: 04/05/05).
Ryder, M. & Wilson, B. (1996). “Affordances and Constraints of the Internet for Learning and Instruction.” [On-line] (Accessed: 04/05/04).
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