Those of you who have been following our Open source enterprise weblogging series of postings may be aware that, in contrast to the “let's dominate the VLE market” ethos which has been supported, by default, by a significant part of the HE and tertiary educational sectors, some of us have been putting the case for providing access to simpler but, nevertheless, educationally powerful, tools like blogs and wikis for some time. It's good to see that the BBC has picked up on this alternative approach to supporting knowledge acquisition and learning. They offer the following on their news site Academics give lessons on blogs (23 January 2005)
There's some good positive statements and examples in the Beeb's article, e.g
“Blogging lecturers say the technology provides them with easy online web access to students and improves communication outside of the classroom.”
“The weblog meant a place to store ideas, links and references.”
“… open new opportunities for students and staff.”
“… gained knowledge from strangers.”
” … develop things in a fairly cohesive fashion.”
Ah but ! … there's also the view being put by the University of Birmingham who whilst accepting the benfits of the blog as:
” … a strong tool for rapid knowledge development”
… express concern about the problems for an institution's reputation and legal liability which arise from the blog's 'openness' and 'ease of instigation'.
Birmingham, some readers may remember, is/was embroiled in a dispute with some of its academics who were publishing views on their personal web pages hosted by the University that some pro Israeli groups found unacceptable.
As I indicated in my recent contribution Weblogs Niche or Nucleus to last November's UCISA workshop, Beyond Email: Strategies for Collaborative Working and Learning in the 21st Century, there are good examples of Acceptable Use Policies around, e.g. Harvard Law, which should help prevent such disputes arising. An AUP should not translate, however, into “you can't publish unpopular views or minority viewpoints” that may upset the status quo or vested interests who are not stable or confident enough in their own product or viewpoint and therefore feel a need to try and undermine or eliminate the challenge.
It would be a sad day indeed if every story, document, article produced by an institution which may be viewed by the public had to pass through a Department of Censorship for approval just to make sure it was 'on message' or did not open the institution to brand or legal risk. The reality is that, unless we are to return to a totally verbal culture, everything written down is potentially viewable by the public (by intent or accident) and electronic communications, in all forms, now makes it impossible to stop what may be perceived as off message 'leakage'. Are we, for example, going to moderate and record all mobile phone communications, text messages, instant messages, file attachments, podcasts etc etc. I daresay there will be those institutions that try to do so, but it's a lot cheaper and more efficient to have staff and students 'buy in' to a reasonable AUP and to provide them with some great tools and services whilst educating them about their use, abuse and possibilities.
It would need a bureaucracy bigger than the productive base of an institution to approve everything and of course the introduction of such a bureaucracy would eventually erode the productive base on which it depends for survival. So what are we left with? Well, we could try concepts like trust, loyalty, discusssion, and agreement instead of fear, uncertainty and doubt about loss of control resulting in policies which try to control technologies either by banning them or constraining their use to a point where any user benefits are lost.
Yes, tools like blogs and wikis place authors and contributors in charge of their content in a way that those with strong centralist tendencies may find uncomfortable, but their job is to provide the pipes and wires that allow the water and electricity to flow. The use or abuse of that water and electricity needs the equivalent of an AUP. Such an AUP should never provide for the blanket removal of the underlying service just because of one abuse or dispute over use. I daresay that Salam Pax is grateful that the draconian AUP's of the previous Iraqi regime were not enacted just because he was 'off message'.
