by Derek Morrison, 23 March 2010 (updated 24 and 25 March 2010)
The following short essay reflects the perspectives and opinions of the author alone and should not be construed as necessarily representing the views of any other individual or organisation.
The Open University’s Cloudworks is an application of the social networking concept which is attracting some interest both nationally and internationally. A new entry to the world of “cloudscapes” and “cloudstreams” is ELESIG (Evaluation of Learners’ Experiences of e-learning Special Interest Group) who have extended their reach from their current Ning base by establishing two spaces on Cloudworks. The first is is titled ELESIG – Readings for members and others to “share and discuss publications in the field of learner experience research”. The other cloudscape isn’t open for business yet but it’s titled ELESIG – Resources to “share and discuss resources produced by the ELESIG community”.
While I’m a big fan of Cloudworks the fact that it is a hosted entity by a major UK HE institution with a respected provenance is itself worthy of reflection and discussion. Although considerable respect is due for the genius idea and the Open University’s willingness to host Cloudworks, there’s also a “Catch 22” here. Cloudworks has a greater chance of being significant, in part, because it is hosted by the OU plus it has its own academic provenance. Cloudworks also gains because it wisely opened its doors to the educational world beyond the OU and so contributors from elsewhere are enabled to add ‘content’. The nature of such social networking means that one scenario is that success builds on success and so, eventually, Cloudworks becomes a much valued resource. But, as with all ‘cloud’ initiatives, whose resource is it? Being really fanciful for a moment, what if Cloudworks became the academic equivalent of, say, Facebook? Or the inverse; what if a strategic adjustment or financial retrenchments lost Cloudworks its current OU base? This is no different than, say, a Google or Yahoo withdrawing such services – both have done so in the past. The current version of About Cloudworks doesn’t appear to explore such issues because its focus is, understandably, about realising its community building and sharing goals. I suggest, however, that it’s necessary to reflect on the answers to such questions early on because doing so, I suggest, will actually stimulate membership and participation in entities like Cloudworks and help its deservedly growing membership champion its long term future.
Postscript (added 24 & 25 March 2010)
Perhaps the unique mission of the Open University means that it is the only HEI that could host and sustain a Cloudworks? The siblings of sustainability and ownership, however, are both the strength and the Achilles’ Heel of all cloud-based large social networking services.
The strength, because to be successful a social networking site needs it’s members to feel a modicum of ownership for what they contribute, read and view. From a willingness to visit and contribute comes a critical mass of content and interaction that conveys a sense of value from which it is easier to put the case for sustaining the provision.
The Achilles’ Heel because as with all cloud provision the contributions are in reality remotely-hosted digital bits subject to the vagaries of whatever future influences impact upon the remote hosting provider. An additional complexity applies to the social networking model because the value lies more in the aggregation of the contributions than in the individual elements and so what can, and should, be backed up for local storage? The individual contributions? The themes? The whole landscape? The bigger and more successful such a site becomes the more pressing a matter this becomes. We should also not forget that ‘free’ services, even that mighty web 2.0 icon Wikipedia, have costs. Consequently, sustainability is not a one time issue; it’s a constant pre-occupation of those who would champion particular digital enterprises. Hence it is reassuring to see the Open University and latterly JISC supporting what Cloudworks is seeking to do.
But … (haven’t used an Auricle but for a while 🙂 )
Perhaps a useful sustainability thought experiment would be consider the challenge facing, say, an HE researcher in 25 years time who wants to explore the preoccupations and interactions of our evolving digital universe, including a Cloudworks. Where would they start? Where is it? Is it active? Is it archived somewhere? Is the technology still around that could activate it for review? Or, has it just disappeared like much of our current digital world risks doing so? One maxim of digital preservation is “lots of copies keeps stuff safe” but the nature of social networks is that lots of “stuff” is aggregated, organised and presented in one place. An interesting challenge to the maxim.
And how are ‘clouds’ and their entities to communicate and share with each other? If they do not do they not become just new structures that lock their content and interactions in monolithic forms, albeit ones with a networking or cloud label?
