Two replies then some more thoughts. First re: cosmetic issues. I'm no web designer so just borrowed a Drupal theme I liked and the professor I'm working with tweaked it some. So I entirely agree that there's problems with our implementation. And obviously if Island were to go school-wide there would be much more attention (i.e. developer time) paid to "cosmetic issues on thousands of platforms." And as it is, the site was designed to be information rich meaning it /won't/ look very good on constrained screens or non-maximized browsers. So your bug is a feature :>
Second, you've missed the meaning of the site name "ISland" completely. It's an easily made mistake as it's not explained anywhere but ISland stands for "Information Systems Land." It's the community site for the Information Systems department. We didn't name the site because we somehow think our discipline is isolated. To its very core, Information Systems is a cross-disciplinary major studying a wide range of business and technical topics. And as I wrote in my first email, I would *love* if an Island-like site was created for the entire school as I'd love to hear the perspective of those from other disciplines on topics that I'm interested. So no irony intended. We built this site from the perspective of how to improve education. Island is designed to support and enhance classroom learning. An example of how this happens. In a web analytics class, everyone in the class including the professor are members of the "web analytics" group on Island. Students use the group to ask questions that don't get answered in class and other students and the professor answer. The best resources people find around the web are collected on the group's wiki. Students or alumni or recruiters who are also interested in web analytics join in discussions and offer their perspective. So the site will be used and be useful regardless of how few people ever use it. I don't anticipate it being "overwhelmed" by bigger social networks out there because it isn't competing with Facebook or any other social network. It's purpose is much the same as this mailing list. This mailing list exists to /support/ the Unix community here at BYU. This mailing list reached critical mass at the same point the off-line Unix community reached critical mass because they are one and the same. The mailing list is an extension of the community of Unix users. It's a social tool that reinforces links between people mostly initiated off-line and provides additional ways to communicate. Social software is much better at strengthening off-line connections then creating new connections. But as social software technology goes, mailing lists are rather primitive and have many limitations (but are still effective within their limitiations). Many social software tools have been invented since the introduction of mailing lists in the late 70s (blogs, wikis, etc) that add a lot of value. Island is an attempt to create a site using a mixture of social software tools so forming a group like UUG becomes extremely easy. To make a new group on Island takes less then a minute. (And by writing this, I don't want to trivialize the effort required to create an community, it's HARD -- as I'm sure current/past leaders of UUG know -- but good tools and social protocols make creating communities easier). Of course, many of the groups created on Island will fail and not form into a viable community but some will. And as you'll know, a well functioning community like UUG is quite valuable for its members. Island will help many more communities like UUG be created. So to sum things up, I'd much prefer a site like Island be built over using LinkedIn or some other commercial solution. LinkedIn is great in some ways. I think of it as a searchable socially-aware resume database. You essentially put your resume on their site and then connect to other people as your "references". That's an improvement on the resume but for employers, it's still a poor way of learning who would be a good employee or not. On a site like Island, it quickly becomes apparent what different people are like. This employer writes: Oh and it would take me hours and hours to tell you horror stories about people how looked like God's gift to humanity (ok, our company) from their resume and who were absolute dud's five seconds after they opened their mouths in interviews On blogs you can't fake it (at least not for a very long time) and it so perfectly reflects your intelligence, your character, your values, your smarts (or lack there of) and so on and so forth. You can "fake" the piece of paper, you can't fake a blog. [1] You see this in open-source communities. Talented unemployed Linux hackers don't stay unemployed very long because their talent quickly becomes apparent as they are interacting in an open environment. The same thing happens within the Drupal community as active Drupal contributors are snatched up quickly by the different Drupal shops. Perhaps the best solution would be a mash-up of established business social networking like LinkedIn and a home-grown solution built situated to BYU. Emerging standards such as OpenSocial<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSocial>[of which LinkedIn is a founding partner] will make creating this mash-up much easier. Other's thoughts? Kyle [1] http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/2008/05/benefits-of-blogging-a-practitioners-perspective.html Research Assistant eBusiness Center @ BYU kyle.mathews2000.com/blog On Mon, Jun 9, 2008 at 9:21 AM, Scott K <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> I built Island using Drupal and Drupal IMHO is the best software for >> building community websites. Loads of community sites are built using Drupal >> and it's widely used in education (See Drupal in Education >> group<http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-education>). >> The biggest upside to using Drupal is Drupal makes it possible to build a >> very customized solution to meet BYU's specific needs (not a canned solution >> that sorta works). (read Situated >> Software<http://www.shirky.com/writings/situated_software.html>for more why >> that is a very good thing). If we go with Linked-In -- we'd be >> constrained by their limits and vision. Same problem with every other >> commercial "solution". It'd be much better if BYU were to roll their own >> solution. >> Kyle >> >> What are the pros and cons/limitations of Linked-in and other social > networks that people have used? What features would make the BYU alumni net > desirable and what failures would kill it? Obviously poor, slow and > inflexible designs would kill it. I'm not trying knock your work on Island > here, but going forward I see some problems with its implementation. Their's > lots of vertical and horizontal bars hogging screen space in my > non-maximized web browser, and weird line mixing issues in the narrower > columns of the content as a result (cosmetic issues on thousands of possible > platforms can kill a sites usability). > > One of the hardest challenges for online communities/social networks are > saturation and getting and maintaining critical mass. Everyone wants to > launch their social network following the web 2.0 buzz, but few will really > obtain a significant following because of market saturation. What happens to > ISYS's little Island and it's content when BYU has a world wide social > network. In some ways, Island is a pretty ironic name when you consider that > ISYS is not an island when there are tons of topics with cross disciplinary > interest (as demonstrated by your participation in UUG). > > One thing I don't remember Neal covering is a focus on continuing education > and interaction with BYU faculty. The main focus was job finding, career > development and sharing information about places, He also talked about going > offline in the sense that those who aren't tech savvy, or don't have > time/interest to be super involved online could have stubs of offline > contact info. > > It might be wise to moderate any content that receives a complaint. You > would have to limit full access to the site to those who have actually > attended classes/ have alumni status, since anyone can make a bogus RY netID > (I've made at least 5). But it would also be nice to allow employers to join > and post listings as well as be able to view those who elect to show up in > skill searches. There are definite advantages to a "trusted" network where a > specific person is held accountable for everything they post, and the world > at large doesn't have access to content which is personal (aside from > identity theft). Privacy and safety is a whole unsolved can of worms for > Social networks as highlighted by the recent myspace suicide indictment. > > Scott K. > > -------------------- > BYU Unix Users Group > http://uug.byu.edu/ > > The opinions expressed in this message are the responsibility of their > author. They are not endorsed by BYU, the BYU CS Department or BYU-UUG. > ___________________________________________________________________ > List Info: http://uug.byu.edu/mailman/listinfo/uug-list >
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