Who You Calling A Jesse?

With the economy slowing (or grinding to a halt) mixed with credit being hard to find, higher education institutions might be facing a perfect storm that could shake poorly run institutions to the ground. Students with parents that have the money to pay for their education might be hard pressed to do so, jobs to pay for tuition might be harder to find, loans outside of state assistance might dry up, money for research might be cut, and public along with private donations will likely be even harder to get. This all spells trouble for organizations that wish to maintain a status quo. For those looking to fix some big issues the climate could be ideal.

What are the biggest issues facing higher ed both with regards to the organizational structure and the adoption of technology? My list is short (it is hard to keep short):

1. higher education has an identity crisis – a religious battle is going on internally between the ‘leave me alone, things are fine’ crowd and the ‘wow this is messed up, why are we here?’ crowd
2. the culture has created processes that make change slow and ineffective make sure that any change is painful
3. young talent is defeated by a management class that doesn’t know what management is (and I blame academics for that)

I have already posted my thoughts on how to deal with inefficient committees and the fun that surrounds item 2 and some of 3 above. The first is the illness with the following points the symptoms… I think. I want to explore my thoughts as to why we (higher education) are here and what we can do about it (besides better meetings, time on task tracking, etc). This is a series of blog posts as I don’t want to post some rant in big essay form.

Next post: What are research, educational, and training activities in Higher ed?

Seems RIM’s new Blackberry Storm has a raised a few eyebrows over web related things. In the first review I read there is a mention on the browser:

…had zero issues with the Storm’s browser. Zooming in and out is simple and it seems to load most pages fine, except the NYTs as it reverts to the mobile edition and doesn’t want to load the regular site. Anything with a lot of Javascript chorks, though. Everywhere else on the device there are scroll up/scroll down keys but they’re missing on the browser. Seems like an odd move, but the navigation bar would be a bit crowded. – CrunchGear

As a person that believes the browser is the platform I think the browser is where the mobile device will be won (or lost). As much as I love the app store I hate having all those silly icons scattered on my device just to access web based content. Let me use my browser (like google does). Likely a balance needs to be found but at the moment I have app icon overload…

Living in the town of RIM (Waterloo, Ontario) I often hear things at pubs, at events, or through some second hand gossip. What I hear is usually some pretty positive stuff but at the risk of calling out a specific person, when I hear something along the lines of “webkit doesn’t support Acid2 but the Storm browser does” as a point of discussion I get a little concerned.

First, the Acid tests for web browsers are not a target that makes your web browser bad ass. You can pass it one day but not the other for good reason. But what I don’t get is that Safari passed Acid2 in April of 2005. What that person said in that statement (to me) is that they made sure they passed a test they didn’t even understand! Sure if you run Acid2 on the browser on the iPhone it has a little issue but there could be a good reason for it. AND IT DOESN’T MATTER. Web standards are guidelines… just don’t break things and force me to customize my CSS or JS for your browser.

I don’t want to put down the folks at RIM (the value of my house is directly related to their success!), they made some huge improvements. Problem is that they are against a number of new competitors that have years on them with regards to utilizing the web… they need to come across as knowing what they are talking about, even in the local gossip pools.

Jen Dodd sent me an email about a pub night and panel taking place in Toronto on Sunday night:

Science 2.0: the future of online tools for scientists
A pub night and panel with Timo Hannay, Cameron Neylon, and Michael Nielsen, hosted by Nature Network Toronto

What does the future hold for the way we do science? Are online repositories such as GenBank and the physics preprint ArXiv, or social tools such as Nature Network, about to change science profoundly? To find out, join Nature Network Toronto for an interactive panel discussion over drinks at the pub.

Date: Sunday September 7 at 7:30pm
Place: Fionn MacCool’s

I know Michael Nielson is working on a book that is looking at the future of science and is sure to have some interesting insights to share. I think he has well defined a serious problem in academia as a whole with how information is published and how that has to change but that is whole other blog post. Not familiar with the other panelists but I am sure they will contribute to a really interesting conversation.

If you have an interest in where Science is (or should be) going, stop by the pub!

In my paper, my research focused on an assessment technique and possible application of Microformats on a higher education home page. What I don’t think I included in that report was a really good reason why you would apply the formats to your entire site or if the current formats are good enough. There are many   making the case out there that cover the ‘why’ with my favourite being that you can make your web site or web application your API. That line of thought is what I applied when UW Events was built.

How does that work in higher education specifically? In higher education there are many issues that make a universal application or Microformats fairly difficult. But higher education web sites have so many consistent patterns in content and design along with a general attitude of openness that there is a huge opportunity that could be realized through the application of current and future Microformats.

Using the following diagram you can apply a couple use cases.

One of the use cases that initially comes to mind is the student that is trying to figure out what courses are offered at what school and where those schools are:

• geo and hatom can give a student an idea of the location and the latest news coming out of the school
• a new format for course information (lets call it hCourse for now) can help a student compare courses across different schools
• hReview can mix in prof rating and/or course rating web sites that use hReview to mark up their ratings and a student can get a better picture of things.

Another would be a prof trying to determine where to spend their next sabbatical without knowing much about the smaller schools in a particular area:

• the geo information can accurately place the schools
• hatom would give them quick access to the latest news
• a format for course information (hcourse) can help them connect with new colleague with similar interests
• hreview can reveal a hidden quality a smaller institution might have

A third scenario might be a person that is looking for a good resource on a story or book. Usually that information is being sent to the typical media outlets.

• hatom identifies the news so it can be easily found through searches
• geo can tie that information to a particular area

This is just off the top of my head, I could probably go on for a while about how easier to find and more accurate content could enhance the experience for people that are looking for information. I can think of some political barriers to this but thankfully it doesn’t require a top down decision to apply it. In the spirit of higher education, application of Microformats can be done on a grass roots effort without any decisions needing to be made ;)

Almost a year ago now I started exploring the idea of a research paper on Microformats with regards to Higher Education. After doing some research I settled on assessing ten Higher Education web sites, their mark-up and their content, identify some common patterns and explore the viability of Microformats for the typical Higher Education home page.

• You can grab a version of my paper in acrobat.com but if you want a PDF version please leave a comment.

In my paper you will find a literature review, the method I used, all the data, and my results. I did write this over the winter so things might have changed a bit and it certainly isn’t a perfectly written paper… but I think it offers a way to approach semantic mark-up that I hope some people find useful.

From my research, I developed a process to identify a design pattern for Higher Education web sites in both the mark-up code and the content. It may not be the most efficient but it seemed to do the trick.

I used those design patterns to come up with a mock-up of what the University of Waterloo home page could be (not graphically, just semantically) and tried out how that could be useful. My mock-up has:

• hAtom for news
• hCal for event listings
• hCard for the University address with geo information

There is also some other semantic richness in there. I thought that maybe someone would find it useful as there really isn’t a lot of research with regards to applying Microformats and why.

update: I have another post that looks at how Microformats can help higher education

With our second StartupCampWaterloo behind us here in Waterloo we hit a milestone. Over 100 people were in the main area of the Waterloo Accelerator Centre to talk with Startups and help each other with ideas (quick estimate based on 88 chairs in the room plus Ali’s colourful chairs). I am pretty sure all those that demo’d got some useful information and experience out of the evening.

A big thanks to Stefanus De Toit for opening up the evening and breaking-in the crowed by sharing insights like: Turning academic research into a product is hard if you don’t keep your paperwork in order; hire your friends; wow people with lots of 3D chickens to get investment (actually prove your concept with a solid demo). Another big thanks to Austin Hill for closing off the evening with a great presentation which included: don’t be afraid of sharing your ideas because someone already tried it – it is your execution that is important; Canada needs more of its successful entrepreneurs re-investing in the startup scene; beware the vulture investors; do a startup while you are a student; it helps to work for a startup if you are thinking about a startup as startup culture is infectious.

What was learned from this one is that 60 second intros with voting works out really well. Keeping things short and keeping the slides out of it kept the conversation interesting and focused. The big buzzer also helped. Only took one person being caught by it—no one else dared challenge their time limits. Plus it kept us on time, mostly.

I had a lot of good feedback and now can relax—until the next one. What are we going to do next? BarCampWaterloo is on March 29th, a DemoCampGuelph will be in April, and StartupCampWaterloo3 will be sometime in May. If you can’t figure out if you want to go, I have a post coming up tomorrow that will cover that ;)

Other folks to thank for making the trip from places afar and/or helping out last night… The Toronto folks venturing outside of the GTA in their large 4×4: David Crow – thanks for the books and disruption, Jevon McDonald,  Jonas Brandon.   Ali Asaria brought some chairs and name tags and Simon Law for came down from Montreal. The other organizers Simon Woodside and Mic Berman ensured that we appeared as unconference as possible ;)

Most importantly, the night was good because of the folks that were there. Waterloo has a great community.

Is there a template out there for evaluating web page content in order to identify content patterns that would stand the test of academics? Surely there must be. So far I haven’t been able to find one as most of the research on semantics focuses on application based on a given content type you are creating or using. What I am trying to do is research a site, identify patterns, apply Microformats to the patterns, then figure out if there is a need for a new format based on the content.

What would need to identify a pattern in web content? Two years ago in WebPatterns and WebSemantics John Allsopp (the guy who wrote the Microformats book ) posted a great summary of what are patterns and how can you identify them. John mentions the area of web patterns is under-researched and references a great collection of patterns in web sites (that is missing the higher education pattern) but unfortunately for me I don’t think I can use that as key reference.

Interestingly enough, identifying web application patterns is exactly what my team and I have been doing with the new JobMine system. What I need to find out is where this has been before and in what capacity. Documenting UI elements is nothing knew but I think the criteria for the documentation is pretty loose and perhaps there is a need for one.

When I have my research criteria defined I will post it, any thoughts on the matter would be appreciated ;)

Addison (my son) had his 9-month visit to the doctor this past week. All things are good, he is developing quickly, healthy, etc. But when referencing the baby height/weight chart the nurse found he was 25th percentile in weight, 75th or so in height. Concerned for his weight meant a friendly lecture from the nurse and an order to increase the fat in Addison’s diet. Keep in mind, this kid has more energy than anything I have ever seen. If he is awake he is moving and/or making noise.

So my wife comes home, thinks about it, and then last night found a paper explaining the chart our doctor’s office uses. As it turns out the research they use is from one town in the mid-west US and has bottle fed babies. Breast fed babies deviate significantly and negatively, especially those from other parts of the world. So the chart’s data source is flawed yet modern nurses and doctors follow it.

I wonder where the obesity problem starts? ;) Lesson of the day, if you are handed facts and you are not comfortable with them always do a little research. The web is really handy for that.