« October 2009 | Main | December 2009 »
For the capstone project in ICS 602, Team 5 completed an amazing task. We were able to finish the difficult project with a confident feeling that we did everything we could and did it well.
Just after 6:00 on the Monday before Thanksgiving, I feel that my team and I were able to analyze a problem and synthesize a solution worthwhile with knowledge value added that differentiates us from the rest for the benefit of the community.
What more can be said?
So, you've been a fan of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace.
Great!
You're Mom and Dad are too.
"Wait. What?"
Yeah, they are jumping on the bandwagon and joining you on all your online journeys, for better or worse.
"I don't want the 'rents seeing what I post on so and so's wall."
Okay, well, you don't have to let them. Just don't add them as a friend, or let them follow you.
"But, won't they be suspicious then? They'll wonder why I don't add them as a friend or let them follow me. They'll think I'm up to no good."
Are you?
"I might be. That's my privacy though."
True, everyone should be entitled to their own privacy. Might as well let them read your email too, right?
"No way."
What are we to do about it?
---------
Facebook was founded as a way for college students to make their own online networks. Groups of students come together online, follow what each is doing, stay up to date with personal news, include only those you choose to include.
Then they opened up to high school students. Grumblings about the inclusion ensued but college students accepted it, reluctantly. They had no choice.
Finally, the site was opened up to the general public. Whoa! Now everyone can join. My college experience may not be a secret anymore. Now what? What do I say to Mom and Dad at Thanksgiving when they bring up my underage drinking binge I went on with Johnny Alcoholic last weekend?
---------
Someone I know, personally, decided to post about a party they attended. Sounds harmless on the surface, right? Well, they were underage drinking. Ouch. That's not enough though. They left to go drinking while leaving their new infant at home with Mom and Dad, A.K.A. the grandparents.
After the posting, said drinker got a request from Mom to Add as Friend. Immediately, drinker deleted the post about the party, and possibly any other unsightly posts, before adding Mom as a friend. That's one way to do it, but now drinker will have to be careful what they post, lest mother finds out.
I am in no way condoning what drinker did, but where's the privacy? That's no way to have a social life. If drinker didn't add Mom as friend, what then? What kind of conversation might have taken place? Not a good one, that's for sure. Remember, I know them personally, and I know what would have been said.
No doubt there are millions of others going through the same. What's the point of continuing a social networking site if you can't be social on your own terms?
---------
Those with nothing to hide are safe and probably haven't complained in the least about adding an authoritative family member to their friends list. Are you one of those few?
To Add as Friend, or not Add as Friend? That is the question.
Do YOU need to ask it?
I think by now we all have an understanding of just what Web 2.0 is and where it came from. Let’s try to talk about it in a different way.
Maybe I should make a list of Web 2.0 tools and applications. Wait, that’s already been done. The list wouldn’t be feasible to write out on this blog anyways.
Web 2.0 has been around for nearly 5 years now. Is it time for someone to officially declare the beginning of Web 3.0? Not quite yet, but surely the time is near.
We could ask Sean Maloney, Intel CMO, about the future of web and media and see what he has to say about the subject.
The web works today based on so much user input. It still has lingering 1.0 information, databases. Combine 1.0 with 2.0 and add a little something that improves the interaction with the user and you have something more like Web 3.0.
Of course, these days, even Web 3.0 might be old news. They’ll call it Web 3.0, but it’ll act more like Web 5.0 if the predictors have their way.
But wait, some say there might not even be a Web 5.0, let alone a Web 4.0. With Web 3.0 designed to do nearly everything for us, how can we expect to find something new for it to do? What do you get the person who has everything?
We’ll have to wait and see what Web 3.0 brings us in terms of improvements and usability. More importantly, if there is to be a continuance of these n.0 buzzwords, it might be more important to see what Web 3.0 doesn’t bring us.
I am a Google Waver. I video chat in Yahoo Messenger. I contribute to multiple online forums. I communicate with people who don't live anywhere near me geographically. I produce original content for a weblog community. I do it all in short bursts of time.
I combine all of the above with the work I do for CICS, my day job and personal time.
I am an integral part of a Distributed Collaborative Community. In fact, I consider everything I do to be contributions to multiple DCCs.
No doubt, if you've taken a class instructed by Dr. Jay Gillette, you've heard about this term before. Or perhaps you've heard about it from your involvement in the Human Factors Institute (HFI). Have you stopped to think about the effect it may have on your own lives? You should.
In today's world, it's nearly impossible to get teamwork done without being a part of a DCC. Everyone has different schedules, commutes, extracurricular activities, family obligations and personal freedoms. It's not always easy to communicate at the same time, place or both. How much gets done in disparate locations at all hours of the day? Good question.
Take advantage of the communication tools we have at our disposal. Each of us are DCC experts. Use that knowledge to your advantage.
The Information Renaissance is now. It began in the 20th century and continues today. Similar to the European Renaissance, enlightenment today leads the way to new ways of thinking. This new thinking leads the way to new technology and subsequently an increase in information.
Over the last century, particularly the last 50 years, the advancement and rise of technology has been explosive. We’ve come from using horse-drawn carriages to visit out neighbors and postal couriers who delivered the mail by hand to internal combustion engines that power our vehicles and multiple computer applications that allow split second collaboration.
Nearly all of the technological advancements over the past decades have increased our exchange of information exponentially. 10, 20, 30 fold? Who knows? It may be immeasurable. The fact remains that now, today, is the time of the Information Renaissance.
We, as graduate students in the Center for Information and Communication Sciences, are at the precipice of tomorrow’s information technologies. We are the men and women who are taking on new ways of thinking today to affect change in the world tomorrow.
Enjoy your time here, take advantage of every opportunity you’re privy to, and build up your camaraderie among fellow candidates. Know this, we are the ones responsible for continuing this amazing age of information exchange and advancement. We are responsible for creating new ways of thinking about information. Does this scare you? It shouldn’t. This is an amazing opportunity to make our mark in the shaping of tomorrow’s world.
The Information Renaissance is now. We are the privileged few. Take solace in that fact.
I’m going to put a little different slant on plagiarism.
I’ve been following the blog of a certain Twitter Engineer and photographer for some time now. Dustin Diaz has taken on a small personal project where he takes 1 photograph each day for 365 days. Not of himself, necessarily, though some of the photographs are. The point is to take the time each and every day to be creative. He forces himself to take a photograph even if it’s 11:59 pm and he hasn’t done one yet for the day. It takes dedication and creative stamina to come up with something different every day, always trying something new.
After all that hard work, effort, and creative exhaustion, what happens? He becomes another casualty of plagiarism. Luckily, after following the incidents that took place over the past few months, the realization is that his photograph was only half plagiarized. The company that published the picture in one of their magazines did have a legal license to purchase his photograph, which they worked out with Getty Images, but they did not credit Dustin as the photographer. They still haven’t because they haven’t retracted the published credits in the magazine and the haven’t made reprints.
Plagiarism isn’t just confined to literary works. It applies to many different forms of intellectual property. Photographs are one such property and they are becoming increasingly popular to plagiarize. Though it is technically copyright infringement, to me, that is a form of plagiarism.
As a scientist in the Center for Information and Communication Sciences, how does this affect me? Well, scientists don’t just write ideas down. They may want to photograph something to go along with their research. This may be crucial for an accurate account of information. If it is plagiarized like the above example, it may have dire consequences for those who don’t know the work is plagiarized.
An example of an anti-ethical statement that I came up with: If it applies, plagiarize! If you use it and don't cite this blog, you're plagiarizing.
Let us not follow that statement, ever. Too many others already do, and you and I know better.