Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Feb 8, 2012, 3:25 am
Why Benchmark SEO For UK University Web Sites? The recent JISC Grant funding 18/11: OER rapid innovation describes (in the PDF document) how this call is based on a conceptualisation of “open educational resources as a component of a wider field of ‘open academic practice’, encompassing t...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Feb 6, 2012, 3:45 am
Yesterday I favourited (or should I say ‘favorited’) a tweet from @lisaharris which had a link to an article on “Scholars Seek Better Ways to Track Impact Online” published in The Chronicle of Higher Education. An hour or so later I received a direct message (DM) asking me if I was intereste...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Feb 3, 2012, 1:04 pm
A post on How Higher Education Uses Social Media published two hours ago by Mashable.com provides an infographic on how US universities are using social media services. Much of the content is based on bland summaries of how the services are being used: “Class announcements and discussions are s...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Feb 2, 2012, 3:43 am
Early this morning I came across a tweet which announced: Academic study – Most tweets are useless http://j.mp/xf85VN The tweet provided a link to an article published in MacWorld which described how: Carnegie Mellon University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Georgia Institute of Te...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Feb 1, 2012, 4:30 am
“Google is the Home Page!” Back in April 2011 the UK government’s Alpha.gov.uk team discussed the implications for web developers of Google being the homepage. This was followed up last week with a post which asked “What does “Google is the homepage” mean IRL?“. The background to th...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Jan 30, 2012, 11:46 am
A recent tweet from@andres_pedreno announced: Future Technology according to Microsoft Filed under: jiscob
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Jan 27, 2012, 4:10 am
Over two years ago in a post entitled Extending Your Community – Through Machine Translation I suggested that although in the past machine translation was felt to be of little use, developments with services such as Google Translate may mean that “machine translation now does have a role to play...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Jan 25, 2012, 4:55 am
The JISC-funded Linking You Project The Linking You project was provided by the University of Lincoln and funded by the JISC under the Infrastructure for Education and Research Programme. Its aim was to look at and make recommendations for improving the way that identifiers for .ac.uk domains are ...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Jan 23, 2012, 4:50 am
“Massively Scalable Sensemaking Analytics” A recent post outlined My Predictions for 2012. However rather than just posting some idle speculations on technological developments which I feel will have an impact across the higher education sector this year, I also pointed out that there was a n...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Jan 18, 2012, 5:07 am
Providing a Benchmark of University Use Of Social Web Services In a recent post in which I gave My Predictions for 2012 I predicted that “Social networking services will continue to grow in importance across the higher education sector“. But how will we be able to assess the accuracy of that pr...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Nov 1, 2011, 5:00 am
Summary of Blog Usage Today sees the fifth anniversary of the launch of the UK Web Focus blog which took place on 1 November 2006. A year after the launch I provided  a review of  The First Year Of The UK Web Focus Blog and on 1 November 2009 reviewed The Third Anniversary of the UK Web Focus...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Oct 31, 2011, 5:37 am
On Thursday I presented a short paper entitled “What’s on the Technology Horizon?” at the ILI 2011 conference. The paper, which is available in MS Word format, described initial work of the JISC Observatory which led to the publication of the Technology Outlook: UK Tertiary Education report. ...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Oct 29, 2011, 5:59 am
Thoughts on #ILI2011 As I said to one of the two video bloggers who recorded participants’ thoughts and comments about the Internet Librarian International (ILI) conference, ILI is probably my favourite conference as it provides an opportunity to catch up in developments in the online Library wor...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Oct 28, 2011, 5:31 am
The W3C are hosting their first conference: “W3Conf: Practical Standards for Web Professionals”which will take on 15-16 November 2011 at the Redmond Marriot Town Center, Redmond, USA. Although the early bird registration fee of $199 for the two day event seems very reasonable I suspect that des...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Oct 26, 2011, 4:29 am
What’s On The Technology Horizon? Tomorrow I’m giving a talk on “What’s on the Technology Horizon?” at the Internet Librarian International (ILI) 2011 conference. This talk is based on a “Technology Outlook: UK Higher Education” report commissioned by UKOLN and CETIS which explores th...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Oct 24, 2011, 4:40 am
Open Access Week 2011: #OAWeek Today marks the launch of Open Access Week. This is a global event, now in its 5th year, which promotes Open Access as a new norm in scholarship and research.  As described in last year’s summary about the event: “Open Access” to information – the free, imme...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Oct 21, 2011, 5:00 am
Yesterday’s blog post asked “Are University Web Sites In Decline?“. Although some anecdotal evidence suggests that in a number of cases this may not be the case, it is also true that there is increasing competition for ‘eyeballs’, with many organisations being prepared to invest resources...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Oct 20, 2011, 4:00 am
Are Web Sites In Decline? Are organisational Web sites in decline? Earlier this year an article suggested that this was the case for an number of well-known companies, such as Coca Cola (“Coca Cola’s website traffic is down more than 40% in just 12 months“). The article cited a study by We...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Oct 17, 2011, 4:20 am
Metrics For Web Accessibility A recent tweet from @LouWoodley alerted me to a post which described “Here is how you can game Klout“.  The post described how an automated bot seems to have been successful in gaining a high ranking on Klout.  A clear example of the limitations of automated use ...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Oct 12, 2011, 3:37 am
The JISC have recently announced the JISC Grant Funding Call 16/11 for the JISC Digital Infrastructure Programme. The call has six strands in the areas of 1) Resource Discovery; 2) Enhancing the Sustainability of Digital Collections; 3) Research Information Management; 4) Research Tools; 5) Appl...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Oct 11, 2011, 9:10 am
Back in April 2008 in a post entitled “The Rise and Fall of Apache?” I contrasted the fall in the numbers of Web servers running on the Apache Web server software with the corresponding rise in use of the Microsoft Web server software, as illustrated below. But how have things changed over the...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Oct 10, 2011, 4:00 am
On Friday 7th October 2011 I attended a one-day event on “The future of the past of the web“. The event, which was organised was organised by the British Library, the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC) and the JISC, was the third joint Web archiving workshop, the previous two workshops having...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Oct 4, 2011, 6:00 am
Are you pleased, angry or indifferent to Facebook developments (photograph taken at Kelvingrove Museum, Glasgow) Looking at the Evidence What is your take on recent Facebook developments? Are you feeling angry and have perhaps already deleted your Facebook account as have one or two of my Facebook...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Sep 29, 2011, 4:25 am
Technology Outlook: UK Higher Education The New Media Horizon’s “Technology Outlook: UK Higher Education” report, which was commissioned by UKOLN and CETIS,  explores the impact of emerging technologies on teaching, learning, research or information management in UK tertiary education over t...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Sep 26, 2011, 5:00 am
Implication of Changes To Facebook The changes to Facebook announced at Facebook’s F8 Developers conference last week haven’t gone down well in some circles with a number of the people I follow on Twitter expressing their concerns at the privacy implications of recent changes and one or two hav...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Sep 23, 2011, 6:18 am
An Example Of Facebook’s Success During the summer I was involved in using Social Media to promote the Bath Folk Festival. Although I set up a Bathfolkfest Twitter account, I discovered that, apart from a small number of the performers, folkies don’t appear to make significant use of Twitter. ...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Sep 21, 2011, 5:30 am
Is Google+ Dead? Is Google+ dead?  Dan Reimold certainly thinks so. In a post entitled “Google+: Social Media Upstart ‘Worse Than a Ghost Town‘” he suggest that Google+ may “simply a social media step too far” and is now “worse than a ghost town“.  In his conclusions he reflects o...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Sep 20, 2011, 9:55 am
The Microsoft Academic Search Service At the recent Science Online London (SOLO) 2011 conference I attended a session on the Microsoft Academic Search service.  There seem to have been a lot of developments to this service since I first signed up for it shortly it had been announced.  I couldn�...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Sep 19, 2011, 5:08 am
Vacancies in Institutional Web Teams Orla Weir, head of Digital Strategy at the University of Salford, recently asked me for suggestions on place places to publish information about a number of vacancies which are available in the new central digital team at the University of Bath.  My initial sug...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Sep 15, 2011, 11:17 am
JISC Observatory’s Horizon Scan As described on the JISC Observatory blog the JISC Observatory is a “JISC-funded initiative to systematise the way in which the JISC anticipates and responds to projected future trends and scenarios in the context of the use of technology in Higher & Further Educ...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Sep 14, 2011, 3:11 am
University of the Year For the first time in a long, long time last weekend I bought the Sunday Times.  The reason for this was to read the Sunday Time’s announcement that the University of Bath has been identified as the University of the Year. As someone who has worked and lived in Bath for a...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Sep 12, 2011, 5:00 am
Recent Features on Web Archiving The recent guest blog post entitled Web archives: more useful than just a ‘historical snapshot’ was quite timely, having been published a few days after a related article in the Time Higher Education (Memory Failure Detected) which described how: A coalition ...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Sep 9, 2011, 4:05 am
Microattributions Session at #SOLO11 One of the sessions I attended at the SOLO (Science Online London) 2011 event held in London last week addressed the role of ‘microattributions’ in science (note that there isn’t a specific page on the SOLO11 Web site which I can link to so I have created ...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Sep 7, 2011, 3:45 am
In this guest blog post Maureen Pennock, the Web Archive Engagement & Liaison Manager at the British Library, explores some possible approaches to exploiting the scholarly value of web archives. Web archives: more useful than just a ‘historical snapshot’ The importance of the internet for rese...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Sep 6, 2011, 3:30 am
The #SOLO11 Conference As I mentioned in yesterday’s post on Use of Twitter at the SOLO11 Conference on Friday and Saturday, 2-3 September 2011 I attended the Science Online London 2011 event, SOLO11. We are now starting to see various posts on the event being published. One of the first repor...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Sep 4, 2011, 11:03 am
SOLO11: the Science Online London Conference On Friday and Saturday, 2-3 September 2011 I attended the Science Online London 2011 event, SOLO11.  This event was launched in 2008 with a focus on science blogging. I attended the second in the series (and published a post entitled The Back Channels f...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Aug 31, 2011, 4:15 am
The Value of List Archives A recent post on Policies on Unused JISCMail Lists highlighted the potential value of JISCMail lists which are no longer active but which host content which may provide historical insights into digital library developments. As is suggested by the recent JISC ITT for an ...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Aug 26, 2011, 4:00 am
This is a guest blog post by David F. Flanders (JISC Programme Manager responsible for persistent identifiers) and Joss Winn (Project Manager of the ‘Linking You Toolkit’). They ask for your opinions on some potential future work that JISC would like to take forward on behalf of the sector. Len...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Aug 24, 2011, 11:21 am
Supporting the Scientific Communications Sector I came across a good example of rapid innovation on Twitter last night.  A few days ago Jo Brodie (@JoBrodie) a science information officer and Diabetes UK & Public Engagement Co-ordinator,  tweeted that she was: Seriously drooling at LSHTM’s web...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Aug 23, 2011, 4:00 am
Problems With Android Phones Over two years ago I wrote a post entitled This Year’s Technology That Has Blown Me Away. In the post I described how Bathcamp participants were invited to … identify “the one technology that has blown you away more than any other in the last year, and why“. Th...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Aug 22, 2011, 4:40 am
Greening Events II For several year’s we have explored ways in which a range of technologies can be used to enhance discussions at an event and maximise the impact of events by providing what has become known as amplified or hybrid events. Back in 2005 we made use of an IRC channel to enhance dis...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Aug 17, 2011, 4:00 am
Last week I received an email from JISCMail which invited me to state whether an unused mailing list should be retained or deleted: Lists: LIS-ELIB-MANAGERS Your JISCMail list(s) have not been used for over 3 years. Please email to helpline@jiscmail.ac.uk to confirm whether the list should now b...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Aug 16, 2011, 4:00 am
The Need to Reflect on Changes to Working Practices UKOLN’s annual IWMW event provides a useful opportunity to evaluate new technologies with participants from across the UK HE sector being able to identify successes which may be of valuable for use in their own institutions. In addition there wi...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Aug 11, 2011, 4:00 am
Open Content in Higher Education I have been involved in promoting open access to resources for several years. Back in 2005 I presented a paper on Let’s Free IT Support Materials! at the EUNIS 2005 conference in which I suggested that: Although interest in open access has initially focussed on...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Aug 9, 2011, 10:10 am
Feedback on IWMW 2011 UKOLN’s annual institutional Web management workshop, IWMW 2011,  took place at the University 0f Reading on 25-26 July. This year’s event was reduced from three to two days since it was unclear how the economic downturn would affect bookings.  The event attracted 163 bo...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Jul 28, 2011, 11:17 am
IWMW 2011: Responding to Change Warm weather at IWMW11 so one parallel session took place outside The IWMW 2011 event, the fifteenth in this annual series of event aimed at members of institutional Web teams, took place at the University of Reading on Tuesday and Wednesday, 26-27 July.  At the IWM...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Jul 25, 2011, 5:41 am
Current Diversity of Approaches to the Mobile Access to Institutional Services Do we want diversity in the technologies used to provide various institutional Web services or should we be seeking to gain benefits which may be provided by adoption of a small range of technological approaches? The in...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Jul 22, 2011, 4:03 am
Maximising Institutional Webmaster Impact UKOLN’s IWMW 2011 event takes place at the University of Reading next week.  We’ve always felt that this event should not be constrained to the physical space and time. The event amplification will be provided again this year, with dedicated support pr...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Jul 20, 2011, 4:36 am
Last week’s news on the WordPress.com blog that “WordPress.com oEmbed Provider API Now Available” will be appreciated by developers who feel that the WordPress platform provides a rich and interoperable environment not only as a blogging platform but also as a content management system.  The...
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Brian K. posted an article on UK Web Focus - Jul 18, 2011, 10:19 am
In this guest post, event amplifier Kirsty Pitkin reports on the key messages from the recent UKOLNeim workshop – Metrics and Social Web Services: Quantitative Evidence for their Use and Impact. Introduction In introducing the event, Brian Kelly emphasised that the aims were to explore ways of g...
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