Adding Documentation tab on Ning

As a start I thought it would be useful to have a specific tab on DIVAS so validation documents can be displayed on that page and I called it Documentation.

This required investigation through Ning Developers Community on how to implement a new tab on Ning. I have uploaded the validation documents’ links that I have received from Chris Gray.

Hectic Work in August

I had a busy period in August, organising our activities and tasks liaising with Quality Improvement Services in order to have everything completed before the launch of the community of Practice

At present DIVAS COP support team consists of Chris Gray, Sue Kneill and myself. We have agreed to complete our action points before the next DIVAS meeting in September.

Chris Gray has not decided on the online event‘s name for September. However he found out the meeting date of Teaching and Learning Enhancement Committee (LTEC) which will be 13th October. We can demo DIVAS project to senior managers to raise the awareness at this meeting. He sent me links of validation documents of The Quality Improvement Service website to be posted onto the main page of DIVAS COP.

Sue Kneill has got a list of names of award leaders and is still looking for an online live presentation software to be used in our online events.

I have created a guide for new users of DIVAS Community of Practice on how to get into Forum discussion. Sue Kneill and I decided to attach this guide in the invitation which will be sent on 15th September, to ensure that all users are getting smoothly into DIVAS social network and avoiding any frustration and wastage of time.

I have edited a brief introduction to DIVAS project to be included in the invitation email which informs staff about the project and next online event. This should be included with the invitation

I have produced an initial presentation of the DIVAS project. The slides will demonstrate the aims and objectives of the project and the approaches and techniques that will be used to implement the system. Chris Gray and I originally thought about presenting these slides in a face-to-face event in October, however Sue Lee being the project manager, decided to create the presentation by herself and asked me and Chris Gray to present it with her.

I have not had the chance to shoot an introduction video of DIVAS project as we gave this task a low priority.

Few questions I thought of to be appeared on the registry page e.g. Could you please introduce yourself (i.e. brief idea about your role), What is your expectation of DIVAS community of practice?. This will help us to know more details about our clients’ requirements and expectations.

Launching Approach of Community of Practice

As a team we have talked about how to launch DIVAS community of practice to the stakeholders but we do not know what is going to happen or whether it will succeed. There was a concern about the approach we should adopt to develop and support the community. To announce it to our award leaders is likely to cause problems if the initiative fails to gain support.

It was agreed with the project manager to start approaching the existing in-house communities creators .I had a meeting with Helen Walmsley (E-learning Models Co-ordinator) who runs and supports Models of Best Practice online community. We discussed how to develop a successful community of practice; I took notes of several helpful tips and advice from her.

To be familiar with this subject I looked into relevant books in the library (e.g. Cultivating Communities of Practices) and online articles. I came to the decision for the prevalent approach in getting the community started:

1. Identify the domain of the people, who will have an interest in this community, they are award leaders in this case

2. Arrange a face-to-face meeting with them where we can have the opportunity to explain about the project and introduce DIVAS community of practice and give them a chance to login to the system. The most important activity will be getting to know them more closely, capturing their expectations and requirements of the community and establishing good relationships with them.

3. Let them know about the next online meeting’s subject and date.

However, the plan was slightly changed. It was recognised that September can be a hectic time for award leaders to physically attend meetings because of their involvement with students enrolments and they need to prepare their learning materials for the new academic year, hence the project manager recommended to start with an online event in late September followed by a face-to –face event in Late October.

Our Preparations Towards September

Sue K and I had a meeting on Thursday 7th August to review the events Chris and I had generated in the last meeting. We confirmed the first two events ( the ones in September and late October) and decided to launch the DIVAS COP at beginning of September ( since the majority of staff will be back from holidays). We created action plan in co-ordination with the previous one produced by Chris G and me.

Action Plan:

SK - gets the award leaders’ list ready (by end of August- early September)
HB /SK - send invitation to award leaders at the beginning of September.
HB – prepares a brief guide 2-3 pages on Ning Discussion
HB - prepares a brief introduction of DIVAS to go with the invitation
HB - tells staff about the next “Intro to Ning” event. This should be included with the invitation
HB/SK/SL – think about questions (2-3) to appear on the registry page (e.g. what are the staff expectations and motivation to join in COP, what benefits do they aim for?)
SK - looks for online live presentation software (free, robust, reliable and easy to use)
HB – thinks of shooting an introduction video on DIVAS

Meeting with QIS

I had a meeting with Chris Gray (Quality Improvement Officer) on Thursday 5th August to discuss the events which will take a place on the DIVAS Community of Practice through the academic year.

We agreed on these initial events:

• First Online Event: Validation Process presentation by CG and HB - early September
• Second Face to Face Event: : Introduction to DIVAS by HB and CG - late October
• Third Online Event: Developing Foundation Degree by Richard Benefer or CG - November?
• Fourth Online Event: Technology Supported Learning by Glynn Skerrat - December? Or E-learning by Sue Lee or HB - December?
• Fifth Online Event: Validation Panel member by Mary Furness? Month?

A demonstration of DIVAS community ( functions and facilities) was given to Chris Gray who agreed to cascade the demo to his colleagues in the ADI department.

At the end of the meeting we produced an action plan to be completed before September.

• CG thinks about the online event‘s name for September.
• CG finds out about the meeting of Teaching and Learning Enhancement Committee so we can demo DIVAS to senior managers to raise the awareness.
• HB creates PowerPoint presentation and sends it to CG
• HB designs snapshots of DIVAS system prototype using Graphic Design application
• CG sends HB the links of validation documents of The Quality Improvement Service website to be posted onto the main page of DIVAS COP.
• HB finds a method on how to send events/forums adverts to all COP members
  

Copyrights & Security

Copyrights issue was raised in the meeting on July 8th. This was concerned about the uploaded validation documents, will they be belong to NING?

I have designated the network as private so only invited staff can sign up to become members and it will be visible to them only.

Investiagtion has been carried out by contacting Ning support team who ensured that any content submitted to private network will be deemed to be private content. Private content is licensed for use only within the network into which it is posted. Ning does not claim any ownership rights in the content we provide. We own the content we create and upload.

Ning uses industry standard security measures to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under thier control. They store the information in a secure operating environment that is not available to the public. However, they do not guarantee complete security. as they cannot guarantee that their security measures will prevent third-party "hackers" from illegally obtaining this information.

Exploring Ning

Creating an online community of practice was identified as one of the DIVAS project deliverables. It is aimed to provide an architecture of participation to build a cross-university Community-of-Practice with flexible and convenient access to user-contributed validation support information for re-use and further exploitation.

In the past I have joined several social networks like Facebook, MySpace and others , they were general with no specific interest other than people connecting with people while I have found Ning network is a DIY social space - anyone can create a little social network (like a website) without coding. I have created a DIVAS network, gave it a tagline, description, keywords and network icon. I have customised the theme and its settings (Body & Content area) to get the intuitive and user-friendly interface. Ning allows Network creators & Adminstrators to alter the appearnce of the theme to a certain extent by modifing the code of the Cascading Style Sheets. I have configured CSS to remove the "Invite" tab from the interface which was a bit confusing to some users (sorry SK I did not mean you ;-)

See the code below

/* Try to remove Invite Links */

div#xg_module_account small,div.members_module div.xg_module_foot li.left,div.xg_widget_profiles_friend_list div.xg_module p.left a.add,div.success p,html[xmlns] .xg_module_friends,div.xg_module_friends div.xg_module_body p a.button,div.xg_module_friends div.xg_module_foot li.left,form#xg_member_form a.add,#xg_tab_invite,div#xg.xg_widget_profiles_friend div#xg_body div.xg_colgroup div.xg_3col div.xg_module div.xg_module_body p.right strong a.add { display: none; }div#xg_module_account small.nobr { display: block; }

The adverts that run in the right column of the network were a bit irritating, it would look nice without them. They can be removed once we purchase the "Control the Ads" premium service for $19.95 per month. ( Horray! Sue L. agreed to purchase the service :-)

"Invite more" is visible for members and Admin, so members can invite other people. I have put a control on this, so when member sends an invitation to a friend, a notification email will be sent to me to accept or decline this member. I have invited all team members to DIVAS to share with them the experience and identify issues before luanching it live in September.

Group - members can create their private groups within DIVAS network e.g. Faculty/Dept-based groups.

Ning comprhends useful collection of features e.g. creating events, forums, blogs, notes, text boxs, RSS, etc.... It will also allow members to upload documents, photo, audio and Video. Worth knowing that Ning provides a quota of 10GB of storage and 100GB of bandwidth. For more storage we have to purchase additional units of 10GB of storage and 100GB of bandwidth which will cost $9.95 per month, per unit.

I have set up a Flickr Import facility to enable DIVAS members to import photos from Flickr. I have incorporated a Frabbr map which will allow members to plot specific points and collaboration with the community of practice.