ICTlogy

February 2008 issue of the Open Source Business Resource has published a “for the practitioner” version of my work “The personal research portal: web 2.0 driven individual commitment with open access for development”.

I slightly adapted the contents to make them more appealing to a non-scholarly audience, but the core idea remains the same.

BTW, I added a cite by the Beautiful South. It’s cryptic, but it is fully relevant — at least to me — when you think of knowledge, knowledge sharing, knowledge binding … and knowledge pimping these days.

I want to sincerely thank Dru Lavigne for betting on it.

More info:

• Peña-López, I. (2008). “The personal research portal”. In Open Source Business Resource, February 2008, 23-27. Ottawa: Talent First Network.
• Read it online: http://www.osbr.ca/ojs/index.php/osbr/article/view/517/476
• Download it: 20080221_ismael_pena_personal_research_portal_osbr.pdf (, 535.35 Kb)

Abstract:

Digital technologies have forever changed the way that knowledge is disseminated and accessed. Yet, the main problem knowledge workers face is invisibility: if people don’t know that you know, and people are not aware of what you know, you do not exist.

Governments and institutions are being pushed to foster Open Access (OA) literature as a way to achieve universal reach of research diffusion at inexpensive and immediate levels. Most efforts have been made at the institutional level, dedicating little energy to what the individual can do to contribute. The philosophy and tools around web 2.0 bring clear opportunities for individuals to contribute and to build a broader personal presence on the Internet and a better diffusion for their work, interests or publications.

We propose the concept of the personal research portal (PRP) as a means to create a digital identity for knowledge workers–tied to one’s digital public notebook and personal repository–and a virtual network of colleagues working in the same field. Complementary to formal publishing or taking part in offline meetings, the PRP would be a knowledge management system that would enhance reading, storing, and creation at both the private and public levels, and contribute to create an online identity that, in turn, will help to create a network whose currency is knowledge.

My article El portal personal del profesor: El claustro virtual o la red tras las aulas [The Teacher’s Personal Portal: the Virtual Faculty or the Net behind the Classrooms] has just been published in the last issue (#223) of Comunicación y Pedagogía, a monograph about Social Networks in the framework of communication and education.

For those already familiar with my recent interests in open access, open science and open education, you’ll find the article is based on my former The personal research portal: web 2.0 driven individual commitment with open access for development, though this one is lighter (in all senses), fresher, and includes a new section about Open Educational Resources (OER).

Acknowledgments

As it always happens, I had already submitted the article when I discovered Tíscar Lara‘s article Blogs para educar. Usos de los blogs en una pedagogía constructivista [Blogs to educate: blog uses in a constructivist pedagogy]. I would have undoubtedly used it for my article had I found it before.

Actually, she’s published another article in a Monographic about Blogs in Education issued by the Spanish National Center of Educational Information and Communication (CNICE), whose Head of web contents and educational Television, Carmen Candioti, visited us last October to take part into the Web 2.0 and Education Seminar. The monograph is a good gathering of interesting experiences and reflections about educational blogging and Education 2.0 in general.

When I was writing the article, I couldn’t get out of my head the people that, later on, formally created Grupo Nodos ELE. Grupo Nodos ELE is a group of Spanish as a Foreign Language teachers whom I really admire for their resolution and commitment to work online to share knowledge and efforts to improve their own works. It all began with scattered personal blogs and it’s evolving into a rich virtual community of practice. My kudos to them for that brilliant initiative and the passion they show.

Another initiative I want to highlight is Aulablog, whose blog keeps the Spanish speaking community up-to-date about Education 2.0 projects: I mean, real projects where people do things. Your needed daily dose of reality.

And I want to thank Lorenzo García Aretio, the coordinator of the monograph, and Adolfo Estalella for encouraging me to (re)write the article. Their task was not easy for them, so thank you.

More info

• Peña-López, I. (2007). “El portal personal del profesor: El claustro virtual o la red tras las aulas”. In Comunicación y Pedagogía, (223). Barcelona: Centro de Comunicación y Pedagogía. Full reference and abstract.
• Download the full article (95 Kb)
• Peña-López, I., Córcoles, C. & Casado, C. (2006). “El Profesor 2.0: docencia e investigación desde la Red”. In UOC Papers, (3). Barcelona: UOC
• Reader on Web 2.0 and Education

Back in March 10th, 2006, I was asked to impart a workshop about Web 2.0 and diffusion of research. The workshop was improved, repeated and even published with a strong focus on teaching.

The subject quite caught on me and I’ve been working since to (a) strengthen the theoretical framework and (b) give it the “for development” bias that I’m so fond of. There’s quite a bunch or articles that I’ve been publishing here exploring ideas, doubts, thoughts about the issue — just on my previous article, for instance.

Finally, it has taken the appropriate shape and been published in the Knowledge Management for Development Journal, in an issue under the topic of Stewarding technologies for collaboration, community building and knowledge sharing in development, coordinated by Nancy White, Beth Kanter, Partha Sarker, Oreoluwa Somolu, Beverly Trayner, Brenda Zulu and Lucie Lamoureux. Having an article accepted — and commented — by such a team is something that makes you feel really good, as they all are people of reference in both the researcher and practitioner fields.

The full reference is:

Peña-López, I. (2007). “The personal research portal: web 2.0 driven individual commitment with open access”. In Knowledge for Management Journal, 3(1), 35-48. Amsterdam: KM4Dev Community. Retrieved July 30, 2007 from http://www.km4dev.org/journal/index.php/km4dj/article/view/92

On the other hand, a live presentation of the contents of this article will take place at the Web2forDev Conference in Rome next 25 to 27 September 2007.

Feedback welcome!

The Council of Science Editors is organizing a Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Development in October 2007. Science journals throughout the world will simultaneously publish papers on this topic of worldwide interest – to raise awareness, stimulate interest, and stimulate research into poverty and human development. This is an international collaboration with journals from developed and developing countries.

ICTlogy, the review of ICT4d (ISSN 1886-5208), will be joining the initiative.

Thanks to Francisco Lupiáñez, for pointing me to the original piece of news, and to Jeni Reiling, for kindest attention.

More info

• Council of Science Editors: Global Theme Issue

My proposal for a thematic showcase for the Web2forDev – Participatory Web for Development conference has been accepted. Thus, I’d be presenting The personal research portal: web 2.0 driven individual commitment with open access for development in Rome next 25th to 27th September, 2007.

As you might have noticed, this communication is quite similar to the one I’ll be presenting in York three weeks before. But, even if the abstract applies for both presentations, the focus is quite different.

In York the focus will be on research and diffusion of research. So, the stress will be, in one hand, in scholarly networking and old and new ways of knowledge sharing and building among colleagues. On the other hand, and over all, the stress will be put in self-archiving and self-publishing as parallel ways of scientific diffusion, dealing also with old and new ways of peer review. Put short: I’ll speak about the concept over the tools.

In Rome the focus will be on open access for development. There, the stress will be on new ways to access scientific knowledge by developing countries’ researchers and, reversely, on digital identities, networking and presence on the Net by these researchers. Put short: I’ll speak about the tools over the concept.

On one hand I’m afraid I won’t be able to explain really brand new things from one conference to the other one — they’re just 20 days away one from each other. On the other hand, I believe there is so much to be explored in the field of web 2.0 and how these concept and tools can be applied to research and development (a different thing?), that the potential debate will provide what I might be lacking of, hence I expect to come back home full of new learning, ideas and interesting input.

During next 19, 20, 21 & 22, June 2007, will take place the II Jornadas Internacionales de Innovación Educativa de la Escuela Politécnica Superior de Zamora [II International Conference on Educational Innovation at the Engineering School of Zamora, Spain].

On Wednesday 20th morning I’ll be presenting my paper Capacitación digital en la UOC: la alfabetización tecnológica vs. la competencia informacional y funcional [Digital capacity building at UOC: technological literacy vs. informational and functional literacy].

The same day, during the afternoon, my colleague Teresa Sancho will also be presenting a paper of hers about teaching Maths and Physics in Engineering degrees.

Here follows the abstract to my communication. The full text can be downloaded in Spanish and Catalan only.

Digital capacity building at UOC: technological literacy vs. informational and functional literacy

If the goal of competences training in the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA) is adapting to new times, it is evident that a correct digital literacy is an essential basis to work in the informational society. There is, nevertheless, a sort of bias in the definition of the term “digital literacy”, a bias that tends to shift towards the most technological side of the concept. Notwithstanding, beyond the knowledge of technology, there is a new world to discover concerning its use, what it is usually called informational literacy – the efficient and effective use of Information and Communication Technologies – and that, along with technology, requires a functional digital capacitation in the use of ICTs.

At the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) the student has at his arm’s reach a collection of services that will help him out through his way over (a possible) technological illiteracy and, above all, he is taught – implicitly and explicitly – in the use of these technologies through the interaction in the virtual campus, in the following of specific subjects and in exercises and practices solving.

This paper tracks the path of the evolution of the different capacities that form, as a whole, the total development of what we could call functional digital competence, and presents the moments or experiences in which the student acquires these capacities by studying in a virtual campus.