Building Advanced Social Networks at a Large U.S. University

Kyle Mathewstwitter.com/kylemathews

http://kyle.mathews2000.com

Masters of Informations Systems Management

at Brigham Young University in Provo Utah

AgendaIntroduce problemFuture of learning == social networksExamine island.byu.edu(semi)-deep dive into social objects, nodal

points and other fun social networking theory

Life Goal:Help organizations work and learn faster

and better

My job (as defined for me):Research assistant studying how to use

web2.0 tools in the classroom (do academic gubbidy guck)

My job (as defined by me):(help) fix Universities through social media

The Problem:“How did institutions designed for learning

become so widely hated by people who love learning?”

– Michael Wesch

The world is a changin'

The web is changing us

How we work

Play

And learn

Much much more information

The world changes faster and faster

Schools can't teach us just knowledge and set skills

(as their value depreciates in a few years)

Key skills for 21st century citizensSeparate needed information from chaff

Think/work/learn like expertsMastering networked learning

Replicate success of open source communities (which at their heart are

fantastic and massively successful learning communities)

Future of learning – fully social, deeply personalized, and passion-based

Key design principle for social learning systems

Link people to peopleNot people to content

Why haven't Universities already adapted these tools?

Universities acting like media businesses – don't want to change, defend tradition

Plus they don't get it. . .

“It is not necessary to change.Survival is not mandatory.”

– W.E. Deming

Resources: http://www.slideshare.net/opencontent/openness-and-the-disaggregated-

future-of-higher-education-presentation Minds on FIrehttp://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/

MindsonFireOpenEducationt/45823?time=1236222379 http://kyle.mathews2000.com/blog/2008/10/23/internet-reduces-need-expe

rts-where-does-leave-professors http://www.britannica.com/blogs/2008/10/a-vision-of-students-today-what-t

eachers-must-do/ http://www.jonmott.com/blog/?p=14 http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/2008/10/

rendering_knowledge.php

Now on to the main act

What is social networking?How are we using social networking to

support learning at BYU?

Past two years building social networking sites for classes in the Information

Systems department at BYU

A brief history. . .

A wee walk about. . .

Goals of Island1. Connect people / knowledge which aren't

connected but should be2. Provide tools for supporting learning

communities (classes and otherwise)3. Provide tools for building library of

knowledge

Social Objects (or sharing devices)

“The Social Object, in a nutshell, is the reason two people are talking to each

other, as opposed to talking to somebody else.”

– Hugh Macleod

Or in other words, take away the social object and the two people now have no

reason to talk to each other.

When was the last time you talked to some of your old coworkers?

Social objects are the tools we use to provide us opportunities to socialize with

others

Some examples

You get married and have a kid – your marriage and child are social objects

You go bowling on Wednesday night with some friends – bowling is a social object

Two women shop for cloths – the mall and clothing are social objects

Drupal is a great social object

Drupal is really Dries' brilliant and diabolical plan to get him tons of really smart,

interesting fun friends. . .

Sounds crazy but. . . It worked!

I joined the Drupal community for the community

Successful social networks have good social objects at their core

Or strong communities form around good social objects

Flickr = photosDogster = dogs

Youtube = videos

What are Drupal's social objects?

Drupal itselfModules in contrib and core

DocumentationIssues

Larger topics such as social networking, education, semantic web, performance,

etc.

groups.drupal.org == a bunch of social objects

Objects become more valuable when they become social objects (Drupal is great

software but it's even more cool because it helps you find good friends)

How to build a social networking site around social objects?

"Define the objects, name the verbs, network the objects"

– Chris Messina

FlickrVerbs == upload, download, embed

Network == comment, share via url, or updates sent to other social networks

DogsterVerbs – create profiles (for their dogs), give

gifts, adopt other dogs, post videos and pictures, and find dog related businesses

near their homes.

Drupal IssuesVerbs – create, change status, comment on,

discuss (in irc, email, g.d.o), enlist help, write code for, test patches (really

another social object)

Drupal's key to success == it's a great social network

A thought exercise:Paper towel social network

Object = paper towels of all sizes, colors, purpose, origin

Verbs = buy, sell, trade, write about, post videos, comment on

Education and social objects

Quality of content not critical as long it's a good social object (i.e. it gets students

talking)

“For instance, content that may be imperfect is often good for encouraging others to participate, or content that is contentious may be better at

stimulating debate. The very hard lesson for academics here is that the educational value is

not in the content itself but the social interaction it begets.”

– Martin Weller

Turn homework from an object to a social object

Resources:Social Objects in Education:http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2008/01/whats-a-social.html

Kyle Mathews: “What are Social Objects”http://kyle.mathews2000.com/blog/2009/02/21/what-are-social-objects

Kyle Mathews: “How to Design a Social Networking Site Using Social Objects”http://kyle.mathews2000.com/blog/2009/02/27/how-design-social-networking-site-using-social-

objects

How Island will use or does use networked social objects?

Island's social objects# Groups

# Posts (discussions, blog posts, job postings, events)# Comments

# Status updates

Something about how I'm trying to increase the amount of socialization around the

social objects + increase velocity of socialization with real time stuff

Link people to people through objectsNot people to objects

Nodal Points (patterns in data)

Recognizing patterns from large amounts of data

Information overwhelming, need help

Facebook News Feed

Ways to find interesting conversations, detect patterns:

Search Pattern (implemented)Group Pattern (implemented)

Follow Pattern (not implemented)Collaborative Filtering Pattern (not

implemented)

Future of Island (or how mining for collective intelligence will help BYU

students find cool people to do learn with and do great stuff)

Import lots of data from:TwitterFlickr

DeliciousFacebook

Wherever else that'll be so kind as to share

Mash it all together, let people interact, detect patterns, display patterns, repeat.

Key Question:Is there something happening in my

network I should know about?

Complex Adaptive Systems

Some examples

Kyle Mathews and 8 others are attending the lecture “How to bring about world

peace on less than a buck.”

Fred Buizman and 2 others commented on John's post “How to install Drupal in 5

minutes while juggling a tricycle.”

Beets Robinson and 7 others recently joined the “Web Services” group

What are people from your major saying? What are people saying about the big

football game? What events are popular with people you

follow?

Who is like you? Who should you follow?

What groups should you join?

Let's make the world a better place through social networks

Resources:Jyri's lecture on nodal points

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiWjAVcWK4g

Tim O'Reilly's def of web 2.0

http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_adaptive_systemhttps://island.byu.edu/wiki/social-gestures-ideas-wiki

Starting a company selling Island-like software to Universities!

Be good for something not just good at something

Questions?