Monetizing the ROI of Free News Impressions

People ask about how to measure the bang for the buck when it comes to obtaining free news coverage for organizations. Public Relations and Advertising firms need to have an answer to these questions for their clients. One consensus method for doing this has been the Advertisement Value Equivalency (AVE) model. But, in the age of social media, can this model even be used any more?... especially when it's becoming more and more condemned by editorialists and academics. Where's the research that incorporates social media into the equation?

Where the AVE model could be applied to assigning a value to traditional news impressions, is there a model that can do the equivalent when incorporating social media? Nothing made this question more poignant to me than the McCain/Obama race. McCain went traditional, where he could measure "If I put these dollars into getting this kind of news coverage, then my polls will rise about this much." It is actually very scientific and calculated. Obama, on the other hand, took what, at the time, was a huge unknown risk and focused on new and social media. No one could predict the outcome, let alone, give a specific known ROI. So what happened? Obama's coverage exploded, both in new and traditional media outlets. He really didn't care about measuring the bang for the buck ... as long as the bang was happening on its own.

This scares a lot of people ... because how can we utilize a massive tool if we cannot predict the outcomes from using it? And, the truth is, for now, we cannot predict how news coverage affects ROI. The rules have changed so much in the last two years. Simply consider Twitter and Facebook. A large number of educated people younger than 30 will go to these two outlets before anywhere else when they want to know what's going on in the world. If your story is not on these two sites, you are missing a major financial demographic.

Example: The United Breaks Guitars song that was posted on YouTube and massively proliferated on Facebook and Twitter. United Airlines could have simply given the guy his money back instead of dragging his claim out a year and then denying it. But since that's what they did, the guy wrote a song expressing his feelings and it exploded. Many using Twitter and Facebook heard about it and have watched it. United's stock dropped 10% in a couple days and there are those who attribute up to $180 million lost by United because of this song. The guy ended up having countless appearances on traditional news outlets, but it took social media to make it happen.

How in the world can a major company calculate ROI on phenomena like this? And, by extension, how in the world can PR and Ad agencies quote an ROI on Free News Impressions to their clients?

Ten Steps of Google Voice: Setting Up Your Account

Here are the basic steps and some tips to signing up with Google Voice, based on my experience:

1. Sign up for an invitation: Go to: http://www.google.com/voice and submit your email to receive an invitation directly from Google. If you have a Gmail account, use this email. No one else is allowed to invite others at this time, even after signing up with Google Voice (in other words, this process is different than when Google released Gmail where those who signed up could invite others).

2. Receive your emailed invitation from Google: It is unclear how Google is selecting individuals to receive invitations. It is not first come first serve, as I signed up for an invitation long before others I know and they received emailed invitations before me. Nonetheless, the only way to sign up for Google Voice is to use an invitation from Google. Interesting, though, I had a friend who received two invitations, when she only signed up for one. She used one and let me use the other, and they both worked fine. So, if you have a friend receive two invitations, you can use one.

3. Click on the link that is included in the email invitation: You can also copy and paste it, like any other embedded email link. It will look something like this: https://www.google.com/voice/inv/7Jqs-5TcFPdnKtN2nTm262hTjI4ddfe4d09d8f57a4

4. Enter your email information: Google is confirming that you have not already signed up for Google Voice. What's cool is if you enter your Gmail address here, all of your Gmail contacts automatically become Google Voice contacts. Basically, Google Voice just becomes another application (like Gmail, Blogger, iGoogle, Calendar, Docs, etc.) that is available when you log into your general Google account.

5. Choose a desired phone number: You can select a desired area code or zip code to designate a geographical area, but you don't have to. You can leave that field blank and do a general search for numbers and words across all geographical areas. This is nice, because you can then get desired numbers and words and not be concerned about where the number originates. In today's cell-phone-using world, geographical areas don't have as much meaning (like being concerned about long-distance phone calls) as they used to. Also, something fun is to refer to a website that can figure out words based on a given phone number, like: http://www.phonespell.org Or, if you are concerned about area codes (or find a number you like, but do not recognize the area code), you can use a website to help you know which area codes pertain to where, like: http://www.bennetyee.org/ucsd-pages/area.html

6. Select a four-digit security code: Choose some memorable code that you will use later when accessing some account info.

7. Assign phone numbers to your Google Voice account: You need to type in at least one and up to six phone numbers that you want to be associated with your Google Voice account. These need to be numbers that have not already been associated with a Google Voice account. They also need to be confirmable at the time you are assigning them (see step 8). So, if you have a unique email address and a unique phone number, you can sign up as many Google Voice accounts as you want (as long as you receive a unique emailed invitation from Google).

8. Confirm phone number: Google will call your phone number(s) and an automated voice will prompt you to type in the provided two-digit code on the phone's keypad. Within seconds of having done this, your Google Voice account will become activated. So, you want to list phone numbers to which you have immediate access.

9. Leave greeting: During this same confirming phone call, you have the opportunity to leave your first voice mail greeting for incoming calls.

10. Explore your new account: Take some time to acquaint yourself with your new Google Voice account. My favorite is to check out the contacts and see all my Gmail contacts already listed. Also, try calling someone through Google Voice. You will see how your phone rings first and when you answer it you hear it ringing the person you called. On their caller ID it shows your new Google Voice number.

Welcome to your new Google Voice account.

New Brain Control Toys and Limits on Virtual Currency

There's a day in my Public Relations classes that I call "New Technologies" day. It's where we discuss some new technologies that will affect the field of PR and communications. Lately, we've discussed CNN's i-report, brain wave movement devices, reality overlay, CNN's hologram, social media updates, and Second Life....to name a few. I always tell my students "by the end of class today, you will be shocked at what's out there." And, by the end of class, most are.

So, it's nice to see articles that will likely add to the information discussed in these class sessions.

Here's one on the New Force Toy which allows users to move things by concentrating. When I talk about this technology in class, I discuss a PBS series of specials I saw where monkeys were being trained to play simple videos games and move robotics using only their minds. Well, looks like human trials for toys have been completed.

And here's one on China limiting the transaction of virtual currency. I am actually surprised World of Warcraft is mentioned, but Second Life is not. Maybe the Chinese economy is threatened more by WoW than SL. I remember when I would show my students that you could sell Linden Dollars for American dollars on Ebay...that came to an end earlier this year. Cool to see Professor Edward Castronova mentioned in the article...from one of my Indiana University my Alma Mater departments.

These types of advances will drastically change communications in the not-so-distant future.

PR Research in a Social-Networking World

I am having my PR Research class do research on me. Their first assignment is to find out as much about me as they can using whatever resources they already have. It's an exercise in realizing how much about a person (and their affiliations) is available and how little control someone has over it. So, instead of trying to fight it in this social-networking world in which we live, we should learn to embrace it by putting correct info out there.

It's kind of like open content philosophies: instead of focusing on taking the time to fight negative uses, focus on new positive uses that can further your cause.

Instructional Effectiveness of OCW

I've received several communications from persons asking about the pedagogical approaches that are used in OCW projects, so here's my response:

There are benefits of the OpenCourseWare projects. Some were anticipated from the beginning at MIT, some are just now being discovered. The three main recipients of these benefits are (1) the institutions (university and commercial organizations mostly), (2) the end users, and (3) those who contribute their materials to OCW (individual instructors mostly).

My dissertation is a study on the benefits that come to the third group. The question being: what do instructors get from participating? Pedagogical approaches and instructional effectiveness involve the second group. The question being: what do learners who use OCW material get out of it and how well does the material work?

This second question makes an assumption that is incorrect, that OCW material is inherently instructional. This is not the case. Yes, the material comes from educational courses and thereby is often referred to as "educational material" or "course content" but it is just digital material. To refer to OCW content as "courses" is actually incorrect.....as a "course" implies that there is some form of instruction going on.

OCW began with no intention of being instructional. The goal was to just put course content online and make it available to the world. What the world did with it was up to them. Many have tried to come up with ways to make the content instructional....and that's a great quest, but no one knows how to do it yet...we are still investigating. Just remember, that, as OCW is now, it is not instructional...it's just content. So, no, MIT and every other OCW did not begin with any pedagogical approach in mind.

So the question of instructional effectiveness of OCW material is actually left to other projects that are making use of the content that OCW projects provide.

Cancer Patience

Though some might feel it off topic, my thoughts in this post do fit into education and open content thinking. Besides, I feel it urgent to add my story to the current conversation. What I share is not the full story, but some quick thoughts on the topic.

Cancer Patience, or—accordingly, using the pun—Cancer Patients, is the title of a book I began writing while under the euphoric drizzle of chemotherapy some six years ago. It was clear to me then that I had not been properly educated nor prepared for the battle with time I would have, within and without, while undergoing cancer treatments. I wished someone had written a book on the specifics of how difficult it is to have to wait, and wait, and wait for everything, mostly because you hardly feel like doing anything else.

You have to wait for the barium solution to settle in your stomach before you can wait in line to get a CT Scan, which then is waiting for the scan to be over; you have to wait days from the time your blood is drawn after each chemo round to see how the markers are doing, and if the red blood count is too low, you have to wait until a drug raises your cell count before you can schedule and wait for the next chemotherapy appointment, which, again, is waiting for the dripping solution session to be over; and, you have to wait for the steroids to take effect, which shorten the wait for the anti-nausea medication to take effect, which helps in the wait for the chemo to run its course. Not to mention you had to wait until having recovered from the initial tumor-removal operation to have begun any of this waiting in the first place.

One day I asked my dear oncologist, Doctor Regina Klein, "Tell me, generally, are the treatments going to advance until they cure cancer, or is there some other solution?" I will never forget her reply. She said, "No, what we are doing now is just the best we currently have. These treatments are barbaric, but we have nothing better. The cure for cancer will be something else, something like genetic engineering or stem cell advances." Again, more waiting, I thought. More patience.

Lance Armstrong is tired of waiting, tired of being patient....and frankly, so am I. We both recognize that we survived our battles because of recent scientific advances. We also both recognize that it's time for us to advance to that next level and end the barbarism.

I still give people the same answer I did six years ago when asked, "What does chemo feel like?" I reply, "Like just completing a marathon while sick with the flu and drinking paint thinner." I want that answer to feel like something of the past, something people hear and think, "Yeah, well, I'm glad we don't have to do that anymore."

But it takes money, time, talents, and dedication. This is Lance's cry....to put these resources together. He gave me hope six years ago, he gives me and many others renewed hope now. I remember my doctor who initially diagnosed me on June 9, 2000, saying, "You know, it's the same cancer that Lance Armstrong had and he beat it." I said, "Who's Lance Armstrong?" That was the beginning of my education, a simple question.

In the subsequent weeks, not only did I become an expert on inguinal orchiectomies, chemo cocktails, and metastasis, but I also became a Lance Armstrong expert. His second Tour de France win that summer directly paralleled my fight with cancer, my first of four successful rounds of chemo. It seemed when he finished a daily stage in his race, so did I.

I never would have been able to become so educated had it not been for medical institutions, news agencies, and experts openly putting their information online to be read by the world. And Lance's current cry could not have been heard by so many had the same not been true now. Lance wrote an article for CNN.com that soon became one of the most rapidly accessed articles for them. It links to a brief video of Lance that became one of the most rapidly downloaded and viewed videos for CNN.

These, in turn, spawned many people, like me, to share their stories, which have been placed on CNN.com or elsewhere. And now, it's our turn for action. We can all respond by giving what money, time, talents, and dedication we have to advancing science in order to eradicate this plague.

This mission will happen. And, in my opinion, has only been furthered by the use of open content thinking: releasing some of your rights to your digital content, not only because it is altruistic, but also because of the benefits that come to you and others for doing so….measurable benefits. I'll bet the Lance Armstrong Foundation sees an upswing in donations, and it cannot all be attributed to the renewed marketing campaign. Some must be attributed to the fact that rights to the digital content (text, images, videos) were given away for others to use.

Hurray for Open Content. Now let's see some results.

Open LMS versus Closed LMS

I think this is a fascinating discussion and I'd like to enter my two-bits in the Blogosphere. A recent article rekindled my thinking:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/08/27/e.learning.dispute.ap/index.html

It's about Blackboard Inc.'s announcing a patent last month to some of the basic features that facilitate e-learning. Some say they are trying to claim ownership of e-learning itself. There's also an interesting statement that Blackboard supports Open Source rivals like Moodle and Sakai (hmmm, really). And, here's the link to the Wikipedia article mentioned:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_virtual_learning_environments


Blackboard gobbled up WebCT, looks like Desire2Learn is next (in one way or another).

The basic Open Content premise here, I think, is the most interesting. Here we have a large digital Content Producer (Blackboard whose content is a Learning Management System) who is protecting its Intellectual Property (by suing its rivals). Now, I'm not against protecting Intellectual Property, as its protection in fundamental in a thriving, progressing, capitalistic society. What I'm against is the high amount of discussion occurring (usually in the print and broadcast media, supported by large corporations/lobbyists) and the comparatively low amount of discussion about alternative Open Models (although the discussion has been gaining steam in recent years).

I, for one, believe that any digital Content Producer who spends more time and money protecting its Intellectual Property than it does in innovating is employing a losing model. Open Business Models are beginning to prove themselves viable and I believe they are the lasting digital content models of the future. Consumers want them. These are the customers of digital content producers. Let's make them happy and give them what they want. We (as content producers) can even make money doing so. This is even and especially true in the realm of Learning Management Systems (LMS).

Good luck Blackboard. Better luck Moodle and Sakai.

Simulation Game Thesis

Here it is, at long last.

Click Here for an Html version of my thesis I wrote in 2004 while a student at Indiana University, titled: Employing Analogous Mappings to Reality When Using Commercial Computer Games as Simulations for Learning.

A portion of it has also been published in a book chapter. Click Here or Here for more info.


My favorite outcome of this study is the Simulation/Game Learning Plans Typology (Diagram 3) which I am submitting for publication shortly.

Feel free to post a comment or contact me with any comments and/or questions.

"Zomberella and the Fairy Godvisor"

Okay, so I’ve been working on this short story for some time now (actually not longer than a semester). I consider it an exercise on using and understanding Learning Objects. It is (hopefully) obvious that it is about a Graduate Student and her Advisor.

It is finally to a point where I feel like sharing it. Feel free to comment on it. I’m sure I left things out, misinterpreted something, or could have done something a little bit better. I am fully prepared to make many more iterations based on feedback.

As part of my exercise, I wrote up a rationale, per se, on my reasons for making design decisions and my thoughts on learning objects in general with respect to my short story.

Enjoy:

"Zomberella and the Fairy Godvisor"
Learning Object Thoughts

Two Posted Papers: Distance Masters Program Cost Benefit Analysis and E-commerce Adolescence

It is tough to believe that it has been four years since the burst of the dot-com bubble (the "dot-bomb"). It seems only yesterday that everyone was scrambling to be online. Everyone was doing whatever they could to add "online" or "e-" or "distance" to whatever it was they were already doing, frequently, whether it made sense to do so or not.

Back then, I was in my own smaller bubble, the protective shell of Graduate School. Though not directly involved in the online shake-out, I had my fair share of study time devoted to the burst of the bigger bubble. I bring this up simply because lately I have been caused to review some papers I wrote during that era and it has been enlightening. I have decided to post two of them below, in rtf format. Here is a brief description of both.

The first is titled:

Cost-Benefit Analysis: Case study of the Distance Master of Science Program in the Department of Instructional Systems Technology, Indiana University

This was a group paper that began as a class project but turned into much more than that. Our main goal was to discover whether or not the Distance Masters program was making money or not. Our hypothesis was that it was not making money (which actually went against popular belief at the time, but we were a somewhat cynical bunch). Our findings suggested that it was, indeed, losing money, but we also found that there were many benefits that were discussed yet, monetarily, went unaccounted. If the pecuniary value of these benefits was factored in, we explained, the program might actually be making a profit.

After we made the initial class presentation with our paper, we decided to present it at the 2001 AECT Annual Conference. Geoff Kapke and I reworked the paper and presented it, where it was included in the conference proceedings. I was proud of the work we put into it and the final product. I have wanted to go back and gather current data and compare those with our findings.

The second is titled:

E-commerce Adolescence

I felt passionate enough about the subject (the fact that e-commerce was like any other "new" economy in business, i.e. it would have its rush of gold diggers, undergo a big shake-out, and then stabilize) at that time--comparable to my current passion for Open Content--to just write this paper for no real reason. I had thought about the topic for a long time and it seemed so obvious to me--again, like Open Content is for me now--but no one seemed to be saying it...so I did. It is not pretty, nor eloquent, nor research-based...though it was predictive in nature. And, now, four years later, it is interesting to see how some of these predictions have come to pass.

Consequently, I have reworked this paper, added four more years of knowledge, tied it more closely to education, and retitled it to: Education In E-commerce Adolescence. I will be presenting this paper at the 2005 AECT Annual Conference.

Alas, four years have never gone by so quickly, and with so much change.

Open Content and the Open Domain

So here I am thinking about Open Content and Educational issues not because of my course work, not because of reading some modern academic’s writings, but for the strangest of reasons. I found myself reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan (yes, the famed late Physicist better known by some for his later book Contact which was made into a movie by Bob Zemeckis). He weaves an ongoing theme in Cosmos that if it weren’t for the stifling of thought years ago in many civilizations, we humans could well have progressed by now to have created technologies allowing us to travel to the stars of other galaxies.

This argument climaxes with a quasi-case study involving the Ionians and the Pythagoreans. The Ionians created the great library of Alexandria, a center of modern thought in its day. They focused on the practical, what could be examined through the senses, what we would consider today to be the beginnings of true scientific inquiry. Then along came Pythagoras (yes, the self-same mathematician known for his trigonometric theorem). He taught that the world could be understood not through experimentation and observation, but through thought and thought alone. By thinking through a problem, a solution would present itself. This solution needn’t require experimentation to support its veracity. So believed the followers of Pythagoras. Though to us this way of understanding the world may seem naïve perhaps even unbelievable, many were drawn in by the persuasiveness of Pythagoras. So many, in fact, that the Ionians soon became a memory. Their writings, many returned to the dust from which they sprang. Human advancement, estimates Sagan, was delayed about one thousand years. And this is but one example of the stifling of thought throughout history.

So now, I apply this to our day. I fully believe we, as a human race, have reached another moment in time where the stifling of thought can cause a major turn of events for the future. With the dawn of the digital age, we now have an opportunity to embrace new understandings and policies regarding Intellectual Property protection, or we can hover under an out-dated copyright seal. Great entities, powerful, persuasive, and prodded not in the pursuit of progress, but in the push for profits, lobby to protect their precious property. Original constitutional copyright law was meant to help human progress. Incentives were only a mean to achieve this end. Unfortunately many view copyright protection as a way to capitalize upon these incentives.

But there is a light, there is hope shining forth from this darkness. We call it Open Content. This is content that is protected not by copyright alone, which stamps its seal of “No Trespassing” upon all fixed content, but by other supplementary agreements which allow others to use the content. Permission does not need to be sought because it is already given.

Sadly, the public is largely unaware of such agreements. To them, there is only the Copyright Domain and the Public Domain. There is nothing in the middle. For this reason, I propose the Open Domain. This would be a clear area where content could reside and with which the public would become well acquainted. “All Rights Reserved,” well that’s obviously for the Copyright Domain. “Free for the world to use with no conditions,” that would be for the Public Domain. But anything in between, governed under a supplementary copyright agreement (Creative Commons, General Public Licenses, etc.), these would be placed in the Open Domain.

Of course, congress would need to enact some piece of legislation, call it the Digital Open Content Copyright Act (DOCCA), to create such a domain. Certain other loose ends of Intellectual Property would be fairly easily incorporated into this Act. But imagine the possibilities.

For example, several leading lawyers, such as Larry Lessig, in this movement are pushing for is a newer way of handling Orphan Works. These are content that might have copyright ownership but that are too difficult to track down who that owner is. Currently, (tying into education) if an instructor uses an Orphan Work, even after making a good faith effort of locating the owner, they do so risking copyright infringement. Many do so anyway, hoping they can claim Fair Use should a copyright holder make a claim. But the DOCCA could alleviate the difficulty. In fact, it could serve as a conduit for locating copyright holders. Just think, an instructor could find an Orphan Work, make a good faith effort to locate the copyright holder, and then use the work without worry. If a copyright holder comes forward, wonderful, then an agreement can be made as to the use of the content. If not, then human progress can move forward, because an instructor has been allowed to improve instruction even more by being unencumbered in the use of content.

And that’s what it’s all about, human progression and advancement. Here’s to hoping that we are not delayed another thousand years in reaching the stars.

Self-Organization

Okay, well this is an extensive enough topic. I was hoping for a starting point to have some screen shots up of my interactions with Netlogo, but it wasn't meant to be. But what an interesting modeling system. I tried out the flocking birds, the slime creatures, the ants, the termites, and others. It was interesting also to adjust the parameters within each.

My initial thoughts were, "Well, if the system works well (that is, self-organization occurs and patterns emerge) under the default settings, I wonder what happens when I go to the extremes." So I adjusted the number of participants. I found that when there were too few, self-organization could not occur because there was not enough interaction between characters; and when there were too many, there was not enough time for self-organization to occur because the resources would be exhausted too soon. Both were intersting phenomena. So, an assumption is that in the real-world with learning hoping to occur among these interactions, there must also be this happy medium between too many and too few participants within a given community.

The rules also jumped out at me as being vitally important. This seems intuitive, yet it is not as easy as it may seem. See, the self-organization of the group cannot occur (and less so, cannot occur predictibly) without some simple rules. It is by following these rules that the individuals self-organize. So, my guess is that, again, there is a happy medium with rules. Too few rules and no organization occurs; too many rules and the organization would be smothered.

MMOs Part 2

This time I played Lineage, not just to have fun, but also with an eye of an instructional technologist, specifically looking at points David Merrill and Kurt Squire have made.

First, some background. Last time, I played mostly with a group of people who seemed to know what they were doing. “Seemed” is the focus of that statement. I gave them such credit and reputation because they had higher levels than me, had better artifacts, had played longer (pretty easy to assume that since I had not played at all), and generally had some goals in mind. But, I realized after a while that they had no clue what to do either. This was blatantly apparent when their main questions became, “So, it looks like to get through the dungeon, we need a red key. Does anyone have a red key?” Indeed, it was, to borrow two phrases, the blind leading the blind and pooled ignorance. But, truthfully, I had no better option, so I just followed them around, hoping to gain what I needed to out of the experience.

That was last time (an aggregate of my experiences last week), on to this time (an aggregate of my experiences this week). I made the decision to not travel with a group this time, prepared to accept whatever dire consequences that might ensue. For some reason, I found the experience much more enjoyable. Perhaps it is my personality of individuality, wanting to figure things out on my own, and leadership—who knows.

I learned something really important right off. I could not figure out why I was only at level two and everyone else I had played with was at least at level seven. I knew that fighting enemies made my levels go up, but for some reason fighting in a group gleaned me few rewards. I still have not figured out why group fighting did not level me up faster. So, this time, alone, I threw out the question to the first unoccupied co-player I found, “How do I level up faster? I am on level two.” Surprisingly, he responded, “You can get to level five on the dummies.” Since I had no clue what he was talking about a little conversation continued until I knew where to go to fight the dummies. I followed his advice and sure enough, in a matter of minutes, I found myself at level five. It was almost too easy. This taught me that sometimes what is good for the group may not be what is good for the individual…especially since I never figured this out while fighting in a group. I had to be alone.

So, once leveled up, I figured I would try what the group was trying last week: to go through the dungeon. Then I remembered that they were always asking about a red ring. So, I thought I would just explore the terrain a bit more, since I hadn’t up to this point. I talked with people and I attacked anything that I could (I killed a frog, how morbid). Inside of one of the buildings, a girl said something like, “Hi, I make things, mostly jewelry, if people bring me stuff so I can make them.” I thought that was nice, but not that interesting….and then, wait, did she say jewelry?....like maybe a red ring? My interest was piqued, so I continued talking. Sure enough, she made rings, but I didn’t have the necessary materials….so, bam, just like that, I had a purpose, I had a goal, hurray, I needed to get money and metal. This I knew how to do from playing with the group last time. And off I went.
So what does Merrill say about this? Well, it was certainly problem centered (I needed to level up but did not know how). It definitely activated my previous experience. I did want to demonstrate my new-found knowledge (fighting enemies at level two is much more embarrassing than at level five). I knew it would be easier to pursue a goal at a higher level (hence, application of my new knowledge). But, I’m not sure about integrating my knowledge into everyday life. I guess one could look at it two ways: one, if everyday life is the character in the game, then integrating would be using leveling up to do other things, which certainly happens; or two, if everyday life was my life, outside of the game, then integration might be me incorporating ways of knowing I learn from the game (like asking others, just-in-time instruction, learning by doing, etc.) into my real life. Either way, Merrill’s five first principles are covered.

And how does this relate to Squire’s Replaying History article. First, it was odd reading an article based off of his dissertation. I’ve actually read his entire dissertation (a qualitative case study) and I attended his dissertation defense. So this marks the first time I’ve read an article based off a study with which I was already very familiar. Okay, back to the point. I certainly felt confused wondering around the game not knowing what to do or what the purpose was. This felt like a very constructivist way of doing things and was certainly how the students in Squire’s study, play Civ III felt. But eventually, through playing knowledge emerged. I also exemplified learning through failures. I died and restarted so many times I can’t count. My favorite way was when I decided to quit playing so I wanted to go out in glory by taking on a huge creature, one that I had never fought before. We both ended up delivering the final blow at the exact same time and we both died together. It was a classic ending. And, I think I had some powerful learning experience that occurred outside the game, mostly as I pondered what I had learned while crafting this blog entry.

MMOs Part 1

It was frustrating at first playing Lineage online. I had no clue what the point was. The number one question I kept typing in at beginning was, “Where am I supposed to go?” Nobody was responding. Luckily, I had played some real-time strategy games, like Warcraft and Age of Empires, so I at least was familiar with how to walk around the terrain.

Then, since around ten class members had arranged to be playing the game at the same time, I eventually found some friends. They answered my questions about how to put on armor, how to buy potions, and how to weld my sword. But the best guidance I received was given me by a person who began playing the game on the computer right next to me. He was a little more experienced than me. I don’t think I would have learned as quickly had he not pointed to parts of the game and said, “To do [whatever] you must do this.” It is just too cumbersome to try and describe certain things virtually.

I did find it interesting that those who could answer the questions the best, tended to not want to help. The expert-looking players, when I asked them a question, tended to write, “LOL” and then they would disappear with some magic spell, leaving me to fend for myself. My most frequent question once I got into the game a bit was, “What goal are we trying to achieve?” Nobody would answer this. They would say things like, “We are powering up to get stronger.” To this I would reply, “Yeah, but why….what are we supposed to be doing?” I came to the conclusion that they either did not know, did not want to tell me, or there was no real goal. Maybe this next week of playing will yield some better results.

Online Identity

I got thinking about if cooperation (however defined) can succeed without accountability and trust. I’ve come to the conclusion that it can. Just think of all the Usenet newsgroups. People can ask questions and get responses from people who have no reputation and/or very little identity. The questioning person can then use the information from the responder to act in a certain way. Thus, cooperation can result.

Now, yes, I agree that a receiving person will act differently depending on the perceived reputation or identity of the sender. Think about asking for medical advice in a newsgroup. Let’s get even more specific. Think about asking for advice about how to deal with cancer. Anybody could respond and the actions could actually be highly effective or highly detrimental.

So say the cancer patient asks for advice and two online identities (presumably two different people) respond. If one of the responses appears to have come from someone with a medical background—someone who a lot of others have given positive feedback, thus having a good reputation—then the receiver might actually do what the responder says with little hesitation. Now, if the other response comes from an anonymous person or someone with no track record, then the receiver might do some more research before doing what this responder says to do. Does one interaction imply more or less cooperation? I don’t think so. It’s just a different kind of cooperation. And, I do not perceive one type of cooperation to be more valuable than another. In one instance the information could be more valuable, but the cooperation value is the same.

So, what about accountability? What about, using this same example, a person who is deliberately sending out deceptive signals? Yes, that would be hard to imagine that someone would intentionally deceive a cancer patient, but it could happen. In such a case, the costs of finding the deceiver and proving the trail of deception is very difficult, as Judith S. Donath mentions in her article http://smg.media.mit.edu/people/Judith/Identity/IdentityDeception.html . My opinion is, why try to catch such a person? What’s the point? I would rather have a system where the bad signals are filtered out by all the good. For example, what if our cancer patient asked his question and instead of only two responders, there were 100, and, perhaps they could build upon each other’s responses. Then, the bad would likely be filtered out and the good would kind of become the average of the responses of those that remained. That would be a better system for our cancer patient.

But then, I’m caused to question something else. What is the trust, reputation, and identity of large groups in the virtual world? How is this determined? And, how can there be a group track record establishing trust, reputation, and identity? Is it based on the individual users’? That could be time-consuming to determine. And does every single group have a different identity? Or could there be an average identity that can be expected for any given question? Would there be an expected value of the signals that could be received based upon the question and the number of responders in the group? I wonder?

IRC

I used MIRC and went to channels: #Beginner, #Family_Chat, and #FunnyWorld

Compared to LmabdaMOO, using IRC felt much more formal. Maybe it was the constant feeling of knowing there was a channel op that was always looking over my shoulder (or at least the possibility existed). I didn’t feel as free to write whatever I wanted because there was that potential of being kicked out or even permanently blocked. Of course I knew that if that happened that it may or may not have been anything I did, but psychologically, getting kicked out—especially as a newbie—kind of does something to your spirits.

It felt less free, more onstrained. I didn’t feel I could write about anything I wanted. There seemed to be boundaries. I felt more required to stay on topic, whatever the channel was focused on. And it wasn’t for a lack of anonymity. It just seemed that the feeling and reason for using IRC, instead of something like LambdaMOO, was to stay on topic, a specific topic.

There was not a metaphorical feeling of going from one room to another. Even when going from one channel to another, it just felt like I was entering a different chat session, nothing more. For some reason I went into this thinking it would be more game-like and it wasn’t at all. No “playing,” just “chatting.”

The whole new world of commands and emoticons was tough to get used to…I still don’t think I am, even though I was familiar with some of the emoticons. It’s just different with non-CMC. Nothing can really replace being in person with somebody, communicating.

MUDs ‘n’ MOOs

It’s amazing to me how much social interactive environments I’ve never even heard of. MUDs and MOOs, for example, I never knew existed. I do admit, however, to catching some co-workers of mine in years past typing away at Telnet-like interfaces. When I would ask what they were doing, they’d simply say something like, “Oh, just playing a game, an older one that just uses text; you probably wouldn’t be interested.” And that was it. I’d move on with my life. But now, I realize that the game was probably a MUD or a MOO of some kind. So, I related when the Cherny (1995, p. 2) article stated, “users are well-practiced at MUD conversation, spending several hours every day online, often while working. The community views the MUD as an extension of real life, rather than an escape from it.”

This medium is different than other social environments, like blogs, threaded discussions, and fanfictions. In my mind, the main difference is that people in the community can interact with each other through artifacts. In the previous environments, the members of the community interacted one with another directly, either synchronously or asynchronously. In MOOs, users can interact, create, and affect artifacts which can then be discovered later by a different user. That artifact can be changed or moved in such a way that it communicates a message to another user who encounters.

Unlike my co-workers, I do not view these environments as games. But, thanks to the Bartle (1996) article, I understand how I view them. I am more of an explorer/socializer, to use his terminology, instead of an achiever or killer. I tend to like just roaming about MUDs and MOOs sort of as a pastime or as passive entertainment. I do not really have a goal in mind (maybe, in part, due to my lack of experience in the environments), so it cannot really be considered a game for me, and I certainly do not view the experience as a sport, like hunting or fishing. Maybe there is a hierarchy of levels in a MUD or MOO: as a user gains more experience, they move from being a passive explorer to an aggressive killer. Just a thought.

Online Reputation and Trust

Reputation and Trust


In the online world, this is such a fascinating topic. Where so much anonymity can exist, how can a people trust one another and build reputations? What are you trusting…a person, a username, the community, the safety net around the community, etc.?

http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/soc/faculty/kollock/papers/online_trust.htm
http://www.si.umich.edu/~presnick/papers/cacm00/index.html
http://www.si.umich.edu/~presnick/papers/ebayNBER/index.html

As these articles include, my experience with online trust and reputation can be summed up using ebay as an example. Risk, trust, reputation, negative feedback, positive feedback, and formal enforcement policies all come into play with ebay. So, what makes me trust enough to make an ebay purchase? My thoughts and actions usually follow a pattern as follows.

First, I locate an item I wish to purchase. I scan over the pictures and descriptions for any obvious signs of reasons to not trust the item or seller. This test of face validity is important to me. Are there spelling mistakes, is the picture good quality, and does the layout of the description (color scheme, animations, repetition in details, external links, general readability) look as if it is attempting to detract from the actual item? Things like this. If I’m uncomfortable with the description, I may move on to the next item, I may contact the seller with some question, hoping to confirm or refute my assumptions. I’ve learned that there is a strong correlation between good face validity in an item description and the reputation of the seller. But I don’t know why. Is it because a certain type of person is trustworthy and able to produce a quality presentation? I doubt it, else why would con artist be so successful. Is it because these flaws in item description really are a representation of the product (and service that accompanies that product); that is, the flaws are little clues that something is wrong with the item and/or seller? I tend to agree with this hypothesis.

If the item description passes the face validity test, then I glance at the feedback record of the seller. If the feedback rating is 100% then I don’t even bother to read the details of the feedback, regardless of how many feedback responses there are. How new a person is to the ebay community has very little bearing on my willingness to purchase an item. If the feedback is less than 100% then I scan through the details, and the number of feedbacks is important. Generally, I look for trends. If a person has many feedback responses and made mistakes early in their ebay experience, but have fixed the problems—say, bad packaging, charging too much on shipping, slow response, or bad communication—then I am very likely to dismiss all of the negative feedbacks. However, if a person has only a few total feedback and/or the negative feedbacks are fairly recent, then I will likely make a judgment call on how severe the negative comments are and if they are things that would bother me (for example, charging too much for shipping does not bother me as long as it’s clearly stated in the product description).

If the feedback is deemed acceptable, then I look to see how many others are bidding on the item. This seems like a strange thing to do, yet it isn’t. By looking at how many others are bidding, I am really looking at how many others trust the current item being sold and the reputation of the seller. It’s a small validation that my impressions are supported by others. An item with fifteen people bidding gives me more encouragement than an item with one person bidding. There have been a few occasions where had other people been bidding on an item, I would have bid also, but since there weren’t I did not bid.

Once all of these items are acceptable, I email the seller with any questions. If the seller does not respond to my questions, I will not bid, regardless of how all the previous trust issues played out. The seller not responding to a question is more powerful than anything else. It speaks to their likelihood of responding should any problem arise. If they do not respond beforehand, why would they respond afterwards?

If my questions are answered or if I did not have any questions, then I go ahead and bid (realize that if there are no questions, this whole trust-building process usually takes less than two minutes). There is one more item that plays into trust in the online/ebay world: internal protections.

The articles are incorrect, perhaps because they are out-dated (in technology terms). There are warranties, guarantees, and a formal enforcement of rules with ebay and other online locations requiring trust and reputation. If it weren’t for these guarantees, I would be much less trusting to carry out any transaction online, regardless of the reputation and my perception of trust of a person. In fact there are several layers of protection for the buyer on ebay. I refer to these as ebay’s safety net. If a buyer purchases an item using a credit card through PayPal, s/he is protected the most. Ebay’s policy is to refund up to $200 if an item does not arrive to the purchaser at all. Paypal’s policy is to refund up to $500 if an item arrives but is not as it was described. And, most credit cards will refund a disputed claim if there is a legitimate reason and if it is within thirty days. I admit that these three protections are in the back of my mind, when I am purchasing an ebay item, just in case something goes wrong with the sale. I have, on a couple occasions, had to take advantage of these protections and they work very well. Frequently the amount I am willing to spend for an item is mandated by the limits on the refund policies of ebay and PayPal.

I’m an inherently trusting person. At the same time, I cannot understand how people like Mark Cuban could spend over $30 million buying a private jet online from a stranger. I am caused to ask: is he more trusting than I, does he have other safety nets in place I do not know about, or is money that available to him that he could risk losing so much of it? I am only willing to spend online what I can afford to lose completely, sort of likely gambling.

So, how does this compare with transactions in the real world, you know the one where interactions occur with real people, usually without computers and the Internet? In the real world, to me, an archived record of trust and reputation is much less important. This is because, as one of the articles stated, capturing and distributing quality feedback is costly. So costly, in fact, that I’m willing to bet that customers never really get accurate feedback records from people and companies with whom they do business. I would also add that gathering and distributing accurate feedback is not as cost beneficial in the real world as it is online. As far as reputation goes, I rely on word of mouth and my own personal experience when purchasing any good or service ahead of relying on a feedback record or archived reputation. This means that a real-world seller must be more preoccupied with current happenings than with long term trends of improvement. In establishing trust, I rely on body language, gut feeling, and speech usage (sarcasm, joking, hesitations, stuttering, etc.) much more in real-world transactions than I could ever possibly do with online transactions. I would also say things like, “Hey, how have your dealings with so and so been recently?”

Fan Fiction

I had never heard of fan fiction until this week. What an amazing phenomenon. I enjoyed reading the following authors mostly because they wrote about TV shows that I enjoyed as a teenager. I posted reviews on three of their stories.

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2106027/1/ da90schic Saved By the Bell
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1931444/1/ sammac MacGyver
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2104404/1/ nitscali1 Star Trek: The Next Generation

I then wrote a piece in the Star Trek category:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2111630/1/

If only I had more time, I could really get into this type of writing. It makes me wonder what type of people write fan fictions. Is it children, is it college undergrads without enough to do, or is it adults who have plenty to do but find a reason to write these stories. I don’t know.

So why do people write fan fictions? I believe it is because there is a certain amount of anonymity involved. People can write without having to worry about being critiqued personally. They also can count on getting anonymous feedback from others who have no other reason to give feedback except to genuinely improve the writing. It seems a lot of people wish to write but feel they haven’t got an avenue to do so….or at least one they are comfortable with. There is something intrinsically motivating about taking a creation (in this case a piece of writing) and showing it to the world. One can expect praise and adulations and one can expect critique and arguments. Both serve to improve the quality of the creation. Yet, by doing so anonymously, there is a risk factor that is removed. One is not putting their reputation out in public to be scorned.

So how would this affect learning? Well, I find it fascinating that there is data supporting the claim that many who contribute most productively on fan fictions are not that productive in the classroom. I believe it is because for the reasons listed in the previous paragraph: anonymity, opportunity to demonstrate work, low risk, and desire for feedback. So, how would we harness these attributes in the classroom? Perhaps activities should be incorporated that offer these aspects. In a larger classroom, say of thirty or more students, this would be possible. Anonymity could be reasonably achieved (lots of students) as well as quality feedback (enough students to offer varying opinions).

This almost seems strange, though, as I think back to grade school days. How would I have felt having my creations open for praise and critique. I guess in a way, we did that. I remember doing work that we then stamped our name on and posted in the hallways for the school to see. The only way, really, to get feedback was to overhear what people said as they looked over the creations. It would have been a much better learning experience to have these works left anonymous and formally provided for a means of feedback. It would have been the best of both worlds…learning by doing and improving learning through feedback.

Blog Hopping Part 2

The five edublogs I followed and made thoughtful comments:

http://radio.weblogs.com/0110772/

http://commons.ucalgary.ca/weblogs/dnorman/

http://www.tenreasonswhy.com/weblog/

http://itc.uncc.edu/dale/su8/

http://www.mcgeesmusings.net/index.html


Topics that interested me:

I guess it’s not really a topic, per se, but something that interested me and stood out was the rampant use of metaphors trying to explain everything. I liked them, but I couldn’t help wonder why there were so many. Perhaps one motivation of blogs, especially edublogs is to try and explain things, and metaphors seems a good way to do it.

Some that stood out to me were…The use of metaphors to explain to others what blogs are like. “They’re like a 3D game.” Says one writer, “One space connects to another and you poke around from place to place looking and finding those little important nuggets along the way.” Another was on learning objects, stating, “I conceive of learning objects as being analogous to molecular compounds. They are composed of atomic units (assets, or elements), and can be used to perform a highly specific role in the compound state (learning object), or broken down into the atomic/elemental state to be used as raw materials for a new compound (learning object).”

Most of the real topics I followed seemed to be centered around open source/open content/open education/open learning issues…and some around learning objects, digital libraries, and metadata.

One topic that I found interesting was a posting by a guy who has been keeping a blog since July of 2000. He says he wants to shut down his blog entirely, but he’s worried about the etiquette of doing so…broken links, track back issues, etc. I found myself pondering this as it relates to educational use of technology. What happens when we go through all this effort to build an instructional system that employs such technology as social software. We are inevitably relying on others four our instructional system to work effectively. How wise is this? If a piece of the system (the proverbial link in the chain) breaks, or does not do their intended task, how does this affect the instruction? Could it be a good thing as well? Maybe having learners go through an instructional system that has broken pieces would force them to confront problems and to find solutions. But this can also be very frustrating, for the user and instructional designer alike.

I liked finding postings that were about people and projects I was familiar with. Like one post about Open Learning Support and the Open Courseware initiative. I got to thinking that blogs are really an extension of conversation, which can serve as a form of education and advertising. How many people may never have heard of OLS had it not been for blogs, or perhaps they might not have heard of it as quickly.

I found myself concerned about making comments on other people’s blogs. I almost felt like what I had to say should have some weight to it otherwise why write it, and more especially why attach my name to it. It almost forces blog users and comment posters to really think about what they write because a piece of their reputation is on the line depending on the type of comments posted. Maybe this is strange, but I felt this way. I feel it’s an important note because if there weren’t this feeling the edublogs would have less meat to them and become quite pointless.