Intranet on kuollut – kauan eläköön intranet!

intranetwork

Helsingin Paasitornissa pidettiin 23.4.2015 mielenkiintoinen koko päivän seminaari nimellä #intranetwork, järjestäjinä Ambientia ja Sininen Meteoriitti. Osallistujia oli useampi sata ympäri Suomea ja yleisin titteli näytti olevan viestintäpäällikkö. Järjestäjät ovat keskenään kilpailijoita, Ambientia edustaa Liferayta ja Atlassianin Confluencea kun taas Sininen Meteoriitti puolestaan Microsoftin tuotteita ja EPiServeriä. Niinpä varsinaisissa esityksissä ei keskitytty mihinkään tiettyyn tuotteeseen tai sen ominaisuuksiin vaan liikuttiin yleisemmin pätevien  teemojen tasolla, mikä teki päivän annista ainakin minun mielestä hyvin antoisaa. Seminaarissa oli myös hyvin fasilitoitu keskustelua joka oli hyvin vilkasta sekä pöydissä että twitterissä. Kokoan tähän muutama ajatuksen ja kysymyksen joita päivä herätti minussa.

Tarvitaanko intranetiä vuonna 2015?

Intranetin käsite ja olemus oli yksi päivän isoista puheenaiheista. Yleisesti ottaen perinteinen intranet eli yksisuuntainen organisaation johdon ja viestintäosaston hallitsema tiedotuskanava alkaa olla vanhentunut, ainakin brändinä jos ei terminä. Toisaalta sitä ei oikein mikään ole vielä täysin syrjäyttänytkään, vaikka monilla työpaikoilla käytetäänkin sosiaalisen median sovelluksia ja pikaviestimiä varsinaista intranetiä vilkkaammin, jopa viralliseen viestintään. Yhtenä ratkaisuna intranetin hengissä pitämiseen jatkossakin tarjotaan sen päivittämistä sosiaaliseksi intranetiksi.

Viekö sosiaalinen intranet myös organisaation viestit perille?

Sosiaalisessa intranetissä korostuu sisältöjen ja ammattilaisviestinnän sijaan vuorovaikutteisuus ja kaikkien osallistuminen. Ajantasaisin tieto ei asu viestintäosastolla vaan siellä missä sitä käsitellään ja tuotetaan. Mutta sosiaalinen intranet toimii myös perinteisempään organisaatioviestintään, oikeasti tärkeiden viestien perillemeno vain varmistuu kun niitä pääsee kollegatkin suosittelemaan ja toisaalta filtteröimään.

Mihin viestintäosastoa tarvitaan?

Jos jokaisesta työntekijästä tulee myös viestijä ja sisällön tuottaja, niin mikä rooli jää sitten viestinnän ammattilaisille? No ainakin viestintätaitojen koulutus ja jonkinlainen yhteisöllinen managerointi joka voidaan nähdä vaikka erilaisten kuppikuntien tunnistamisena ja vuorovaikutuksen esteiden poistamisena. Toimiva sosiaalinen intranet vaatii jokaisen osallistumisen mahdollistamista, ja esteinä voi olla vaikka laitteet, yhteydet, osaaminen tai motivaatio. Jos ruudun äärellä päivänsä viettävien tietotyöläisten osallistaminen on vaativaa niin entäpä sitten erilaisilla “kentillä” työskentelevät trukkikuskit, hoitajat ja lentäjät, joilla ei välttämättä ole edes työnantajan antamaa laitetta?

Viekää viestit työntekijöiden luokse!

Monessa perinteisessä intranetissä on viestien lisäksi sekalainen kokoelma välineitä ja palveluita. Osittain siksi, ettei niille ole oikein löytynyt muitakaan paikkoja mutta toisaalta myös siksi, että niiden avulla on myös pyritty houkuttelemaan käyttäjiä viestien luokse. Mutta eikös tilanteen pitäisi olla toisinpäin? Sosiaalinen intranet voidaankin nähdä myös ratkaisuna viedä viestit työskentely-ympäristöihin, sinne missä työskentelijätkin toimivat ja viestivät. Esimerkiksi tietotyöläisen työpäivä saattaa sujua luontevasti erilaisissa vuorovaikutus-, viestintä ja tiedonhallintavälineissä jossa on valmiiksi välineet myös organisaatioviestinnän tarpeisiin.

Intranetin konseptointi

Intranetia ei enää kannatta yrittää hahmotella terävällä kynällä vaan ymmärtää se alati muuttuvaksi kokoelmaksi työvälineitä, prosesseja ja palveluita. Sellaisen intranetin hankinnassa ei siis ole oleellista tarkka konseptointi vaan tunnistaa keskeisimmät kohderyhmät ja käyttötilanteet joita sillä on tarkoitus tukea. Esimerkiksi onko dokumenttien ja työtilojen hallinta eri roolituksineen tärkeämpää kuin viestintä ja vuorovaikutus monikielisessä ja -kulttuurisessa ympäristössä?

Intranetin rakentamisesta

Tekninen valinta kannattaa tehdä varhaisessa vaiheessa ja aloittaa sen kehittäminen ja käyttöönotto iteratiivisesti ja oikeilla käyttäjillä pilotoiden. Eli tavoitteena olisi pyrkiä tunnistamaan relevantteja työskentely- ja vuorovaikutusvälineitä ja kokeilla onko niistä hyötyä myös sisäisen viestinnän ja vuorovaikutuksen tukemisessa. Ja kun onnistumisen kautta on löydetty hyvä ratkaisut ja levitetty ne koko organisaatioon, kannattaa samantien aloittaa myös vanhojen välineiden alasajo, joka saattaa olla jopa vaikeampaa kuin uuden lanseeraaminen.

OCL4Ed – Activity 3.1 – MCQ

This is my third post in the course “Open Content Licensing for Educators”, provided by Open Educational Resources University via WikiEducator.

Our task was to write two multiple choice questions regarding copyright issues in education. I found the task very educating although I’m not sure how good questions I managed to create. The target audience of these questions is  Finnish university teachers, and depending on the feedback I receive, I might use these as a basis of similar questions written in Finnish.

CASE 
Marko is  a university lecturer in Finnish university and he is  preparing a course about human rights in blended mode using LMS provided by his university. He taught the same course previous term in similar way and want’s to reuse and revise the existing course material. All the material is distributed in a closed course area and is visible only to Marko himself and currently enrolled students.

Question 1.
The teaching material consists mainly material he has produced himself, written instructions to assignments, links to external sources, bibliography etc. Additionally, there is a pdf copy of scientific article which he has written together with his colleague Anna. The article is already published in an open access journal (Australian Humanities Review) which has a public website with all articles attached as pdf:s. Marko knew that Anna wasn’t very happy with the article so before the last course he asked her opinion on using it as a course material. They had an informal oral discussion and Anna told that for her it is fine to use the article, but only on that specific course. Anna expressed also, that before further use, she’d like to revise the article together with Marko. Marko hasn’t ask the permission to reuse the article from the publisher because it is open access journal and hey, it is anyway public and freely available to everyone.
Marko found that somehow the pdf file of the scientific article got corrupted. The journal ’s website was temporarily down but luckily he found the article in original format. Marko opened the article, made some revisions and saved the new version as pdf file. He is bit unsure what he can now do, so please give him guidance by choosing the right alternative from the following:

Marko is allowed to:
a) Reuse all teaching material including the scientific article, but he should download the original version from the journal’s website.
DISTRACTOR<False. The publisher reserves all rights on that article. They do allow open access to articles but don’t grant further permissions such as right to reuse. Even though Marko is a co-writer of the article.>
b) Reuse and revise all teaching material including the new  version of the scientific article. Anna didn’t explicitly forbid him to revise, she just expressed an oral wish of co-revision.
DISTRACTOR<False. The publisher reserves all rights on that article. They do allow open access to articles but don’t grant further permissions such as right to reuse or revise. Even though the publisher had granted permissions to revise the article, in moral sense Marko should comply to Anna’s wish to do the revision together. It doesn’t matter whether she has expressed it orally or in written format.>
c) Reuse all teaching material, but replace the pdf file with a link to the original version of the published scientific article.
DISTRACTOR<It depends. In legal sense, the link to public website is generally fine, especially if it is clearly expressed that it leads to external material. But morally Marko should ask Anna’s permission again, because she gave it only once regarding the previous course.>
d) Marko is allowed to reuse and revise all material except any version of the scientific article.
ANSWER<Correct. Marko can freely reuse and revise the material done himself solely, except the scientific article which copyright is under journal’s control and moral ownership shared with Anna.>

Question 2.
On the course area there is also material produced by students as a groupwork assignments. The students contributed to a course wiki articles about basic concepts and issues in human rights. Marko was astonished how good articles they produced and got an idea that they should be provided as learning material to the next course. Additionally, students of the forthcoming course could also revise the work done. Marko hasn’t done any copyright agreements with the students, but hey, they are already been used and shared with the previous course with no problems at all.
However, there are some very good pictures done by students and Marko is now thinking should he remove them first, just to be sure and to avoid any copyright issues. Help him by choosing the right answer from the following:

Marko is allowed to:
a) Reuse all the material including the pictures done by students.
DISTRACTOR<False. The students own all rights to material they have done, texts as well as pictures.>
b) Reuse all the material done by students except the pictures.
DISTRACTOR<It depends. Probably false because students own all rights to material they have done, texts as well as pictures. However, if the material is encyclopaedia kind of articles there might be certain parts of text which are not expression of original creative activity. Anyway, Marko should ask the permission from the students.>
c) Reuse all the material except the pictures and let forthcoming students revise the texts because the original authors done it under Marko’s guidance as a course assignment and got most of the ideas from him.
DISTRACTOR<False. Only the students as original authors may grant futher permissions to revise. It doesn’t matter whether Marko guided or expressed the original ideas about the articles. Marko should ask the students permissions to reuse and revise>
4. Reuse all the material except the wiki articles done by students.
ANSWER.<Correct. Marko removes all the previous material and is going to ask all forthcoming students to license the material with creatice commons licenses. If somebody resists, they have an alternative assignment they can do privately.>

 

 

OCL4Ed – 2nd Learning Reflection

This is my second learning reflection in the course “Open Content Licensing for Educators”, provided by Open Educational Resources University via WikiEducator.

The course continued using tools and methods already adopted on a first session. I enjoyed the brief material both in textual and video formats but above all is the interaction between other participants, namely in Twitter and Google+. Just after couple of days I know for sure that I really enjoy studying on a course like this! I enjoy the open and participatory structure that utilizes the existing knowledge of the participants as well as allows each of us to steer our learning action towards personally set goals. We share a lot but we are also pretty free to learn what we need to.

I enjoyed David Wileys clear definition on openness.  Free access is essential but not sufficient criteria because users need also flexible permissions to reuse, revise, remix and redistribute the material. I inspired to tweet a question about the “openness” of currently hyped xMOOC’s because I see their openness very limited. In many cases, the material is copyrighted and there is a growing trend to transfer courses into mode the offers certification but requires payments.

I also enjoyed Lawrence Lessig’s and Eben Moglen’s videos, and made a notice that in Finland we don’t have the “Fair use” principle, which covers most of the educational activity in US. For us Finns it means that we should be twice as active in open licensing and I think that is the case in most of the world too.

I already knew that there are different definitions of Open Educational Resources but I was somehow shocked how weakly I performed the OECD definition quiz. I am not sure if that definition is very useful and I prefer using Stephen Downes’s brief definition instead: “Open Educational Resources (OER) are materials used to support education that may be freely accessed, reused, modified and shared by anyone

Although the distributed structure of this course with several different tools used in interaction might disorientate some participants, I must say that I personally enjoy the diversity.  I see Twitter primary as a tool for personal reflection but sometimes that might cause some interaction too. For example, the responses I received to my tweet about closed file formats lead me to think that I probably need too provide more technical guidance to teachers producing open educational resources.

However, Google Plus has some strengths too. Shared and structured forum supports interaction inside the course and is probably more suitable to collaborative knowledge building than Twitter. I think it is easier to develop new and somehow still vague ideas and thoughts while you are not obliged to compress them to 140 characters. And I really appreciate the fruitful feedback and generous support the participants, especially Wayne Mackintosh, provides to us learners!

 

OCL4Ed – 1st Learning Reflection

This is my learning reflection on the first session in the course “Open Content Licensing for Educators”, provided by Open Educational Resources University via WikiEducator.

The course started with brief material clarifying the basic concepts and ideas behind openness in education. Stephen Downes pointed out why sharing is so important factor in education and Desmond Tutu told why it is important to have organized action toward free and open education. I tweeted my own reflections, answered to the survey and contributed to the Google+ discussion about teaching as a vocation or profession by posting my own thought and commenting to others.

I work as an Educational technology specialist in University of Helsinki and I have worked in the field of online learning almost twenty years. I consider having relevant amount of knowledge about the importance of openness in education, as well as having practical skills in searching, producing, re-using, sharing and licensing open educational resources. I have also taught university’s teachers in these topics. However, I need to deepen my practical knowledge about open licensing. I am pretty familiar with licensing new content but I have also found certain difficulties while re-mixing content with different licenses (nc/non-nc, pd, gnu etc).

I am glad to see the growing efforts in opening the education, especially tertiary education. Nevertheless, I have found lots of difficulties in promoting openness in education. I think my primary substantial interest in this course is to develop and share ideas how to enhance openness in education, both globally and locally. How to motivate teachers to develop their attitudes toward more open culture of teaching? How to motivate teachers to share more? How to describe the immediate benefits of sharing to teachers? How to describe the theoretical and ideological framework behind open education? What are the essential practical skills that every teacher should acquire? 

I am asking these questions because I see my own role primarily as a promoter and educator, which lead to my second motivation in participating this course. I am planning to lead this kind of course in Finnish later and I am waiting to get (and share!) ideas how to organize this kind of course myself. This model of connectivist MOOC feels very attracting although I could have some blended elements in my course too.

Hello world – why I started a new blog?

I enrolled to an interesting cMOOC about open educational resources (OER) which is starting on Feb 5th. As you might know, the “c” stands for connectivism which means that all participants should (or at least could) contribute actively in the form of interactive network.  In practice, it will be tweets tagged with #OCL4Ed, discussions in GooglePlus and of course, blog post here. I’m looking forward for the interesting course and perhaps I’ll share some thoughts with you too!