My Portable Profile at BU

My Portable Profile at BU

Radically promoting socialnetworking and socialcomputing at Binghamton University

Right Now!

Credit attributions(draft term and name dropping)
Similar to personal data assistant mentioned in Mark Reed's previous long-range plans. Not incompatible with my own PIMP (Penguin in my pocket - advocating open source solutions). Also related to notion of Student Information ... (Administrative computing, Frank Saraceno/ Doug Henderson's?) Portal concept (around for a long period that has now morphed into Student Data Warehouse). Most directly related to my unrealized ideas of centrally hosting (Mark's implementation suggestion) of web calendars and blog,listserv and other forums (my suggestion at Dec 2006 Acad Computing mtg). Latest twist (2007) is a focus on keeping mostly or only userids, etc. del.icio.us bookmarks, Effectively Private Wiki User Pages/Space

In brief
Create an interface to allow students to create and manage online their userids, passwords, hints to passwords, addresses to easily integrated socialnetworking/computing web services. Make this database available and integrated into the pod machine image when users signon. Use only mild, unobtrusive/opt-in metrics to suggest popular services. Consolidate discussion (BU-only) of campus networks and services in use.

The purpose/mission
To blow open the possibilities gained from a large, active, and tech-savvy CONNECTED community!

How to do it

 * Talk it up - educate users about dangers and don't promise full privacy, educate community about strong passwords and inappropriate use of the service (services that gather sensitive information, or blogs that reveal personal information/communication)
 * Define what are the students' essentials for using the services (a wide range of them now available online for free) as a profile/database that can be accessed conveniently from their personal computer and when they log on in the pods
 * Remove barriers (concerns) by promoting that socialnetworking and using rss and bookmarks for the glue as the best way to enhance communication and capitalizing on the latest web-based service trends
 * Consolidate known services (and technology configurations) in use currently on campus as a wiki page, and spur discussion about barriers and wanted services

Concerns (Killer Cons detracting from implementation)

 * Student privacy - Care would be needed to couple advocacy for socialcomputing (outside) web services with warnings about dangers of sharing personal information online
 * Unrealistic expectations (you're giving us THIS, why can't you just give us THIS as well, ex. why not unlimited bandwidth, 100Gb of email storage, free access to ftp site to download site-wide software) - What's promised is just ONE or two buttons on a browser and a few web pages. Storage for the links and sign-on info, no more! (okay, some directory services too, okay some privacy opt-in choices, okay some forums ... but that's it!
 * centralized IT Administrative nightmares - minimal Central-IT-administration is a design goal (just the userids, passwds, hints, links to a limited (~30) services, automated logon when possible), support, minimal training, centralized hosting of open forums for design suggestions
 * Promise of privacy may have legal implications ... so we don't promise it!
 * Why should we be in the business of enabling recreational IT services support? - ... uh ... because it's FUN??!! and our community's doing it anyway!!?

To dos

 * look at how the extensions can be placed in the pods-profiles
 * suggest placing tiddlywikis and personalized calendars on each bingweb/public_html area, other private information like passwords for NYTimes and other online services
 * suggest simply that facilitate and push the use by faculty and staff of del.icio.us with networks of BU-only folks (i.e. social-computing/networking options on campus).
 * see whether the IWAS server can facilitate personalized MySQL tables (for general, non-committal, non-serious socialcomputing, socialnetworking)
 * ask whether centralized calendaring (keeping icals, centrally) has a host
 * identify show-stopper complications (such as requiring too much storage (like the ical repository would?), like but-we-don't-want "to learn wikis")
 * list all possible relevant (probably popular) services, sketch out how they're integratable
 * Identify academic benefits (risks?) of being connected
 * Look into toolbar permanency for browser profile (do we allow toolbars)

List of webapps/services

 * 1) del.icio.us (note: ? how to suggest network), the glue
 * 2) groups/forums
 * 3) personalized web pages/portals
 * 4) flickr
 * 5) myspace? (questionable due to recent security concerns)
 * 6) wiki (User page injected in link)
 * 7) links to discussions of services
 * 8) google___ (calendar, reader, page)
 * 9) yahoo ___
 * 10) blogger
 * 11) other blogs, feed aggregators
 * 12) listservs? (old?)

Design Requirements (Good goals)

 * non-platform specific
 * non-financial (free, at least for sign-on)
 * opt-in for three levels of making which services you use 'public' (private/unlisted anywhere, BU-public as directory for oncampus viewing (of services list only), public for aggregation publically (popular services at BU page/ top 10/20)) - NEVER public of individuals choice of networks

Justification of effort
Networked communities are fractious(?)/splitup. The choices are mind boggling yet integration is taking place (blogs feeding, aggregators, going to lists, emails suggesting network membership ... browser versus email client versus specialized client). We can facilitate the best-breed choices (and of integrated configurations) by localizing which are popular for OUR community, with OUR localized hosting services.

The biggest influence we have is in what's the bridge we allow to be portable from the students' machines, and which we allow directory services for. IT Services doesn't need to pick the best type or which services to use (and integrate).