Taking class discussions online

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~webteach/articles/discussion.html

Providing an online discussion component to a university class can have a number of benefits and also create new issues to contend with.

Benefits

• Class preparation


• Participation from students who don’t want to speak up in class


• Sensitive issues

Drawbacks

• Too much participation


• Not enough participation

There are several kinds of discussions, both synchronous (chat) and asynchronous (discussion groups). How they are set up (single topic/threaded discussion) and what rules are established can influence who participates, what they contribute and how often they post.

12 Tips for Getting your Grant Funded

http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/fipse/steps.html

1. Innovate
2. Do your homework
3. Build a team
4. Find the right funding agency
5. Use the phone
6. Use a journalistic writing style
7. Follow Guidelines to the letter
8. Build in continuation, evaluation, and dissemination
9. Watch the bottom line
10. Leverage funds
11. Get a sharp and critical reader
12. Write the abstract last

Miscellaneous Comments on Online Community

“People on the net should be thought of not only as solitary information processors but also as social beings. People are not only looking for information, they are also looking for affection, support, and affirmation.”

--Judith Stefana Domath--Inhabiting the virtual city

“If we are going to use the word meaningfully [community] we must restrict it to a group of individuals who have learned how to communicate honestly with each other, whose relationships go deeper than their masks of composure.”

--M. Scott Peck

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.”

--Charles Darwin

How to get a FIPSE Grant Funded

...or general advice on developing successful grant proposals

http://www.ed.gov/offices/OPE/FIPSE/howtoget.html

When you consider submitting a FIPSE proposal, it is important to go into it with your eyes open. The process is laborious, and the funding ratio quite low. It takes months, sometimes years, of reflection and consultation to bring a project to the degree of ripeness that FIPSE expects of its most competitive proposals. That is why it is important to make sure that your project is something you really want to do. If the proposal, besides having potential as a national model, is intrinsically worthwhile for your institution, it will exhibit the clarity and coherence that we associate with fundability.

Nine Design Strategies for Online Communities

--from Amy Jo Kim

• Define and articulate your purpose


• Build flexible extensible gathering places


• Create meaningful and evolving member profiles


• Design for a range of roles


• Design a strong leadership program


• Encourage appropriate etiquette


• Promote cyclic events


• Integrate the rituals of community life


• Facilitate member-run subgroups

The 10 best Intranet designs of 2001

Jakob Nielsen
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20011125.html

Quote:
The best intranets of 2001 emphasize iterative design and standardized navigation, and feature collaboration tools and content management systems. On average, companies saw intranet use increase by 98% following their winning usability redesigns.

The top 10 (without links at present because the article didn’t include links):

Andersen: Business Radar 3.0
BC Hydro: HydroWeb
Cisco Systems: I-deal (tristream)
Fidelity Investments Canada
Interactive Applications Group: Community [apps]
Luleå University of Technology, Sweden
Pearson Technology Centre
Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC): ISSAIC
silverorange
United States Department of Transportation: DOTnet

Full report at:

http://www.nngroup.com/reports/intranet/2001/

MIT begins creating web sites for 2,000 courses

http://www.chronicle.com/free/2001/11/2001112601u.htm

Creating web pages for all their courses is MIT’s first step in their Open Courseware Project designed to put all their class materials online so anyone can look at them. Right now they’re piloting and refining the process. Web skills of MIT professors vary widely--some use the Web extensively, some don’t use it at all. One of the challenges will be designing an interface that’s useful and that will be used by as large a group as possible.

Proposal Writing Short Course

http://www.fdncenter.org/learn/shortcourse/prop1.html

The foundation center offers a two part proposal writing short course. The three major pieces of information to have when beginning are: concept, program and expenses.

Concept

• How does this project fit into the overall mission and purpose of the organization?


• What specific need is being address?

Program

• What is the nature of the project?


• How will it be conducted?


• What’s the timetable?


• What are the anticipated outcomes?


• What’s the plan for evaluating the results?


• What are the staffing and other needs for the project?

Expenses
At this point, you need a broad outline budget and whether there is a reasonable return on the investment you’re proposing

Benefits of Online Communities

Online communities can enable an organization to:

• Create an early warning system


• Make sure knowledge can get to people who can act on it on time


• Connect people and build relationships across boundaries of geography and discipline


• Provide an ongoing context for knowledge exchange that can be far more effective than memos


• Attune everyone in the organization to each other’s needs--more people will know who knows what and will know it faster


• Multiply intellectual capital by the power of social capital, reducing social friction and encouraging social cohesion


• Create an ongoing shared social space for people who are geographically dispersed


• Amplify innovation


• Create a community memory for group deliberation and brainstorming


• Improve the way individuals think collectively


• Turn training into a continuous process, not divorced from normal business practices


• Attract and retain best employees by providing access to social capital that is only available within the organization