Technology

information & communication technology

Open Source Medical Journal

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PLoS [Public Library of Science] Medicine is a peer-reviewed medical journal available free online, with a Creative Commons license for use. Here is one reason why it was created:

Whereas some would argue that medical journals should not be accessible to patients because patients are unable to use the information effectively, we believe it is our responsibility as publishers and members of the medical community not only to give patients access, but to provide them with tools to use the medical literature wisely. Medical research is a partnership between medical scientists and millions of voluntary human participants, conducted largely with public funds. What better way to acknowledge the public’s contribution and ensure their willingness to sponsor and participate in future research than to openly share the product of this research with them?

It could be interesting to examine the differences in usage between PLoS Medicine, which is geared toward both practitioners and the public, with another source built expressly for use by the public, such as the Canadian Health Network.

Free social software sandbox for teachers

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James Farmer is offering a place for teachers to test out social and pedagogical software technologies:

So, by providing free-for-teachers hosting, installation, support and consultation for weblogs, wikis, CMSs and more, I figure I get to learn an enormous amount (which will certainly help me in my career), help some frustrated teachers out and show the light to others who would have a lot of trouble technically getting there. Well worth a few bucks a month I think.

The software suite also includes synchronous tools and discussion boards; and the CMS is Drupal. Go ahead and try it out.

Drupal 4.5 Released

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Drupal, the open source content management system (OS CMS) that this site is built on, just keeps getting better. This is a dynamic developer community that takes to heart the comments of users in order to build better "community plumbing". With the release of Drupal 4.5 we are seeing mutiple themes, a tabbed interface and a new look on the Drupal site, as well as many other features. Drupal is a major player in the OS CMS space, and I think will stay the course, due to the commitment of so many in the community. Thanks to Chris and Cameron for seeing the potential of Drupal many months ago.

For those new to CMS’s, take a look at the Drupal brochure (PDF).

Drupal Theme Garden

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Carrying on in the tradition of the original CSS Zen Garden, is the new Drupal Theme Garden. Now everyone can view the variations on a theme of Drupal! There are only a few so far, but I’m sure that the garden will grow. Not all themes are available for downloading and use.
Update Oct 2005 –  since this node gets more hits than any other one on my site, I thought that I should note that the Theme Garden link is currently dead. If you have technical skills then you can look at the Drupal Theme Developer’s Guide.
Tell me if you know of any others.
Update: Jan 2006 – New Theme Garden Link works now.
 Via Bryght.com.

Creative Commons (CA)

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Creative Commons now has licenses available which are designed specifically for Canadian copyright law. You can see mine on the bottom left of every page. When you select a license, Canada is one of the jurisdictions available on the drop-down menu. The Canadian license is available in French & English, and each deed has links to both official languages. The CC license also saves on legal fees :-)

Free Culture, again

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Mark Oehlert blogs again on Lessig’s book, Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity. The book is a success, even with the free download available, as well as the audio chapters that have been completed by various volunteers.

I’ve been thinking a lot about business models and how the Internet has turned many on their heads. Making money on a book by giving away the digital version does not make intuitive sense; which is why I’m re-posting this as well. The rules have changed, but not everywhere. Today, we need to challenge our understanding of conventional business wisdom, especially when developing business plans.
 

Feedback on Ping

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Kathleen Gilroy is asking for feedback on the Otter Group’s new business venture – Ping. This service will help to foster blogging communities of practice. Here is the intro to the executive summary:

After ten years of running successful online learning communities and programs, the Otter Group is introducing a new service for developing and managing affinity networks for colleges and universities: Ping Affinity Networks. Ping is a personal network for connecting with your peer group. The network is made up of individual weblogs, a weblog portal and powerful search tools that combine the blog network with proprietary databases. Ping capitalizes on two rapidly growing communications technologies which are ideal for creating personal and peer networks: weblogs and RSS.
Because blogs provide a lasting, personal identity, they make it possible for reputation and trust to develop online. Ping returns the Internet to its original conception: groups of trusted people sharing knowledge. Weblogs and RSS enable the “anyone can publish, everyone can subscribe” promise of the Internet. Trusted blogging networks not only help keep out the riffraff, but also act as trusted filters for the vast influx of information faced every day. Ping’s personal network puts you back in control of your Internet life.

Ping enables the creation and growth of communities of interest, offering their members ad hoc ways to collaborate. Ping stimulates high levels of participation in online communities by using weblogs to lower the technology barriers of participation to almost zero. With RSS, newsreaders and specialized, proprietary search technologies, Ping makes it very easy for community members to find and track, people, ideas, and information. The Ping Connector, a proprietary search tool, enables searching against both private directories and the blogging network. Ping builds viral marketing and member recruitment into its technology platform, so that community members can promote (and receive credit for) membership simply by maintaining their weblogs.

Ping’s business model is based on subscriptions from individual bloggers. Ping subscribers pay for their participation in the blog network for a variety of purposes that are both self-serving (reputation building) and altruistic (knowledge sharing). Subscribers join Ping in order to enhance their reputations and build their personal brands; advance their careers, network, and find jobs; increase their Google ratings through linking to one another’s blogs; share information, photos, and knowledge with their friends and family; document their personal and professional lives; make social and professional connections; and share knowledge, ideas, and information. As the community grows, linking to other blogs has the reciprocal benefit of creating value for your own blog. This underlying reciprocity is expressed in Ping’s mission statement: the love you take is equal to the love you make.

For my part, it seems to have some potential, especially since I have not found many uses for my memberships in social networks, likes Ryze or LinkedIn. I use my blog a lot more to communicate with colleagues & clients, so I would check out Ping to see if I can meet more interesting people, at a reasonable price of course.

Update: Kathleen further describes the Ping business model today, October 1st.

And a further update, where Steve Bayle discusses the value-add of Ping:

The bottom line
What’s new about Ping is the concept of an affinity group blogging network. Ping provides substantial added value to both alumni and the alumni relations departments of their schools, value adds that are not available from “free” advertiser supported blog hosting companies or even companies selling individual blogging subscriptions.Considering the many thousands of dollars it costs to be admitted to a college community, we believe the ability to extend that community beyond the campus and the 4-year undergraduate experience is well worth the $50 per year individual subscription fee.

Non-profit Blogs

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I came across an article on blogs in the non-profit sector, written in December 2003, for the Non-Profit Quarterly. The article discusses internal and external blogs, and also gives some how-to’s, (but you should do some more reading on the subject, before starting your first one):

More typically, an externally focused blog can transform informal knowledge sharing into a new asset for an organization. Blogs can enliven your group’s Web presence and engage clients, supporters and strangers alike in your work. "We think that there is a good chance blogging is a new way to express the nonprofit voice," says Jim Fruchterman, CEO of Benetech, a nonprofit organization that puts technology to work for social needs. "We feel we have unique things to say, so we should be saying them." Since October 2003, Fruchterman has been authoring the Beneblog, a component of Benetech’s Web site where he has highlighted the work of his organization’s staff and partners, commented on legislation affecting his field, documented his speaking engagements and attendance at conferences and described in real-time the impact of world travel on his work as Benetech’s executive. "Blogs provide a more immediate form of communication than my quarterly update," he says. "They bring new content to our homepage and give us a chance to bring up ideas and links in a less formal context.

Fruchterman’s BeneBlog is still going strong. His latest post refers to the Social Enterprise Alliance, which looks like an excellent resource, especially for business planning . I’m currently working with two non-profits and their unique challenges call for a different kind of business and strategic planning, so I will check out the publications and resources.

Peer-to-Peer

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If you are an ISP, or your clients are ISP’s then you might need to know what is keeping them up at night. Here is an interesting analysis of what uses up an ISP’s bandwidth, produced by CacheLogic. It appears that most bandwidth is used by peer-to-peer (P2P) services – remember Napster? The rest of the web’s traffic is negligible compared to P2P file-sharing, much of which is legal, so it’s not just music and videos. The following myths are debunked in CacheLogic’s analysis:

  • P2P is in decline
  • P2P is all about MP3’s
  • The P2P problem is caused by a few heavy users

The authors believe that P2P has provided the blueprint for the next generation of web applications, so if you’re in this business, you’d better understand what is important to your customers and how you can help them. For the rest of us, P2P may wind up costing us more as it keeps chewing up available bandwidth, or it might squeeze out more traditional traffic. Some of this is beyond me, but it seems to be a significant phenomenon.