Your last assignments for your individual weblog (not the group weblog) are as follows:

Next week we will have daily presentations on the group weblog projects done by class participants. On each day of presentations (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) your assignment is to write a brief entry (one or two paragraphs) commenting substantively on one (or both) of the projects presented in class that day.

“Commenting substantively” means write a bit more than, “Great site, guys!” If you think the site is great, say why. If you have a question or comment, share it. Be sure to make a link from your entry to one of the entries at the group site(s) you are discussing (so it creates a “ping” at that site).

At the end of next week, each person in class should have three new, brief entries reacting to other classmates’ group sites/presentations.

As always, be sure to check both your group and individual blogs, using the links provided on our links page, to be sure they look the way you intend.

I’ve noticed that some of the links people have been finding for the online participatory journalism in Kazakhstan assignment don’t have any relationship to Kazakhstan at all. To clarify, we are interested in discovering whether there is any evidence of OPJ in Kazakhstan; the rest of the world does not much matter for this assignment.

What you should look for is a site written from Kazakhstan (or perhaps about Kazakhstan) and profile that site, being sure to address how the site is or is not an example of OPJ in Kazakhstan.

Please ask me if this is unclear to you.

Your individual weblog assignment, due by 5 pm Friday 9 November, is to write a brief profile of one of the websites you identified as a possible example of online participatory journalism in Kazakhstan.

Your profile should look at a site we have not discussed in class, but rather one you found on your own.

Your profile should include basic information about the site as well as your analysis about whether the site is an example of participatory journalism, and why you say it is or is not. Be sure to link to the site you discuss in your entry.

Your entry should be about four paragraphs long. You may use the profile guidelines we used for our group profile assignment if you wish.

In the last class we discussed collaborative and open source production, and we introduced Wikipedia and compared it to standard academic encylcopedias such as Encyclopedia Britannica. I want to make the comparison a bit more explicit.

Both Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica are examples of collaborative production. They are publications that are created through the cooperative efforts of many people. Similarly, in both cases these group efforts aim to produce something similar: an encyclopedia–a publication that is intended to provide authoritative information on a wide range of topics.

Both Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica are also available online. Keep this in mind, because it indicates that the use of internet technology is not the determining factor in the fundamental characteristics of each project. Part of what it means to refer to the internet as a socio-technical network is that the character of the network (the things it allows us to do, for example) depends both on what the technology makes possible and on the social arrangements (the decisions people make) about how to use the technology, or how to allow others to use the technology. Both these projects use the internet, but the project organizers have made different decisions about what they should allow people to do with their projects while using the internet.

What we will focus on today is how each of these projects is an example of an open or closed production model.

In general, an open production model has the following characteristics:

• Fewer barriers to participation in the production process;
• Access to materials produced is relatively unrestricted

In contrast, a closed production model has these characteristics:

• More barriers to participation in the production process;
• Access to materials produced is more restricted

Today we will examine Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica and try to gather specific examples that indicate how each process might be following one or another of these models. We will also try to see how each project attempts to demonstrate how its chosen production model helps to produce an authoritative, credible resource.

We will work in four groups, two looking at Wikipedia, the other two at Britannica. For the purposes of this exercise, the Wikipedia group should look particularly at About Wikipedia and the Britannica group at About Britannica (and associated links), though each group should also explore their respective sites further.

On your individual weblogs, write a brief entry this week (due at the beginning of Friday’s class) in which you consider, using at least a few specific examples a) how your assigned site is an example of an open or closed process, and b) how the project’s process might produce an authoritative, credible resource.

We will examine the sites today and have our discussion on this issue on Friday.

Some questions to consider:

• How do you get access to information at the site? Are there restrictions on access?
• Who produces information? How is participation in this process restricted?
• Are there different rules for different types of information?
• How does the project try to ensure the information produced is accurate/authoritative/credible?
• Britannica blog
• Open Britannica
• Britannica Board, terms of use,

Today in class we will continue our discussion of community. Begin by visiting some other students’ sites (you can use the Links page to get there or, if you have subscribed to individual course sites using Bloglines, use your account there to check) and seeing what they have written about community. Then, at your own site, post an entry considering what you have learned reading their entries. (Be sure to post a link to the entries you discuss so the site gets “pinged.”) Some things you might consider (you might think of others):

• What do communities have in common, or how are they different?
• How formal or informal are they?
• How do we as individuals relate to our community(ies)?
• Are communities of equal importance?
• How do online and offline communities compare?

Or just respond to what the person wrote…

Communities are groups of people who interact with one another (either directly or indirectly, intentionally or not) in order to accomplish something. These groups can also be understood as Social Networks, although the latter term emphasizes the ways people within communities connect in order to interact, and the overlapping patterns of interactions which each of us has, depending upon which communities we belong to.

In chapter four of We Media, “Rules of Participation,” the authors suggest that people who participate in online communities (or social networks) do so in order to fulfill certain needs, which may include (among others):

• Building status or reputation
• Creating connections with other people (”networking”)
• Making sense or building understanding
• Informing and being informed
• Entertaining others and being entertained
• Creating

For today’s class, take the first few minutes to identify two communities/social networks you are part of. (If possible, choose one offline community and one online community.) In an entry on your individual weblog (post it right now; you can always go back and edit it later) briefly tell us about your communities and what needs the communities help you to fulfill. In other words, what do you get out of being part of that community?

Tell us also about things like membership, rules for participation, and so on. What does it mean to be a member of your community?

After you have had a few minutes to think (and write) your initial thoughts, we will discuss what people have come up with, then connect these ideas to We Media.

Your final entry on this issue for your individual weblog should be at least two substantial paragraphs in length.

We will start our discussion today with a question. Take a few minutes at the beginning of class and write an answer to this question on your weblog:

What is journalism?

Be sure to take a couple of paragraphs to actually think through this question in your entry. (In general, treat your weblog writing as an opportunity for you to “think out loud.” Don’t worry too much about creating perfect writing–produce a rough draft that demonstrates your thinking.)

Don’t just give a simple answer to the question, “What is journalism?” but make your discussion more complex by considering related questions such as: Why is (or isn’t) journalism important? What does it do for us? How do you (or other people) use the news? Who is a journalist? Or come up with other related questions of your own.

Once you have had a few minutes to begin writing, we will discuss this question as a group. If you don’t have a chance to finish your entry today, be sure it is completed and posted on your weblog before class on Wednesday.

Some important ideas from our “We Media” reading assignment:

• “Participatory journalism: The act of a citizen, or group of citizens, playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. The intent of this participation is to provide independent, reliable, accurate, wide-ranging and relevant information that a democracy requires.” (We Media, pg. 9)
• Broadcast vs. Intercast (see graphic)
• OhmyNews and its Citizen Journalism pages
• Media Ecosystem (see graphic): Traditional (hierarchical, commercial, broadcast, advertising focused; filter then publish) vs. Participatory (networked, conversational, collaborative, egalitarian; publish then filter)
• Dan Gillmor’s principles of “we media” movement (“We Media” pg. 13):

“• My readers know more than I do.
“• That is not a threat, but rather an opportunity.
“• We can use this together to create something between a seminar and a conversation, educating all of us.
“• Interactivity and communications technology — in the form of email, weblogs, discussion boards, websites and more — make it happen.”

Due Monday: A blogroll on your site with links to our main course weblog and to all the student weblogs from this course, and an aggregator feed from a site of your choice. (This should be different from our in-class example.)

On Wednesday we got through most of our tasks to make sure your weblogs have their interactive features enabled. At this point you should have set your weblog so that users can leave comments and “pings” on your site without need for you to approve comments.

Someone should have tested your site and left at least one comment, someone else one ping. Please check your site and make sure you see these things. If not, ask a neighbor to try to leave a comment and a ping now so you can be sure your site works properly. If there are problems, please check with me.

Today we will set up a blogroll and an aggregator feed on your site.

A blogroll is a list of links to other blogs that sits in your sidebar. It is usually used to provide you and your visitors a way to find information you find useful (for whatever reason).

An aggregator feed is a specially formatted part of a weblog that allows other people to capture and republish what someone else is posting on their website.

We will talk in more detail about each of these tools later on. For now I want to show you some examples and to show you how to set up these tools on your own site.

Here are some example sites:

neweurasia.net

Teaching Online Journalism

Don’t forget, by now you should have:

• Created your individual weblog
• Published an entry of your own (not the automated WordPress entry already on the site)
• Provided your link, which should now appear on our links page
• Checked the link to be sure it works properly and your weblog looks the way you expect

If you’ve done these things yet your weblog doesn’t appear the way you expect, please see me.

Today in class we will enable some of the interactive features on your weblogs. I will demonstrate:

• Enabling open commenting (Options, Discussion, Allow people to post comments–Comment author must fill out name and email–and save)
• Enabling trackback/pings (Options, Discussion, Allow link notifications from other weblogs–and save)
• Finding a syndication/RSS feed (Teaching Online Journalism as an example)
• Posting someone else’s syndication feed on your weblog (Find the feed and copy the link, then Presentation, Widgets, Drag “RSS” widget into sidebar, copy link into widget, and save)

For Friday, your weblogs should have:

1. Your entry on interactivity completed and published
2. Open commenting enabled (i.e. comments are posted without need for moderating)
3. Trackback pings enabled
4. At least one published RSS feed from another website of your choice on your site

If you need more instruction on doing these things, be sure to consult the WordPress online documentation.