Monitoring the transformation of a domain-specific portal into a social information hub

Ramón Ovelar

Virtual Campus – University of the Basque Country

GIEL – ELIT Research Group

SIRTEL 08 – Maastricht

Pecha Kutcha talk

What is a domain-specific portal?

► Domain-specific portals are gateways to an integrated collection of electronic resources where complementary services such as internal search, personalization, communication tools and push-technology information services are frequently provided (Martínez, Palacios 2004)

► Horizontal portal (Yahoo, Excite) vs vertical (domain-specific)

Domain-specific portals and dissemination

► Domain-specific portals have adequate features for displaying and disseminating the outcomes of a systematic surveillance of a domain area

► They are widespread used for fostering R+D and innovation

► 3 aspects are relevant: Technology, that enables new environments for

collaborative work and communication Information, critical in a context of permanent change Online community, based on participation, affinity

THEMATIC PORTALS 1.0

TECHNOLOGY

ONLINE COMMUNITY

INFORMATION

CONTENT MANAGEMENT

SYSTEMS

ZOPE / PLONE

PHP NUKE

MAMBO / JOOMLA

DRUPAL

RESOURCES

REPORTS

POLITICS

BEST PRACTICES

E-LEARNING

LEVERAGING INFORMATION

FILTERING

FORESCASTING

USERS PARTICIPATION

FORUMS

AFFINITY

SUGGESTIONS

3 main elements: community, technology and information

A SENSE OF BELONGING

INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

EXPERTS ARE GATEKEEPERS

¿are domain-specific portal, based on experts gatekeepers, adequate

tools for managing information overload in a

Web 2.0 context?

WEB 2.0, API MICROCONTENT,

SYNDICATION,

BARRIERS FOR PARTICIPATION ARE LOWERING

A NEW ATTITUDE:

DIGITAL NATIVES

SOCIAL NETWORKSEMERGE IN THE WEB

ARENA

ONLINE IDENTITY

COMMUNITY: A SOCIAL GATEKEEPER

SOCIAL NETWORKS

BLOGS, WIKIS, BROADBAND…

SOCIAL MEDIA

USER GENERATED CONTENT (UGC)

WEB 2.0 SOCIAL NETWORKS

SOCIAL MEDIA

UGC

TRANSFORMING THEMATIC PORTALS INTO

SOCIAL INFORMATION HUBS

A CLOUD OF WEB SERVICES

TOOLS THAT USERS SHOULD

FIND IN A 2.0 PORTAL

RSS FEEDS AGGREGATION APIs

PROFILES OPEN SOCIAL

TAGSRATINGS COMMENTS

¿MODERATION? LIFESTREAM

Features of the Púlsar CMS

CalendarSEP 8 OCT 8 NOV 8 DIC 8 JAN 9 FEB 9 MAR 9 ABR 9 MAY 9 JUN 9 JUL 9 AUG 9 SEP 9 OCT 9 NOV 9 DIC 9

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PHASE 1

PHASE 2

AUG8JUL8

• Only admins contribute content• Authors can tag content• Users can rate and comment most of the sections

Features phase 1

CalendarSEP 8 OCT 8 NOV 8 DIC 8 JAN 9 FEB 9 MAR 9 ABR 9 MAY 9 JUN 9 JUL 9 AUG 9 SEP 9 OCT 9 NOV 9 DIC 9

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FASE 1

FASE 2

AUG8JUL8

Features phase 2

• Users have a profile and can make connections • Users can contribute to some sections• Users can aggregate feeds where every post can be managed by the social information retrieval features

ObjetiveTo study and evaluate the performance of the set features added to the portal for building a social information management system in the domain of e-learning

Data retrieval

Data processing

Evaluation of the outcomes

Recommendations for designing a set of features

Questions► ¿What are the outcomes of adding to our

portal features allowing users to contribute, organize and use social information retrieval tools?

¿Is user generated content improving the portal performance for systematic forecasting and dissemination?

¿Which are the motivations for contributing content? ¿Do the social information retrieval features help users to

manage information overload? ¿Which features are more used? ¿Could we appreciate differences

between users profiles, motivations…? According to the outcomes, what kind of reccomendations can be

made to draw a model of SIR features for a domain-specific portal?

► Complementary questions ¿Which are the social networks that we can draw analysing the

nodes (users, content…) of the portal?

Available data sources

Questionnaires and interviews Relevant and affordable

Logs / Google Analytics Relevant and affordable

Social network analysis Interesting but difficult

External applications, data provided by administrators of these applications (raw data in dumps)

Not interesting in first and second phase and difficult

External applications, using APIs or web scrapers

Not interesting in first and second phase and difficult

thanksRamón Ovelar

Virtual Campus – University of the Basque CountryGIEL – ELIT Research Group