Northlandish

How can I import references from Google Scholar to EndNote?

2011-11-13T06:17:00.000-08:00

For doing so, you will need to configure Google Scholar to send references to EndNote. Then you will be able to send references to EndNote by clicking on the "Import into EndNote" link. Follow these steps to configure Google Scholar to send references to EndNote:

Go to the Google Scholar home page athttp://scholar.google.com
Click on the "Scholar Preferences" link.
Under "Bibliography Manager" select the option "Show links to import citations into" and choose "EndNote" in the drop down box.
Click on the "Save Preferences" button.

Follow these steps to import search results into EndNote:

After performing a search on Google Scholar click on the "Import into EndNote" link for the reference you want to import.
If you are presented with a window asking if you want to "Open" or "Save" the file, choose to open the file.
A "Select a Reference Library" window will appear, use this window to select the EndNote library you want the reference imported into.

Note: If you are using the Windows version of EndNote X you will first need to update to X.0.2.

reference

Different types of derivatives market

2011-11-03T11:47:00.000-07:00

Derivatives are financial instruments used to manage one's exposure to today's volatile markets. A derivative product's value depends upon and is derived from an underlying instrument, such as commodities, interest rates, indices or stocks.

In other words, a derivative is a financial contract with a value linked to the expected future price movements of an underlying asset it is linked. It is used as a tool for hedging, speculating and arbitraging.

Forward

Forward contract forms the oldest type of derivatives market. Forward by definition is an agreement to buy and sell a specified security at a specified price to be delivered at the maturity date in the future. The agreement is privately arranged to fulfill the need of both contracting parties, a buyer and seller. If one party intends to close out the contract it must be at the consent of the other party. Therefore a forward contract is technically referred to as a privately negotiated agreement.

Futures

Futures are traded on a futures exchange and represent an obligation to buy or sell a specified underlying instrument on a specified date (the delivery date or final settlement date) in the future at a specified price (the futures price). The settlement price is the price of the underlying asset on the delivery date. Both parties to a futures contract are legally bound to fulfill the contract on the delivery date. If the holder of a futures position wishes to exit their obligation before the delivery date, they must offset it either by selling a long position or buying back a short position. Such an action effectively closes the futures position and its contractual obligations.

Future market develops as a result of insufficient trading requirement of forward transactions. Either party justifies this because forward as a private agreement does not guarantee the fulfillment of the contract. A third party is required to act as a guarantor, namely the clearing house. It serves as a buyer for every seller and vice versa.

Options

An option is a financial instrument that gives the holder the right to engage in a future transaction on an underlying security or futures contract. The holder is under no obligation to exercise this right. There are two main types of option. A call option gives the holder the right to purchase a specified quantity of a security at a fixed price (the strike price) on or before the specified expiration date. A put option gives the holder the right to sell. If the holder chooses to exercise the option, the party who sold, or wrote, the option is obliged to fulfill the terms of the contract.

Since forward and futures trading obligates both buyer and seller to fulfill their contracts, a third form of derivatives is introduced that provides a right to one party and obligation to the other party. Options trading are a contract that gives a right without obligation to the buyer, while the seller has an obligation if requested by the buyer to buy or sell at a specified security at specified price and time.

Swap

A swap is a derivative in which two parties agree to exchange a set of cash flows (or leg) for another set. A notional principal amount is used to calculate each cash flow; these are rarely exchanged by the parties. A swap is usually used to hedge a risk, such as an interest-rate risk, or to speculate on a price change. It may also be used to access an underlying asset in order to earn a profit or loss from any change in price while avoiding posting the notional amount in cash or collateral.

Below are some of the uses of derivatives like futures and options, as listed by John C. Hull in his 1999 book titled 'Options, Futures and Other Derivatives'.

Derivatives are very good risk management tools and are mainly used to hedge risks that a trader is routinely exposed to. Derivative instruments offer the trader, the option of passing on some of the risk that he's bearing over to another party. He either takes on another risk in return or makes a cash payment in exchange for the risk transfer.
Derivative instruments like forwards and futures play a key role in giving directions to the market prices of the future. Forwards and futures prices are good reflectors of the price directions as well as the expected change in the future prices of the underlying asset.
Derivatives offer the traders an option to change the nature of their liabilities and exchange the risks associated with some of their unwanted liabilities with some more bearable ones.
Derivatives can be used to make arbitrage profits. Arbitrage profit opportunities are those opportunities that allow for risk-free, zero net investment profits, by capitalizing on price differentials on the same commodity in different markets. The intention is to buy low and sell high in two different markets and pocket the differential profits.
Derivatives allow for large portfolio position changes without incurring the buying and selling transaction costs.

Advantages

The use of derivatives means that some financial risks can be transferred to other parties who are more willing or better suited to take or manage those risks and can thus be a useful tool for risk management.

Purchasing derivatives can be a safer choice if there is a possibility of a looming bear market as they are hedged, unlike equities.

Buying now at a future price can be cheaper than buying at market price in the future, bearing in mind that the spot price could be less expensive. A long call option requires no obligation when it is due.

Disadvantages

If the market changes dramatically, it is possible to lose financially if the derivatives are being used as a speculative instrument.

If you hold the put option on a derivative, you are obliged to adhere to it if the holder of the call chooses to exercise their right to sell or buy.

Assignment 5 (final), Implementing a functional web-based learning environment prototype

2011-11-03T11:35:00.000-07:00

Implementing a functional web-based learning environment prototype

Assignment description

Today there are many options for web users to create a website for teaching and learning, a web based learning environment. Users with sufficient technical skills who also have access to web storage/server can set up a self-hosted learning environment and those less technically experienced can use hosted services to set up the learning environment.

Your task is to identify a context and a learning need and to design and implement a functional web-based learning environment prototype that serves your purpose. For instance, you could set up a site for music or language training, a digital portfolio for primary school, a social network for a (fictive) economic or non-profit association. You can also work with a mobile interface, if required by the context you have chosen.

Try to identify a need in which you have previous experience or is of interest to you. You are free to decide whether to build the learning environment either by using self-hosted open sourced software or by using one or more hosted services (e.g. Spruz, Grouply, Youtube, Vcasmo, Wordpress, Google Maps, Google Sites/Groups, Miro Community, SchoolAppKit etc).

If you need advice on what application/s to use, post a question in the Application advice forum.

The prototype you create should be useful and fully functional and utilize common concepts of web 2.0 (e.g. social tagging, collaboration, sharing functionality, web feeds, web widgets etc). All content/information added should either be produced by yourself or be licensed in such a way that you are allowed to redisplay the content. A certain amount of content/information needs to be added, but it is also allowed to use placeholders to some extent.

The prototype design should be described in a design report, see grading criteria below.

***

Actually I've done it, But since it is a fully designed web based learning environment which I've spent so much time to do it, I do not upload it here! I've just passed it to my professor and got a A score for it. Now it's your turn to do a new thing!

Assignment 4, Social software and Web 2.00 – Digital Storytelling

2011-06-20T09:04:00.000-07:00

The basic principles of digital storytelling

Digital storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component. (7 things you should know about storytelling)

Nowadays stories can be interactive movies that might include highly produced audio and visual effects. At the same time, a set of slides with related narration or music can compose a simple digital story.

The resources available to making a digital story are unlimited, giving the storyteller huge creative latitude. Some learning theorists believe that storytelling can be effectively applied to nearly any subject. Creating a narrative and communicating it effectively require the storyteller to think carefully about the topic and consider the audience’s perspective(Franz and Nischelwitzer, 2004).

Story idea

Idea for this story comes from one of Jalal al-Din Rumi’s stories. Rumi was a 13^th century Persian poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic. Rūmī is a descriptive name meaning "the Roman" since he lived most of his life in an area called Rūm (then under the control of Seljuq dynasty) because it was once ruled by the Eastern Roman Empire.

The story is about three fishes that lived in a lake and the approaches each of them used to survive from fishermen and their nets.

Media used

· Photoshop or any other photo editing software for editing scanned photos

· Windows movie maker V2.6 for making the video

· Youtube.com for uploading video created

You can find lots of useful Medias to create your own story here.

Production phase/ overview of pros and cons / chosen age group

At first phase I tried to find a proper story to tell and I thought the famous stories from old literature’s books would be good choice so I referred to Rumi’s stories which are my favorite.

At second step I modified the story to make it brief and good enough for a 2-5 minutes storytelling project. After designing the storyboard, I started to draw pictures. For this step, at first I drawn pictures on the paper then using scanner converted all of them to .jpg format. I have used Photo editing software( Adobe premier CS5) for editing and coloring the pictures.

I used an mp3 recorder to make the vocal narration. For mixing the voice whit picture Scenes I tried Adobe premier CS5.

I personally think the story I told, could be good for the age group 5-10 years old children which will learn what is the power of thinking and why we need to use our brain to survive.

Final work

This is my story!

You can see my final digital story directly on Youtube.com at this address.

Reference

FRANZ, K. & NISCHELWITZER, A. K. Year. Adaptive Digital Storytelling: A Concept for Narrative Structures and Digital Storytelling build on Basic Storytelling Principles, Adaptive Story Schemas and Structure Mapping Techniques. In, 2004. 25.

Assignment 2c, Social software and Web 2.00 – Study a Social Network

2011-06-20T09:01:00.000-07:00

2c. Post study reflection

Watch a couple of presentations published in the forum and make a concluding post in your blog and address:

Similarities and differences between networks
In what way has your view upon social changed?

***

Similarities and differences between networks

Base on what I saw at forum linked to assignment 2, As yet just 4 of my classmates have done this assignment so I’m going to read their assignments and make a concluding about similarities, differences and changes social networks have experienced since first day.

My classmates have worked on three different social networks as facebook.com, goodreads.com and academia.edu. The nature and nomenclature of these websites may vary from site to site but they have the same concept which is Social networking. All of these networks try to provide a good environment to:

Construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system.
Articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection.
View and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.

A discussion with your view upon how social networks has grown and changed

Given the rapid growth and popularity of social networks in the coming years, it doesn't appear that the concept is going to go away. The evolution of the Internet is now forming itself around the characteristics of social networks. Bloggers and website developers are using tools like RSS feeds, Digg or Technorati to communicate and interact with other bloggers. Through blog comments and tagging, websites and blogs are also integrating into what experts now call Web 2.0. The entire Internet itself is fast becoming a giant, interactive and powerful social network (Mason and Rennie, 2008).

Over the course of the last 3 years, Stelzner has seen social media move from an uncertain strategy (2009 report) to a permanent fixture (2010 report) to a primary tool (2011 report) in the savvy marketer’s toolkit.

References

MASON, R. & RENNIE, F. 2008. E-learning and social networking handbook: resources for higher education, Psychology Press.

Assignment 1a-1b, SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND WEB 2.00

2011-06-10T00:54:00.000-07:00

1b-How micro-blogs can be used in education and teaching?

During last ten years, Web 2.0 has turned into an amazing success story. These days World Wide Web is driven by user generated content, the use of weblogs, wikis, micro blogs and podcasts has increased dramatically. Social media, social networks and social communities all represent a new form of collaboration and communication. In a short space of time, the World Wide Web has been transformed from a static information medium into a worldwide communication platform.(Brown, 2008)

Web 2.0 technologies are also of great interest, given that the use of the internet for educational purposes, known as e-learning or Technology Enhanced Learning, is a very important future stakeholder for education. Stephen Downes (2005) introduced a new term, ‘‘e-Learning 2.0”, and thus coined a name for the use of wikis, weblogs and podcasts in educational settings. Since then, much research work has been done and many publications (Augar, Raitman, & Zhou, 2005; Caddick, 2006; Evans, 2007; Towned, 2005; Raitman, Augar, & Zhou, 2005; Ebner, 2007) and scientiﬁc reports have pointed out how these new technological possibilities can be used in the context of our social environments. Collaboration and communication by means of weblogs and wikis enhance traditional education in a new and exciting way.

In recent years there have been mainly two reasons for the increasing attention given to process-oriented approaches in didactics. The first can be traced back to the development of a constructivist approach to learning. In this context the process of knowledge construction, the person’s own learning process, leads to the application of process-oriented learning. As a result, more attention is given to the matter of the learner’s own attitude as well as the opinions of others.

From this perspective, learning processes cannot be tightly structured and the results of learning are almost unpredictable. In addition, the relevance of process knowledge is increasing as the time factor plays a less important role. Process orientation does not refer to a tight structuring of the learning process, but rather to the possibility of trying out a range of learning strategies and reflecting on these.(Ebner et al., 2010)

Against this background the role of the teacher changes from that of a knowledge distributor to a facilitator of self-directed learning.

Therefore the instructional design (and the use of media) should concentrate on facilitating the learning process. This can be ensured primarily by creating favourable learning conditions (Kyndt, Dochy, & Nijs, 2009). With regard to communication, a basic openness is needed and the possibility to contribute one’s opinions and discuss different views. Micro blogging can foster process-oriented learning. The advantage of micro blogging consists mainly in the possibility of giving immediate feedback, as well as in the documentation of processes. The latter feature is relevant in two different ways: firstly, learning contributions can be consulted to obtain a summative account of learning activities and learning progress, and secondly, micro blogging offers the possibility to monitor learning processes and to respond to peer activity during the process (information awareness). However, certain disadvantages are evident. The same aspects that can be evaluated positively can be evaluated negatively(Ebner et al., 2010). For example, the limitation of 140 characters forces the learner to focus on the topic, but does not allow him or her to express complex thoughts. In addition, the possibility for private conversation may serve to bridge the gap between formal and informal learning or it may invite the learner to focus only on private exchange and/or to miss the separation between educational/ vocational and private use. In its favor, micro blogging can foster media literacy.(Cook, 2008)

References

BROWN, G. 2008. Social Media 100 Success Secrets: Social Media, Web 2.0 User-Generated Content and Virtual Communities-100 Most Asked Mass Collaboration Questions, Lulu. com.

COOK, N. 2008. Enterprise 2.0: how social software will change the future of work, Ashgate Pub Co.

EBNER, M., LIENHARDT, C., ROHS, M. & MEYER, I. 2010. Microblogs in Higher Education-A chance to facilitate informal and process-oriented learning? Computers & Education, 55, 92-100.

***

1b- Describe at least 15 terms from the list provided.

1-badge

An image that displayed on a blog or personal profile on social media Web sites that identifies you. Most encourage readers and followers to download display their badge on your own site or blog and link back. Badges are considered a Web 2.0 trend and are also frequently used to display a "beta" message on your site or blog.

Reference

2-TrackBack

TrackBack is a type of peer-to-peer communication system that was designed to send notification of updates between two Web sites via a Trackback Ping. Ping in reference to TrackBack refers to a small message sent from one Web server to another. TrackBacks are useful for informing a Web site that you have referenced its Web site within your own Web site, and is popular with bloggers.

TrackBack was first released as an open specification in August 2002.

Reference

3-Microblog

A type of blog that lets users to publish short text updates. Bloggers can usually use a number of service for the updates including instant messaging, e-mail, or Twitter. The posts are called microposts, while the act of using these services to update your blog is called microblogging. Social networking sites, like Facebook, also use a microblogging feature in profiles. On Facebook this is called "Status Updates".

Reference

4-Ajax

Short for Asynchronous JavaScript and XML, it is a term that describes a new approach to using a number of existing technologies together, including the following: HTML or XHTML, Cascading Style Sheets, JavaScript, the Document Object Model, XML, XSLT, and the XMLHttpRequest object. When these technologies are combined in the Ajax model, Web applications are able to make quick, incremental updates to the user interface without reloading the entire browser page.

[Source: mozilla developer center]

5-Direct Web Remoting (DWR)

Direct Web Remoting (DWR) is a Java open source library for those wanting to develop Web sites which contain Ajax. DWR enables the Javascript in a browser to interact with Java on a server, just as if it were in the browser. DWR encompasses two main components; a Java Servlet running on the server that processes requests and sends responses back to the browser, and JavaScript running in the browser that sends requests and can dynamically update the Web page. DWR development is sponsored by TIBCO.

Reference

6-Blogroll

Found on blogs it is a list of links to other blogs and Web sites that the blog author commonly references or is affiliated with. Blogrolls help blog authors to establish and build upon a their blogger community. In Web 1.0 terminology, a blogroll would be the equivalent of a list of hyperlinks on a personal Web page.

Reference

7-Blogosphere

Meaning all blogs, it is an expression used to describe the 'world of blogs'.

Reference

8-RSS

RSS is the acronym used to describe the de facto standard for the syndication of Web content. RSS is an XML-based format and while it can be used in different ways for content distribution, its most widespread usage is in distributing news headlines on the Web. A Web site that wants to allow other sites to publish some of its content creates an RSS document and registers the document with an RSS publisher. A user that can read RSS-distributed content can use the content on a different site. Syndicated content can include data such as news feeds, events listings, news stories, headlines, project updates, excerpts from discussion forums or even corporate information.

Because there are different versions of RSS, the term RSS is most frequently used as a name to mean the syndication of Web content, rather than as an acronym for its founding technology. When using the name RSS the speaker may be referring to any of the following versions of Web content syndication:

RDF Site Summary (RSS 0.9, RSS 1.0)
Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91, RSS 1.0)
Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)

When using the term RSS, most will use it in reference to Rich Site Summary or the previous version called RDF Site Summary. When referring to Really Simple Syndication, it will usually be called RSS 2.0, not RSS. There are several versions of RSS available, with the most commonly implemented version being RSS 0.91. The most current version, however, is RSS 2.0 and it is backward-compatible with RSS 0.91. RSS was originally developed by Netscape. The RSS 2.0 specification was authored by Dave Winer.

Compare with Atom, an alternative open source XML-based Web content and metadata syndication format.

Reference

9-Bookmarklet

It is a direct link to a specific function or feature within a Web page. While a browser bookmark takes you to a specific page, the bookmarklet will take you to a function, such as a specific search (including the search phrase) on a Web page, a tagged location on Google maps and others. Bookmarklets are possible due to browser support of the protocol "javascript:" that lets you execute bits of JavaScript code directly.

Reference

10-Creative Commons license

A licensing concept created by Creative Commons that builds upon traditional copyright practices to define possibilities that exist between the standard "all rights reserved" full copyright and public domain "no rights reserved". A Creative Commons license lets you dictate how others may use your work. The Creative Commons license allows you to keep your copyright but allows others to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit and only on the conditions you specify. For online work you can select a license that generates "Some Rights Reserved" or a "No Rights Reserved" button and statement for your published work.

Reference

11-Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is the term given to describe a second generation of the World Wide Web that is focused on the ability for people to collaborate and share information online. Web 2.0 basically refers to the transition from static HTML Web pages to a more dynamic Web that is more organized and is based on serving Web applications to users. Other improved functionality of Web 2.0 includes open communication with an emphasis on Web-based communities of users, and more open sharing of information. Over time Web 2.0 has been used more as a marketing term than a computer-science-based term. Blogs, wikis, and Web services are all seen as components of Web 2.0.

Web 2.0 was previously used as a synonym for Semantic Web, but while the two are similar, they do not share precisely the same meaning.

Reference

12-Voice 2.0

A buzzword used to describe the trends, technologies and applications used to bring IP telephony to the Web to create a new class of voice-enabled applications. Applications such as Skype is an example of Voice 2.0.

Reference

13-Web 3.0

The term used to describe the evolution of the Web as an extension of Web 2.0. This definition of Web 3.0 is the popular view held by Tim O'Reilly. In contrast, Nova Spivack defines Web 3.0 as connective intelligence; connecting data, concepts, applications and ultimately people. While some call the The Semantic Web 'Web 3.0', Spivack's opinion is that The Semantic Web is just one of several converging technologies and trends that will define Web 3.0.

Reference

14-Mash-up

The term mash-up refers to a new breed of Web-based applications created by hackers and programmers (typically on a volunteer basis) to mix at least two different services from disparate, and even competing, Web sites. A mash-up, for example, could overlay traffic data from one source on the Internet over maps from Yahoo, Microsoft, Google or any content provider. The term mash-up comes from the hip-hop music practice of mixing two or more songs.

This capability to mix and match data and applications from multiple sources into one dynamic entity is considered by many to represent the promise of the Web service standard (also referred to as on-demand computing).

Reference

15-OpenID

It is a shared identity service that enables users of multiple OpenID-enabled Web sites to sign in under one single profile, or single user identity. It's a free and open standard under which users are able to control the amount of personal information they provide on Web sites, and in particular social networking sites (SNS). To use OpenID across multiple sites, users must first choose an Open ID provider. Once you create an OpenID it stays with you, even if you choose at a later time to switch to a different OpenID provider.

OpenID works by using existing Internet technologies such as URI, HTTP, SSL and Diffie-Hellman to transform the information you provide on one site (or service) into an account that can be used at other sites that support OpenID logins. Some of the online and Internet services supporting OpenID include AOL, Blogger, Flickr, LiveDoor, LiveJopiurnal, Vox, Yahoo, WordPress, and others.

Reference

ASSIGNMENT 3e-SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND WEB 2.00

2011-06-09T22:43:00.000-07:00

3e - Online presentations

Your task is to make a presentation of the applications you have chosen to work with in parts 3a-d. You could do this by using the Presentation tool in your chosen online office suite. Another way is to create your slides locally and use a slide sharing service for presentation.

You can use Slideshare (http://www.slideshare.net), Scribd (http://www.scribd.com) or any other service you have discovered.
Your presentation should contain a short tutorial to each application (parts 3a-d). That is, after watching your presentation, the viewer should be able to know how to get started with all four applications.

Pick a target audience and adapt your presentation for your particular audience. Introduce each application in picture and text and describe the key concepts and the basic terminology that the user may encounter. You should also address pros and cons of each site. By watching your presentation, the user should understand why and how the sites can be used.

***

You can see the presentation related to assignment 3e at this URL:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/57504457/Assignment-3e-Social-software-and-Web-2-00

ASSIGNMENT 3a-SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND WEB 2.00

2011-06-05T06:22:00.000-07:00

3a - Online office suites

The most known online office suite is probably Google Docs, but there are more available. Find a few of these and try to figure out how they stand out in the competition.

Think of a context (school use, higher education, corporate use etc) where you think the application suite could be helpful and make up a list of evaluative criteria (requirements for your purpose) and compare two or more online office suites. Based on your evaluation, pick an online office suite to use for the rest of the assignment.

Use the chosen application suite to create a brief report in which you describe the evaluation process (context, evaluation results, and conclusions). Make sure to utilize some of the basic functionality. The report should contain text, tables and images (e. g. screenshots of the application).

***

Online office suites

An online office suite is a type of office suite offered by websites in the form of software as a service. They can be accessed online from any Internet enabled device running any operating system. This allows people to work together worldwide and at any time, thereby leading to international web-based collaboration and virtual teamwork. Usually, the basic versions are offered for free and for more advanced versions one is required to pay a nominal subscription fee.(Gillett et al.)

Applications for online office suites are often developed on the Web 2.0 platform with different levels. The term Office 2.0, which is usually used to refer to online office suites, originated with Ismael Ghalimi in an experimental effort to test whether he could perform his entire computer based work in online applications(Ghalimi and CEO, 2007).

The online office suites could be helpful in some ways as below (Skoczen and Bussmann, 2006):

· The cost is low. Most of the time there is no specific charge for using the service for online users
· There is no need to download or install software outside of the office suite's web page
· They usually can be run with minimum hardware requirements
· Users share a document without the need to run their own server.
· No need to upgrade online software
· They are portable. Documents are accessible from approximately any computer with a connection to the Internet
· Users’ documents are stored on the remote server.

As first step for this assignment I try to list some important online office suites and sort them by functionality.

Open source suites

OpenOffice.org. Its components include Writer, Impress, Math, Draw, Calc, and Base. Releases are available for MS Windows, Linux, Mac and Solaris. Since Sun was purchased by Oracle, OpenOffice.org is now under Oracle's ownership.
Calligra Suite free and open-source office suite.
GNOME Office
LibreOffice: independent fork of OpenOffice.org with a number of enhancements

OpenOffice.org vs. GNOME Office

OpenOffice.org

Introduction

How does OpenOffice.org introduce itself?

“OpenOffice.org is both a product and an open-source project. Both have been in existence since October 13th, 2000. OpenOffice.org 1.0, the product, was released on April 30th, 2002. (about.openoffice.org)

OpenOffice.org's mission statement was drafted by the community:

To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format.

The OpenOffice.org project is primarily sponsored by Oracle, which is the primary contributor of code to the project. Our other corporate contributors include RedFlag CH2000 (RedOffice.com), and IBM, to name but two. Additionally over 500,000 people--unaffiliated individuals, business and government employees, and students from nearly every curve of the globe--have joined the project with the aim of creating the best possible office suite that all can use. Their work as a community is both invaluable and practical: people use what the community does. This is the essence of an open source community.”(about.openoffice.org)

OpenOffice.org, commonly known as OOo , is an open source office suite which main components are for word processing, spreadsheets, graphics , presentations and databases.

OpenOffice.org is available for different operating systems like windows, Mac, safari etc, is published as free software and is written using its own GUI (graphical user interface) toolkit.

Features

Multilanguage service

OpenOffice.org 3 is available in more than 100 different languages (help, openoffice.org), working on all common computers, and storing data in an international open standard format.

Compatibility with different format

OpenOffice.org is able to read and write files from other common office software packages, as well as being available for download and use completely free for any purpose.(IRIMESCU, 2008)

In particular, the publishers of the office suite stress that it is the result of over twenty years' software engineering, it is easy to use, and it is free, released under the LGPL license. (wikipedia)

Components

OpenOffice.org comprises a collection of applications that work together closely to provide the features commonly included in modern office suites. Many of the components mirror those available in Microsoft Office. The components available include:

Module	Notes
Writer	Similar to MS Word
Calc	Similar to MS Excel and Lotus 1-2-3
Impress	Similar to MS PowerPoint and Apple Keynote
Math	Similar to MS Equation Editor
Base	Similar to Microsoft Access
Draw	Similar to Scribus and MS Publisher. It can also export its creations to the PDF format

Socialization

Beside all routine services as an office suite, this website tries to be like a social network. Since there are more than 400,000 registered members on openoffice.org, the system has provided networking and blogging facilities for its users. Every registered user has a profile and can search through other users’ profiles to find related topics and publications and projects memberships. Users also can search all tags belonged to all posts.

Extensions

OpenOffice.org supports extensions, something like Mozilla Firefox, including the exclusive extension .oxt. Extensions usually are used to add new functionality to an on hand OpenOffice.org installation. There are more than 390 extensions for recent versions. Since OpenOffice.org is open source software, developers can simply build new extensions for it.

GNOME Office

Introduction

GNOME Office is a free office suite for the GNOME desktop.

How does GNOME introduce itself?

The GNOME Project was started in 1997 by two then university students, Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena. Their aim: to produce a free (as in freedom) desktop environment. Since then, GNOME has grown into a hugely successful enterprise. Used by millions of people across the world, it is the most popular desktop environment for GNU/Linux and UNIX-type operating systems. The desktop has been utilized in successful, large-scale enterprise and public deployments, and the project’s developer technologies are utilized in a large number of popular mobile devices.(about us/ GNOME.org)

Features

Compatibility with different format

OpenOffice.org is able to read and write files from other common office software packages, as well as being available for download and use completely free for any purpose.(IRIMESCU, 2008)

Socialization and interface

Level of socialization in GNOME office is less than other famous projects like Open Office.org since you only sign in to be a user of the system and have a simple profile. Then you only can subscribe other users to find out what they have published.

Components

*Module*	*Notes*
Abiword	Word processor
Gnumeric	Spreadsheet
Evolution:	Email, contacts, calendar
Planner	Project manager
Inkscape	Vector graphics
XSane	Scanning
Gnucash	Finances
gLables	Label designer
Glom	Database designer

Some of above tools are listed on the GNOME Office official website but not installed on the downloadable versions!

Applications

Hundreds of applications are available for GNOME. They enable people to employ a vast range of activities, including everything from playing media and editing photos to system administration. Most of these facilities are free of charge.

Banshee

Allows users to play music and videos, Stay entertained and up to date with podcasts and video podcasts.

Shotwell

It gives users the opportunity of organizing, editing and publishing photos. It’s easy to crop, sharpen and fix the colors on photos. Users also can setup multiple background slideshow.

Inkscape

Draw freely! This is a vector illustration application which allows users to produce stunning graphics in the web standard SVG format.

Tomboy

Tomboy is an application used for note-taking. It is Simple and easy to use, but with potential to help you organize the ideas and information you deal with every day.

Rhythmbox

This application is used to Organize and listen to music, rip CDs. Browse, preview, and download albums, features Internet radio and last.fm. It has good support for mass storage music players.

In contrast to other projects like OpenOffice.org, the integration between the different applications in this office suite is rather less. So GNOME Office could be considered as a collection of desktop productivity applications written for the GNOME environment not an complete office suite in the usual sense. (Samoladas and Stamelos)

Collaboration

GNOME relies to its participants. More than 3500 individuals have contributed changes to the project’s code repositories, including the employees of 106 companies. GNOME is a result of this huge collaboration. In addition, GNOME is governed along meritocratic principles.

Since 2000, the GNOME Foundation has acted as the custodian of the project. The Foundation is GNOME’s legal body. It supports the project through the collection and distribution of funds, acts as the interface between the project and its partners and provides strategic guidance.(about us/ gnome.org)

Comparison table

Specifications	Openoffice.org	GNOME office
Predecessor	StarOffice	AbiWord, Gnumeric
Costs in USD	Free	Free
License	LGPL	GPL
Microsoft Office (.doc, .xls) support	Yes	Yes
Portable Document Format support	With free plugins	Yes
HTML editor	OpenOffice.org Writer	No
Online editing	With free plugins	No
E-mail client	No	Evolution
Windows	Yes	Yes
Mac OS X	Yes	Yes
Linux	Yes	Yes

References

GHALIMI, I. C. & CEO, I. 2007. BPM 2.0. IT-Reduz, Porto Alegre.
GILLETT, S. E., LEHR, W. H., WROCLAWSKI, J. T. & CLARK, D. D. Year. A Taxonomy of Internet Appliances. In.
IRIMESCU, D. 2008. Deployment of Open Standards in the Public Administration. Revista Informatica Economic nr, 3, 64.
SAMOLADAS, I. & STAMELOS, I. Assessing free/open source software quality. Department of Informatics Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, 54124.
SKOCZEN, S. & BUSSMANN, R. W. 2006. Olorien Online peer-reviewed journal software for low-cost international organizations.

ASSIGNMENT 3c - SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND WEB 2.00

2011-06-02T10:18:00.000-07:00

3c - Photo sharing

Devices that can capture photos (video) (digital cameras, mobile phones etc) are very widespread and the read/write web has made it possible to share and discuss images online. Flickr.com may be the most well-known example of such social software where photo sharing is central, but there are of course other sites as well.

Find a few photo sharing sites (or sites that incorporate this functionality) and try to figure out what makes each site unique. Think of a context where photo sharing could be useful, make up a list of evaluative criteria and compare two or more sites. Based on your evaluation, pick a social photo sharing site to use. Transfer some of your digital images and learn how to use the functions on the site.

Present your evaluative report, using text, tables and images (screenshots) in the same way as in previous parts.

***

A LIST OF SOME IMPORTANT PHOTO SHARING WEBSITES:

· http://picasaweb.google.com

· http://twitpic.com

· http://picwing.com

· http://flikr.com

· http://photobucket.com

· http://smugmug.com

· http://fotki.com

· http://dotphoto.com

· http://smugmug.com

Introduction

Photo sharing websites help users to publish or transfer of offline digital photos online. Moreover these websites enable users to share photos with others publicly or privately. These websites have been designed and facilitate with applications to upload and display of images.

The term “Photo sharing” can also be applied to the use of online photo galleries that are set up and managed by individual users, including photoblogs.(Wikipedia.com)

Most photo sharing sites provide multiple optional views (such as thumbnails and slideshows), they also give users the opportunity to classify photos into albums, add annotations, tags and comments.

Since printing at home is potentially time consuming and expensive or low quality, some of these websites offer HQ printing systems for digital photos uploaded, on photographic paper. Typically the customer uploads their digital photos to the site and then orders prints and gifts.(Crook, 2008)

Photo sharing sites can be divided into two categories: sites that offer photo sharing for free and sites that charge consumers directly to host and share photos. Free photo sharing websites also most can be broken up into advertising supported medias and online photo finishing sites, which photo sharing is a vehicle to sell prints or other products.

Paid sites normally offer subscription based services directly to users and dispense with advertisements and sometimes the sale of other goods.(like corbis.com)

Some free sites are owned by camera manufacturers, and some of them only accept photos made with their hardware.

Features

Different websites have different features base on which group they belong to but here the normal and important features will discuss. Firstly short definition and details about each feature will be given then some of websites mentioned above will be compared with each other.

Viewer Comment Posting per Photo

Users can allow other members who view photos to leave comments on each photo.

Create Your Own Web Page/ Profile

An easy way to share profile and photos with friends and family is through user’s own webpage.

Batch/single Photo Uploading

Whether users can upload multiple photos at a time to photo hosting service or not?

AD-Free Browsing and Sharing

Most pay accounts offer an advertisement free environment when browsing and sharing. If the service offers a free account, there will usually be pop up ads or banners to help generate revenue.

Video Clips

The service will allow you to upload video that can be stored and viewed on their website.

Uploading by Email

You can email your pictures directly into your photostream for quick upload.

Uploading from Camera Phone

You can upload photos directly from your camera phone to your account.

Photo Licensing

The service allows you to associate a Creative Commons license to each of your photos.

and

Socialization

Control Public Viewing

This feature allows users to control who can view their photos.

Form Private Groups

Users can form groups or join preexisting groups that have a particular interest like weddings, antique cars, rock climbing, ATVs and so forth.

Tags or Keywords

The members of the site can leave notes, keywords or tags on the uploaded photos making them easier to find.

Weblog, Blog, or Online Journal

These are dated sequences of written entries. Unlike a hardcopy diary, an online journal, blog or weblog can include links to favorite websites, photos, graphics and even animation. These can be public or private.

Security

Different websites have different level of security. Some of them are using security certificates (like SSL) and some of them not. Actually it depends on size and financial abilities.

References

CROOK, C. 2008. Web 2.0 technologies for learning: The current landscape–opportunities, challenges and. Manchester Metropolitan University.

www.toptenreviews.com

http://flikr.com

http://photobucket.com

http://smugmug.com

http://fotki.com

http://dotphoto.com

http://smugmug.com

ASSIGNMENT 3b - SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND WEB 2.00

2011-06-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

3b - Social bookmarking

Nowadays, bookmarks (favorites) that you used to have on your computer have moved on to the Web as well. Instead of having different bookmarks on different computers (work/school/home) it is not only possible to access your personal bookmarks from any computer, you can also access others' bookmarks and share bookmarks with your friends/colleagues/pupils.

Find a few social bookmarking sites and try to figure out what makes each site unique. Compare to regular browser-based bookmarks (favorites). Make up a list of evaluative criteria and compare two or more social bookmarking services.

Based on your evaluation, pick a social bookmarking site to use. Transfer your local bookmarks (at least parts of them) to the bookmarking site of your choice (how can this be done?).

Present your evaluative report, using text, tables and images (screenshots) in the same way as in assignment 3a.

You can find the PDF version of this Assignment (plus more tables and figures) at this address.

Social bookmarking

Regular browser-based bookmarks (favorites) vs. online bookmarking

Social bookmarking is a great tool to share links and stumbled upon valuable online contents. With online bookmarks, you get to access your favorite site anywhere at any PC. Aside from this, social bookmarking has proven to be viral in promoting online business.

Social bookmarking is a method for Internet users to organize, store, manage and search for bookmarks of resources online. Unlike file sharing, the resources themselves aren't shared, merely bookmarks that reference them. (wikipedia)

Collaborative tagging describes the process by which many users add metadata in the form of keywords to shared content. Recently, collaborative tagging has grown in popularity on the web, on sites that allow users to tag bookmarks, photographs and other content (Golder and Huberman, 2005).

At old method of bookmarking, users had to use their computer’s web browsers to list their favorite online content. So they could not access to these lists when they use different computer sets. Nowadays social bookmarking websites have switched these lists into online bookmark lists which can accessible all around the world through all computers.

At social bookmarking websites descriptions can be added to these bookmarks in the form of tags, so users may recognize the content of the resource without needing to download them. Such descriptions may be comments, votes in favor of or against its quality, or tags that become a folksonomy. Folksonomy is also called social tagging, "the process by which many users add metadata in the form of keywords to shared content"(wikipedia)

These bookmarks are usually public, however can be saved privately. They can be shared only with specified people or in the groups. They can be shared only inside certain networks, or around the World Wide Web. The authorized people can usually view these bookmarks chronologically, by categories or tags and via a search engine.

Most social bookmark services promote users to categorize the bookmarks with tags instead of the traditional browser based system of folders, even though a number of services feature a combination of folders and tags. These websites also allow viewing bookmarks linked with a specific tag, and include description and stats about the number of users who have bookmarked them. Some social bookmarking services also draw inferences from the relationship of tags to create clusters of tags or bookmarks (Arora, 2009).

Recently online bookmarking services provide web feeds like RSS or Atom for their lists of bookmarks, including lists organized by tags. This allow subscribers have notifications for being aware of new added material as they are saved, shared, and tagged by others.

As these services have matured and grown more popular, they have added extra features such as ratings and comments on bookmarks, the ability to import and export bookmarks from browsers, emailing of bookmarks, web annotation, and groups or other social network features (Watwood, 2007).

Google Bookmark vs. Delicious

Google Bookmarks

Introduction

There are many social bookmarking sites where you can store your useful links. Among these is the Google Bookmarks.

How does google introduce Google bookmark?

With Google Bookmarks, you'll be able to:

Save time with quick links to your favorite websites,
Use Web History to find the sites you visit frequently and bookmark your favorites. Use the Google Toolbar for quick access to your bookmarks and to easily create more.
Get your bookmarks on any computer. No matter where you may be surfing the web, your bookmarks can stay with you just by signing in.
Keep your bookmarks organized. Add searchable labels and notes to your bookmarks to find them easily and keep them organized. (front page, Google bookmark website)

The most important advantage of using Google bookmark is that this system was made by Google so it will be support with all Google’s software and materials. Google Bookmarks is available only to Google Account holders. This system was launched on 2005. Google Bookmarks allows people to bookmark online contents’ links then add labels or tags, and also notes.

Users can access their bookmarks from any computer when they sign in to their Gmail account. All shared links are searchable by using tags, notes and comments. However others cannot search your links if you put “private” label on them.

As mentioned before, all google application and software support the Google Bookmarks. Google toolbar also has tools enable users to easily create bookmarks and quickly access them. Bookmarks can also be created manually from the web interface, or by use of third-party tools such as Firefox extensions created for managing the user's Google Bookmarks account and keeping them synchronized to the browser's bookmarks (Duthel, 2008).

In addition there are lots of extensions which help users applying this website as easy as possible. For example a javascript function called Google Bookmark was created on the Firefox toolbar, which opens a window to keep the bookmark to the Google Bookmarks. This same function can be imported into other browsers as a bookmarklet.

Furthermore many websites will encourage bookmarking to Google Bookmarks through third party buttons on their websites, knowing that Google's search engine keeps tabs and considers these bookmarks significant in the results for public search (Hayman, 2007)

Features

Public / private / shared lists

There are three types of links and bookmarks at Google bookmarks. Private links are accessible only for account owner and nobody else can see them. Public lists are accessible through the search engines and everybody can see them. You and the person you invited him/her can access to shared lists.

By default, all labels are private. Nobody can see the labels you apply to a site.

By default, Lists are also private. However, you can choose to make your list public (so that anybody can find and view it), or to add collaborators. Collaborators can edit a list, but only you can change your sharing settings between public and private, change the list title, and delete the list (Google bookmark help).

Import / export bookmark

Google bookmark gives users the opportunity to import their bookmarks from its main competitor which is delicious.com. There is a special tool for importing bookmark from delicious to Google bookmark. Delicious credentials will not be stored or used after this import process is complete. Any data you have stored in Delicious will not be edited or deleted by this import process.

The users also can save and download all their bookmarks as an html page.

Revenue sources

Google Bookmark has no advertising plan and is supported by original google website and its revenue resources.

Rank

Since Google Bookmarks installed on Google website platform and works as a sub domain of Google.com, its rank belongs to the original google website which means there is no separate ranking for Google Bookmarks and we cannot consider any ranking base on major ranking systems like alexa.com.

Delicious

Introduction

Delicious (formerly del.icio.us, pronounced "delicious") is a social bookmarking web service for storing, sharing, and discovering web bookmarks. The site was founded in 2003 and acquired by Yahoo! in 2005, then sold to AVOS Systems on April 27, 2011. It is a US base company and its headquartered located in Sunnyvale, California.

The "del.icio.us" domain name was a well known example of a domain hack, an unconventional combination of letters to form a word or phrase. Del.icio.us and delicio.us now redirect you to the new domain, delicious.com.(Golder and Huberman, 2005)

Features

Networks

Networks at this websites are easy ways to view all the bookmarks saved by interesting people, such as friends, coworkers, and favorite bloggers. After users add them to their Network, this page will collect and display all their recent bookmarks for users to enjoy.

To add a person to a Network, users should visit their bookmarks page and click Add to my Network from the top right of that page. Or, if they already know others username, then they can type them in by selecting Add a user to Network from the top right of this page.

Inbox

This is where user will find bookmarks that have been sent to him/her by other users. When you receive a bookmark, the little mail icon in the top right corner will let you know.

To send a bookmark to another person's Inbox, user should tag the bookmark with “for:” followed by their username, like “for:narimanhb”. That person might even send you one back!

If user adds people to a Network, it's even easier to send them bookmarks, because user can click those names to automatically add “for:” tags with usernames.

Subscriptions and RSS feed for Bookmarks

Subscriptions are a way to see the recent bookmarks that everybody has saved with the tags that you're interested in. After adding a tag to a user’s subscriptions, the latest bookmarks for that tag will appear on his/her page. Users can subscribe to multiple tags to create an automatically updated list of interesting bookmarks.

RSS feed is also available for all bookmarks and users can follow their favorite bookmarks.

Tag Cloud

At Tag cloud shows popularity of a tag. They are a list of tags where size reflects popularity

Search

Users can search all contents by using

· Search bookmarks: My bookmark/ popular/ recent
· Search People: My network/ go to a user
· Search tags: My tags/ My subscriptions

Import / export bookmark

Importing bookmark from other systems or browsers would have three steps as bellow:

· Save your browser bookmarks to a file
· Find bookmark file and add tags
· Import the file to Delicious

Exporting bookmarks is also available for users. The bookmarks can be downloaded as a HTML file. Users even can choose some bookmarks with specific tags.

Revenue resources

Delicious.com works with online advertising companies to provide consumers with advertising that is as relevant and useful as possible. Some of the online ads are served may be based on the content of the Web page users are visiting; some others may be based on registration information users provide; and other ads may be customized based on predictions about users interests generated from thier visits to other Web sites.

Rank

Base on Alexa.com(28th May 2011), three-month global traffic rank is 244. Visitors to the site spend roughly three minutes per visit to the site and 35 seconds per pageview. Compared with internet averages, the site appeals more to users who have postgraduate educations; its audience also tends to consist of childless men between the ages of 25 and 55 who have incomes under $100,000.

You can find the PDF version of this Assignment (plus more tables and figures) at this address.

References

ARORA, J. 2009. Library 2.0: Innovative Technologies for Building Libraries of Tomorrow*.

DUTHEL, H. 2008. Google Inc. Services-Google Tools-What is Google?, Lulu. com.

GOLDER, S. & HUBERMAN, B. A. 2005. The structure of collaborative tagging systems. Arxiv preprint cs/0508082.

HAYMAN, S. Year. Folksonomies and Tagging. In, 2007. Citeseer.

WATWOOD, B. 2007. Instructional Uses of Social Bookmarking: Reflections and Questions. Romanian Journal of Social Informatics no, 8.

My personal experiences at www.google.com/bookmarks and www.delicious.com

ASSIGNMENT 3d-SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND WEB 2.00

2011-05-31T08:43:00.000-07:00

3d - Site of your choice

Pick a site of your choice and that you would categorize as a site that supports sharing and collaboration and utilizes social tagging. Get acquainted with the site and try to figure out how it works and how it can be used in educational contexts.

The result of your work should only be presented as a part of the presentation you make for assignment 3e (hence no report URL has to be submitted for 3d). The presentation should describe the basic functionality and how it can be used.

***

You can find the PDF version of this Assignment (plus more tables and figures) at this address.

Scribd.com

Introduction

“Scribd is the world’s largest social reading and publishing company. We've made it easy to share and discover entertaining, informative and original written content across the web and mobile devices. Our vision is to liberate the written word, to connect people with the information and ideas that matter most to them.”(About Scribd / scribd.com)

Scribd was founded by Trip Adler in 2006.” In September 2009, BusinessWeek named Scribd one the “World’s Most Intriguing Startups” In December 2009, Forbes named Scribd one of its “10 Hot Startups”. Fast Company Named Scribd “One of its Top 10 Most Innovative Media Companies” in February 2010.

In May 2010, Scribd was recognized as one of the “2010 Hottest San Francisco Companies” by Lead411.

On September 1, 2010, the World Economic Forum announced the company as a Technology Pioneer for 2011. After the World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer Award, Time Magazine named Scribd one of the “10 Start-Ups that Will Change Your Life”. (Wikipedia, Scribd history)

Stats

· million readers every month
· 20 million embeds
· 1 billion pages converted to HTML5
· Tens of millions of documents published
· Millions of Readcasts every month

The Company

· Launched: March 2006
· Headquarters: San Francisco
· Employees: 40

Features

Scribd.com is a Web 2.0 based document-sharing website which allows users to upload documents in different formats like .PDF, .Doc, .Docx and .Ppt etc. This online office suite also gives users the opportunity to embed these kinds of documents into a web page using its iPaper format. Users also can download favorite documents in different format mentioned before.

Interactive environment

The website provided an interactive environment to store the documents, read them and communicate between the authors and owners. It is an easy way to publish your documents or scientific papers.

Scribd.com works completely as a social network. So it has all social networks’ features plus some additional tool that makes competitive advantages like

· My Collections
· My Shelf
· Public Profile and public documents
· Inside Messages
· Notifications
· Readcast
· Multilanguage documents
· Download deactivating
· Keyword managing system

Scribd uses iPaper which is a format comparable to PDF for the web, which lets users to embed documents into a web page like websites, weblogs and online forums. iPaper allows documents to be viewed the same across different operating systems without conversion, as long as the reader has Flash installed (while Scribd has provided non-Flash support for the iPhone).

All major document types can be formatted into iPaper including Word docs, PowerPoint presentations (ppt and pptx), PDFs, Open Document documents, OpenOffice.org, XML documents, and PostScript files.

All iPaper documents are hosted on Scribd’s exclusive hosts and servers. Scribd allows published documents to either be private or public. As mentioned earlier the iPaper document viewer is also embeddable in any website or blog, making it simple to embed documents in their original layout regardless of file format.

On May 5, 2010, Scribd launched the largest implementation of HTML5 to date at the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. TechCrunch reported that Scribd is migrating away from Flash to HTML5. "Scribd co-founder and chief technology officer Jared Friedman tells me: “We are scrapping three years of Flash development and betting the company on HTML5 because we believe HTML5 is a dramatically better reading experience than Flash. Now any document can become a Web page.”" In July 2010 Publishers Weekly wrote a cover story on Scribd entitled “Betting the House on HTML5 (Faulkner et al.)

Upload and then download!

If you are interested to download a document, at first you should upload one or more! This policy helps the website to increase the quantity of documents. Other users can rate your job and follow you for more publications.

Multilanguage documents

The website’s official languages are English, Español and Português (Brazil) but you can see that there are documents uploaded in so many languages onto the website.

Buy or sell

Users also can sell their documents through the system. However this feature is limited to a few countries and all the users are not able to sell their publications via this website.

Socializing

The scribd is a very good example for Web 2.00 websites since it provides all necessary features for sharing your published documents on the most popular social networks like Facebook.com and twitter.com. In addition readcast is a new feature launched by Scribd to comment on others documents and follow them.

Users can increase the reach of their Scribd presence and share their activity with friends, subscribers, and followers automatically!

Scribd badges

There is a good tool for some publishers who want to show their publications on scribd through their website or weblog. This is Scribd badge when clicked; these buttons will direct users directly to your profile, where they will be able to read your documents.

Copyright

Using this website is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License which means the users are free

· to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
· to Remix — to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:

· Attribution — they must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor
· Share Alike — if the user alter, transform, or build upon this work, he/she may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

Revenue resources

Advertising is the first source of revenue for this website. There is at least a big advertisement banner in each single page. The website are using “google adsense” advertising system to make money from its huge visitors every day.

Second source of revenue at scribd would be “Scribd Store”. 20 percent of each document sold at website goes to scribd’s bank account.

Ranking

Base on Alexa.com (24^th May) Scribd has a three-month global Alexa traffic rank of 203. The time spent in a typical visit to the site is approximately three minutes, with 62 seconds spent on each pageview, and its visitors view an average of 2.0 unique pages per day. Compared with internet averages, the site's audience tends to be Hispanic; it also appeals more to childless men earning less than $30,000 who have postgraduate educations and browse from home and school.

Slideshare.com

Introduction

SlideShare.com is an online slide hosting service. Users can upload files in the following file formats: PowerPoint, PDF, Keynote and OpenOffice presentations. Launched on October 4, 2006, the website was originally meant to be used for businesses to share slides among employees more easily, but it has since expanded to also become a host of a large number of slides which are uploaded merely to entertain. The website gets an estimated 12 million unique visitors a month.

Features

Interactive environment

The website is considered to be similar to YouTube, but for slideshows. SlideShare.com is one of the world's largest communities for sharing presentations. Users can upload documents and then share them on blogs, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. 50 million people use SlideShare every month for research, sharing ideas, connecting with others, and generating business leads. SlideShare.com also supports documents, PDFs, and videos.

Upload and download!

Private uploads

At this feature, user can employ website as a place for storing documents, not for public uses. Some companies use this website as a place for remote meeting where all employees at various branches can join and attend at presentations. The website was originally meant to be used for businesses to share slides among employees more easily, but it has since expanded to also become a host of a large number of slides which are uploaded

Official language /Multilanguage documents

The official language of Slideshare.com is English in compare with scribd.com which has three official languages. However you, as a visitor might find documents and presentations in different languages.

Slidecast and Zipcast^TM

A slidecast is a term that is used to describe an audio podcast that is combined with a slideshow or presentation. It is similar to a video podcast in that it combines dynamically-generated imagery with audio synchronization, but it is different in that it uses presentation software, such as PowerPoint, to create the imagery and the sequence of display separately from the time of the audio podcast's original recording.

Slidecasting may be useful for the display of relevant photographs or text, and are an alternative to camera video recordings.

An alternative definition of the slidecast is the online distribution and syndication of video recordings of live slideshow presentations and accompanying narrations.

Zipcast™ is the new way that slideshare.com offered to its audiences to meet online. This feature is free and no need to download anything. It would Public when you want your ideas to spread Or Private when it's you and a colleague. This tool has been designed to

· Share ideas with remote colleagues.
· Launch your next product
· Talk at a conference remotely
· Teach anyone, anywhere
· Pitch a client
· Walk people over your sales deck
· Support your customers
· Run a non-profit fundraiser
· Share your photo albums
· Have fun sharing presentations

Socializing

The Slideshare.com is also a very good example for Web 2.00 websites since it provides all necessary features for sharing published documents on the most popular social networks like Facebook application and LinkedIn applications. The website also has the opportunity of sending documents directly to wordpress.com blogs. All contents like presentations, videos and slidecasts are able to share on social networks by special buttons automatically.

Blog Sidebar Widget and badge

People Use this widget to embed a feed of presentations and documents on their blog or website. They can select a feed from tags, groups or events, or from uploaded or favorite SlideShare content. They just have to customize and grab the code. To create a personalized widget of your own content, you need a SlideShare account.

Copyright

SlideShare.com responds to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM) that control access to copyrighted works (Mitchell, 2003).

Revenue resources

Advertising is the first source of revenue for this website. There are at least two big advertisement banners in each single page plus a row of text advertisements. The website is also using “google adsense” advertising system to make money from its huge visitors every day.

Second source of revenue at Slideshare.com would be different PRO plans. Each plan has different features and various prices base on its facilities provided for users.

Ranking

There are 256 sites with a better three-month global Alexa traffic rank than Slideshare.net. Approximately 65% of visits to the site consist of only one pageview (i.e., are bounces). The site can be found in the “Presentation Sharing” category of sites. While the site is ranked 419 in the US, where we estimate that 15% of its visitors are located, it is also popular in Brazil, where it is ranked 104 (24^th May). Compared with the overall internet population, SlideShare appeals more to Hispanics; its audience also tends to consist of childless women browsing from work and school who have postgraduate educations.

You can find the PDF version of this Assignment (plus more tables and figures) at this address.

References

FAULKNER, A., LEWIS, A., MEYER, M. & MERCHANT, N. Creating an HTML5 web based video editor for the general user.

MITCHELL, T. A. 2003. Copyright, congress, and constitutionality: how the digital millennium copyright act goes too far. Notre Dame L. Rev., 79, 2115.

My personal experiences at www.scribd.com and www.slideshare.com

Assignment 2b, Social software and Web 2.00 – Study a Social Network

2011-03-23T07:32:00.000-07:00

2b. Share your experiences

Once you have finished assignment 2a it is time to share your experiences with your fellow students. Present a summary of your experiences and your reflections using a slide cast or a video clip. Choose a software for your presentation and you can get guidance in this from your work in part 1,2 and 3. If you choose to record speech we recommend that you use a headset of good quality when you make the recording (USB- headset is to prefer). Video can be recorded with a usual web camera or mobile phone.

You can see my presentation here (at Scribd.com)

You can also download my presentation here (MEGAUPLOAD)

You can also download my presentation here (MediaFire)

Assignment 2a, Social software and Web 2.00 – Study a Social Network

2011-03-23T07:22:00.000-07:00

Describe (in your blog) the characteristics of a social network and explain why social networks have such relevance and impact today.

“No person is separated by more than six degrees from another!” Kevin Bacon

I personally think we can consider this sentence as a pillar for establishment of all social networks. In social networks everything is a matter of connect. Everything here is about make a connection, like connecting people, connecting groups, connecting ideas… etc.

As a definition for social networks, SNs, they are defined as Web sites that provide virtual community for people interested in a particular subject, to increase their circle of acquaintances, activities and connections. There are dating sites, friendship sites, and sites with a business purpose and hybrids that offer a combination of all above.

What differentiates a social network from an ordinary website is that social networks are user-based communities that help people to make new relationships and expand existing relations. Sometimes social networks can help individuals emotionally because they virtually feel themselves among their friends and peers. Sometimes people get addicted to their social networks and their online friends more than their ordinary friends. It will be a psychological topic to find the reason for this situation and I don’t want to go that side.

“Knowledge is the result of social interaction and language usage, and thus is a shared, rather than an individual, experience.” (Dolittle, P.1999)

Social interaction creates opportunities for individuals to gather information about everything from sports to politics, from art to physics etc. They also can share their knowledge with their friends and peers. The knowledge allows them to live beyond personal resource constraints(McClurg 2003). Online social networks are changing the way people communicate, work and play, and mostly for the better. Social-networking sites’ impressive growth has attracted much attention because the sites have made people’s personal relationships more visible and quantifiable than ever before. They have also become important vehicles for news and channels of influence (Martin Giles 2010). These characteristics make SNS very good for businesses.

Create a list of social network sites and make a short description (perhaps you have already done this in the previous assignment)

Facebook.com: the most popular social network website with more than 600,000,000 users all around the world. In fact we can consider Facebook.com as the third populate country in the world!

linkedin.com: is a networking resource for business people who want to connect with other professionals. In fact, LinkedIn contacts are referred to as "connections." Today, LinkedIn boasts more than 30 million members.

twitter.com: A micro social blogging system in which users can communicate through a maximum of 140 letters written as an update. It’s one of the most popular website around the globe. Twitter is the ninth most popular site in the world according to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings. The site has been online for more than eleven years.

friendfeed.com: "FriendFeed.com is launching the most intuitive interface I’ve seen yet for sharing information with your friends." - VentureBeat (Eric Eldon). This growing social network provides a simple place for sharing file, pictures and personal writings. Its platform is more like twitter because it is a micro blogging system but it also provides the attachment ability.

This website is very popular at my country as the youth sometimes call it FerFer that is a abbreviation for friendfeed!

myspace.com: MySpace is a free online community composed of personal profiles aimed mostly at a younger membership. A MySpace profile typically includes photos and information about personal interests. MySpace launched in 2003. Though it no longer resides upon the social networking throne in many English-speaking countries – that honor now belongs to Facebook in places like Canada and the UK – MySpace remains the perennial favorite in the USA. (Christopher Nickson, 2009)

Orkut.com:one of the first but not the best! Orkut is one of the pioneers in social networks market. After a while google purchased it. Now it is not as popular as facebook.com and myspace.com etc.

In my country, Iran, there are a bunch of social networks only in Persian language, Farsi (Persian). So they designed just for users who know Farsi. However, based on alexa.com statistics the high ranked SNS in Iran are also those which are popular in the world. Some of the most popular ones are as below (click on names to see related info at Alexa.com):

Cloob.com: This SNS is like Facebook.com in terms of structure and features. Although it tries to offer lots of features that a user might need but the language barriers limit its growth because the target market is only Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. They have added some features more than normal features other famous SNS provide for user under a shelter to make competitive advantages in compare with global SNS leaders. Some of these features are social bookmarking, games, forums, directories, stores, video uploading etc.

Balatarin.com: Balatarin which means the highest in Persian, is the most popular web 2.0 website in Persian. It helps its users to find the best links on the Internet that interest Iranians around the world. Registered users can post links to interesting articles. Those links initially go to the "recently posted" page. Once a link gets enough positive votes, it is moved to the top of the front page, which provides more visibility. (About us-Balatarin.com)

Iranproud.com: is a very popular Iranian social network which user can share their movies and videos. They also can give their viewpoint about each movie. The website also offer more features like micro blogging system, forums, chatting.

Doreh.com : You can call it the Persian version of classmate.com. The main idea is to provide a place for finding your old friends or classmates and share memories and stories. Recently the board of directors decided to change the marketing strategies and expand its market. They are still working!

Choose a social network to join

Since social networking is one of my interests, I have accounts in some of the most popular Social networks like Facebook.com, linkedin.com, twitter.com, friendfeed.com, digg.com, orkut.com, myspace.com and couchsurfing.org… etc.

Among all mentioned above I chose couchsurfing.org to introduce at my assignment 2b because I recently have joined it and try to understand its features and atmosphere. This social network belongs to Couch Surfing project which tries to” Offer profile listing, discussion groups and a place to arrange free accommodations around the world”. People who want to travel to other countries can find free hosts at their destinations, share their experiences, and find useful information. Here you approximately can find all information related to your travel.

Create a list of criteria that you will focus upon while studying your social network.

At this study I will focus on topics below:

What is the reason for establishment? (Vision and mission)
How does it work?
Number of users and other interesting statistics
Features
Security

Participate actively for at least 6-8 weeks.

I have joined this social network about 1 month ago (02/02/2011, 5:51 am!!!). You also can join CS and add me to your friend list! My pleasure!

Assignment 2b, Social software and Web 2.00 – Study a Social Network

2b. Share your experiences

You can see my presentation here (at Scribd.com)

You can also download my presentation here (MEGAUPLOAD)

You can also download my presentation here (MediaFire)

See here for more info

References

Dolittle, P. (1999) Constructivism and Online Education. Available:
http://edpsychserver.ed.vt.edu/workshops/tohe1999/text/doo2.pdf

Wenger, E. (2005) Communities of practice a brief introduction Available:http://www.ewenger.com/theory/communities_of_practice_intro_WRD.doc

Martin Giles, “A special report on social networking: A world of connection”, Jan 28th 2010, the economist, Available:
http://www.economist.com/node/15351002?story_id=15351002&source=hptextfeature

McClurg, S. D. (2003). "Social networks and political participation: The role of social interaction in explaining political participation." Political Research Quarterly 56(4): 449.

Assignment 2b- Social software and Web 2.00

2011-03-17T07:53:00.001-07:00

Since social networking is one of my interests, I have accounts in some of the most popular SNs like Facebook.com, linkedin.com, twitter.com, friendfeed.com, digg.com, orkut.com, myspace.com and couchsurfing.org… etc.

Among all mentioned above I chose couchsurfing.org to introduce at my assignment 2b because I recently have joined it and try to understand its features and atmosphere. This social network belongs to Couch Surfing project which tries to "Offer profile listing, discussion groups and a place to arrange free accommodations around the world". People who want to travel to other countries can find free hosts at their destinations, share their experiences, and find useful information. Here you approximately can find all information related to your travel.

Don't miss this Delicious list. It's fantastic!

Case: Ski Right

2010-12-06T05:43:00.000-08:00

After retiring as a physician, Bob Guthrie became an avid downhill skier on the steep slopes of the Utah Rocky Mountains. As an amateur inventor, Bob was always looking for something new. With the recent deaths of several celebrity skiers, Bob knew he could use his creative mind to make skiing safer and his bank account larger. He knew that many deaths on the slopes were caused by head injuries. Although ski helmets have been on the market for some time, most skiers considered them boring and basically ugly. As a physician, Bob knew that some type of new ski helmet was the answer.

Bob’s biggest challenge was to invent a helmet that was attractive, safe, and fun to wear. Multiple colors, using the latest fashion designs would be a must. After years of skiing, Bob knew that many skiers believed that how you looked on the slopes was more important than how you skied. His helmets would have to look good and fit in with current fashion trends. But attractive helmets were not enough. Bob had to make the helmets fun and useful. The name of the new ski helmet, Ski Right, was sure to be a winner. If Bob could come up with a good idea, he believed that there was a 20% chance that the market for the Ski Right Helmet would be excellent. The chance of a good market should be 40%. Bob also knew that the market for his helmet could be only average (30% chance) or even poor (10% chance).

The idea of how to make ski helmets fun and useful came to Bob on a gondola ride to the top of a mountain. A busy executive on the gondola ride was on his cell phone trying to complete a complicated merger. When the executive got off of the gondola, he dropped the phone and it was crushed by the gondola mechanism. Bob decided that his new ski helmet would have a built-in cell phone and an AM/FM Stereo radio. All of the electronics could be operated by a control pad worn on a skier’s arm or leg.

Bob decided to try a small pilot project for Ski Right. He enjoyed being retired and didn’t want a failure to cause him to go back to work. After some research, Bob found Progressive Products (PP). The company was willing to be a partner in developing the Ski Right and sharing any profits. If the market were excellent, Bob would net $5,000. With a good market, Bob would net $2,000. An average market would result in a loss of $2,000, and a poor market would mean Bob would be out $5,000.

Another option for Bob was to have Leadville Barts (LB) make the helmet. The company had extensive experience in making bicycle helmets. Progressive would then take the helmets made by Leadville Barts and do the rest. Bob had a greater risk. He estimated that he could lose $10,000 in a poor market or $4,000 in an average market. A good market for Ski Right would result in a $6,000 profit for Bob, while an excellent market would mean a $12,000 profit. A third option for Bob was to use TalRad TR, a radio company in Tallahassee, Florida. TalRad had extensive experience in making military radios. Leadville Barts could make the helmets, and Progressive Products could do the rest. Again, Bob would be taking on greater risk. A poor market would mean a $15,000 loss, while an average market would mean a $10,000 loss. A good market would result in a net profit of $7,000 for Bob. An excellent market would return $13,000.

Bob could also have Celestial Cellular (CC) develop the cell phones. Thus, another option was to have Celestial make the phones and have Progressive do the rest of the production and distribution. Because the cell phone was the most expensive component of the helmet, Bob could lose $30,000 in a poor market. He could lose $20,000 in an average market. If the market were good or excellent, Bob would see a net profit of $10,000 or $30,000, respectively.

Bob’s final option was to forget about Progressive Products entirely. He could use Leadville Barts to make the helmets, Celestial Cellular to make the phones, and TalRad to make the AM/FM stereo radios. Bob could then hire some friends to assemble everything and market the finished Ski Right helmets. With this final alternative, Bob could realize a net profit of $55,000 in an excellent market. Even if the market were just good, Bob would net $20,000. An average market, however, would mean a loss of $35,000. If the market were poor, Bob would lose $60,000.

Answer the following questions.

1. Based on the analysis what do you recommend?
2. What is the opportunity loss for this problem?
3. Compute the expected value of perfect information.
4. Was Bob completely logical in how he approached this decision problem?

Answer you seek is here! Click here please.

Northlandish

How can I import references from Google Scholar to EndNote?

Different types of derivatives market

Assignment 5 (final), Implementing a functional web-based learning environment prototype

Assignment 4, Social software and Web 2.00 – Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digi­tal content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component. (7 things you should know about storytelling)

Nowadays stories can be interactive movies that might include highly produced audio and visual effects. At the same time, a set of slides with related nar­ration or music can compose a simple digital story.

The story is about three fishes that lived in a lake and the approaches each of them used to survive from fishermen and their nets.

· Photoshop or any other photo editing software for editing scanned photos

· Windows movie maker V2.6 for making the video

· Youtube.com for uploading video created

You can find lots of useful Medias to create your own story here.

At first phase I tried to find a proper story to tell and I thought the famous stories from old literature’s books would be good choice so I referred to Rumi’s stories which are my favorite.

I used an mp3 recorder to make the vocal narration. For mixing the voice whit picture Scenes I tried Adobe premier CS5.

I personally think the story I told, could be good for the age group 5-10 years old children which will learn what is the power of thinking and why we need to use our brain to survive.

Final work

This is my story!

You can see my final digital story directly on Youtube.com at this address.

Reference

FRANZ, K. & NISCHELWITZER, A. K. Year. Adaptive Digital Storytelling: A Concept for Narrative Structures and Digital Storytelling build on Basic Storytelling Principles, Adaptive Story Schemas and Structure Mapping Techniques. In, 2004. 25.

Assignment 2c, Social software and Web 2.00 – Study a Social Network

Assignment 1a-1b, SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND WEB 2.00

1-badge

2-TrackBack

3-Microblog

4-Ajax

5-Direct Web Remoting (DWR)

6-Blogroll

7-Blogosphere

8-RSS

9-Bookmarklet

10-Creative Commons license

11-Web 2.0

12-Voice 2.0

13-Web 3.0

14-Mash-up

15-OpenID

ASSIGNMENT 3e-SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND WEB 2.00

ASSIGNMENT 3a-SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND WEB 2.00

ASSIGNMENT 3c - SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND WEB 2.00

ASSIGNMENT 3b - SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND WEB 2.00

ASSIGNMENT 3d-SOCIAL SOFTWARE AND WEB 2.00

Assignment 2b, Social software and Web 2.00 – Study a Social Network

Assignment 2a, Social software and Web 2.00 – Study a Social Network

Assignment 2b, Social software and Web 2.00 – Study a Social Network

Assignment 2b- Social software and Web 2.00

Case: Ski Right

Digital storytelling is the practice of combining narrative with digital content, including images, sound, and video, to create a short movie, typically with a strong emotional component. (7 things you should know about storytelling)

Nowadays stories can be interactive movies that might include highly produced audio and visual effects. At the same time, a set of slides with related narration or music can compose a simple digital story.