Cloud computing and libraries

The reading I found most interesting for this week was Winds of Change: Libraries and Cloud Computing by Matt Goldner. In this paper he discusses the opportunities that libraries have if they move to cloud computing. One of the most obvious is that it can free up time, money, and people for focus on other areas. Many resources are spent just trying to keep servers and software going. Cloud computing makes all of that much easier while allowing great utility of the data that is stored in the cloud. The library where I work recently moved to Alma, an ExLibris product that is the future of library management systems. It is suppose to make workflows better, optimise data sharing and collaboration, and actually reduce the overall costs of maintaining the library's infrastructure. All of this sounds really wonderful and so far there have been some benefits, but it is still too early to tell how this product will pan out.

One issue I did have with Goldner's article is that he focuses very little on the possible downside of cloud computing. He does mention that libraries should do their due diligence and make sure that it is the right move. Users should also be aware of data ownership and make sure they can access and extract all their data at any time should they decide to move or if the company goes out of business. Also you need to know where your data is being stored and how to make sure it is secure. While he mentions all these issues he does not go into great detail about them and he misses some other possible problems.

A post on Venture Beat by Casper Manes titled The Downside of Cloud Computing: 4 Reasons to Think Twice, offers more insight in the possible problems. Some people seem to think that putting everything in the cloud means an end to the hassle of onsite hardware and severs. That is not the case. Cloud computing may reduce the need for some of these things, but not necessarily. Another important point that Manes makes is the you are no longer in control. In other words there is a another layer added  when you use a cloud hosted product. As Manes put it when it runs on your own servers then the IT department can find out or fix things quickly or you can go lean on someone until they help you. With cloud computing IT now has to go to the host to find information or get answers so it is another level of bureaucracy in a way.

Another area of concern for cloud computing is security. Many users assume that their data is secure; however, you cannot necessarily rely on the cloud service to keep your data secure. Often it is up to the user to ensure their data is secure. This technology is evolving so rapidly that the security issue is lagging behind. There are all sorts of new stories about the breaching of cloud data. Below are a few examples from recent days:

Amazon S3 breach underscores cloud data security needs, 29 March 2013

Data Leakage Risk Rise with Cloud Storage Services, 27 March 2013
The biggest danger: Employees using apps such as Dropbox, Box and SugarSync for tucking away business documents to take home for work

BYOD, Data Loss Top List of Cloud Computing Challenges, 27 March 2013

Also there is a recently released 2013 Security of Cloud Computing Users study to see how cloud security has progressed over two years. Click on the link to the infographic below to get the summary.

Ponemon Research Study Infographic: Who's Minding Your Cloud?

This is a huge issue that must be address and explored. Does this mean that libraries and other should forgo getting into the cloud? I think not, but it does mean that it is necessary to assess your needs and the pros and cons before jumping in. You must know the risks and take steps to minimize them else you are setting yourself up for problems. As with any new and developing technology it is not perfect and probably never will be, but is is also changing rapidly to meet the needs of users and will likely overcome some of these problems in due course.


Sources:

Alma by ExLibris: http://www.exlibrisgroup.com/category/AlmaOverview

Manes, Casper. "The Downside of Cloud Computing: 4 Reasons to Think Twice," Venture Beat, 16 Jan 2012.

Ponemon Research Study Infographic, published 1 March 2013.

Business Informatics

Lots to think about it this past week regarding business informatics. As we discussed earlier in the semester many products have been aimed at the bottom of the pyramid. However as Karnani's paper shows many of those products are not at a price point that is affordable for the poor. Major corporations are not finding a vast untapped market that they thought they would fine. Yes there are people who would like to have these products, but they cannot afford them and cannot even afford to meet their basic needs.

The product with the most potential for making a change for those at the bottom of the pyramid is the the cell phone. Corbett's article "Can the Cell Phone Help End Global Poverty," from 2008 had some great insight. During the past decade it has become much more commonplace for people to have a mobile phone, but not a land line. This is greater among the poor as they could not afford a land line, but have leapfrogged to the mobile phone. Jan Chipchase of Nokia the subject of the article has a theory "that in an increasingly transitory world, the cellphone is becoming the one fixed piece of our identity." It really is a unique identifier that I had never thought of before. Many people may share the same name, but not the same number, unless it is shared among a household or group. Even greater than this identity is the way that it can help lead people out of poverty; provide opportunities they never had before. The fact that people have devised a way to transfer money using a phone and without access to a bank is fascinating to me.  Or that women have set up shop as phone operators by letting other use their phone for a nominal fee.

Still with all the promise that can come with a mobile phone the biggest barrier is still affordability. Chipchase has spent years working to find out what the needs of the customers would be. This way they can design and market a phone to the bottom of the pyramid. The product needs to be fairly simple so that it can be used by the illiterate, rugged to  withstand environments that are prone to flooding, or rough handling. It also must have a long battery life to be used in places with little or no reliable power sources. Even stripped down it would be difficult to create a phone that can be afforded by people who make less than $1 a day. When this article was written in 2008 there were plans by Nokia to attempt a phone that would cost just $5. However as of 2012 the cheapest phone in the company's history was released at a cost of $21. The phone was designed with a sturdy housing and protects the keyboard against scratches and dust, has an FM radio, a flashlight,  and a phonebook for up to 500 contacts. It has a standby time of 27 days and 11 hours of talk time. It is a step forward, but still well outside of the $5 target dreamed of in 2008.

Nokia was certainly headed in the right direction going out to talk to those who would be users of their product. They should consider going deeper as products that are co-created with the population that will use them have a greater chance at success.  Rather than repackaging products in to single use items with the illusion of affordability they must be a real effort to create products that are needed and suited to the needs of the BOP. This is where co-creation comes in. According to the blog post Bottom of the Pyramid - A Decade of Observation co creation will be needed for future innovation as well as partnerships between multinational corporations and local businesses. The key will be research and knowing what is really needed, not just throwing a stripped down phone or a single use item the poor.

Sources:


Corbett, Sara. "Can the Cell phone Help End Global Poverty?" NY Times 13 April 2008

Ip, Melissa "Bottom of the Pyramid - A Decade of Observation" Social Enterprise Buzz 21 Jan 2013.

Kar, Naveen.  "Nokia Targets the Bottom of the Pyramid with $21 Mobile Phone." Youth Googly 14 April 2012  

Karnani, Aneel. "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: A Mirage" 14 July 2006. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=914518

Turning an iPhone into a microscope!

Today I read an article on using a smart phone as a field microscope: Scientists use smart phones to get the poop on worm infestations.  This method has been fairly accurate at detecting certain types of infestations and can be even better once it has been tweaked a bit. This is a great example of frugal engineering and yet another example of how mobile phones can make a huge difference in rural and poor areas.

                                                                                            Isaac Bogoch/Toronto General Hospital

Governance and Social Media

In our last class we discussed social media and government (local, state, federal). Can social media be a useful tool for government or is simply throwing window dressing up to make it look as if  government organizations are keeping up with trends without adding any real benefit? I found a couple of interesting articles about it on Mashable. They are older, but do discuss some interesting ways that social media is used by government with discernible impact.

The first is Five Ways Government Works Better with Social Media, from 2010. Twitter has become a useful tool for swiftly communicating information about all sorts of things from what you had for breakfast to organizing a protest. The EPA supposedly harnessed the power of Twitter to relay information about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The agency had a special web page set up for the disaster and had a dedicated Twitter account. This sounded very promising, but when I went to Twitter to explore the account @Oil_Spill_2010 it yielded 3 tweets and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson's account, @LisaPJackson which was also set up during the Gulf Oil Spill had no activity. Not sure this is a stellar example of government communication and transparency.  I did however find a Flickr account that showed the EPA's efforts in the Gulf. Maybe the article should have highlighted that.  Perhaps a better example of government agencies making use of Twitter is the second on in the list which includes FEMA, the Virginia Department of Emergency Management, and the National Weather Service using Twitter to communicate emergency information and also to gather weather information.

The article also points to how the government might spin off their own versions of social media tools to facilitate communication and collaboration within an agency. One such venture is Spacebook. This was launched in 2009 as "an internal expert networking site for NASA employees that allows new and established staff to get to know the agency's diverse community of scientists, engineers, project managers, and support personnel."

A second Mashable article titled How Social Media Can Effect Real Social and Governmental Change, by Craig Newmark, the founder of craigslist, discusses how social media can aid in government efficiency and transparency. It focuses more on how API platforms like the ones that social media tools are built on can be used by third parties to create tools using government data. Once such tool that I found very interesting is SeeClickFix. Using this app a citizen can report problems such as a pothole or stoplight outage by taking a picture and adding a geotag and uploading it. They can also use it to receive alerts or to start conversations about needs in the community. Of course the local government would have to adopt such a service, but it would be another way to communicate with local citizens and make it easier to report problems.

As these examples demonstrate adopting social media tools just for the sake of saying you are using them helps no one and just bogs down a slow moving bureaucracy  even more. If used in a more appropriate and thoughtful manner social media can add value and help speed government service and aid in communication.

With that in mind I will leave you with what I think can be viewed as both window dressing and an actual stab at involving the citizens in their government: We the People. This is the White House website that allows anyone to begin a petition that, if it garners enough signatures in the allotted time, will be responded to by the government. There are some legitimate petitions and some that make me weep for humanity. I was glad to see however there is some levity: This isn't the petition response you're looking for.

Education Informatics

Of all our readings for this particular week the one that struck me most was When the Future Finally Arrives: Web 2.0 Becomes Web 3.0 by Matt Crosslin. Trying to imagine what the internet will be 10 years down the road is an intriguing prospect. The author is wondering how Web 3.0, the semantic web, and 3D web will change the classroom of the future. It is hard to say precisely since much of what has come to pass with Web 2.0 is not necessarily what was expected. Who could have predicted the creation and popularity of Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or Instagram 10 or 15 years ago? Technology changes so rapidly it is difficult to know if what we invest in today will be viable several years down the road. That makes it even more difficult to decide what to invest in in terms of education.

Before we can really speculate about how new technological advances will effect education another more basic issue must be resolved: the digital divide. We have already discussed this topic, but it bears repeating due to the impact it has on education. Last week I posted an article from the Washington Post addressing the  gap in internet access between rich and poor. Even while technology and the internet are becoming essential in the modern classroom there is still disparity in access.  The Pew Research Center, which conducted the survey, found that "92% of teacher said that the internet has a 'major impact' on the their ability to access content, resources, and materials for teaching." The survey also found that the "teachers of the lowest income students are more than twice as likely as teachers of the highest income students (56% v. 21%) to say that students' lack of access to digital technologies is a 'major challenge' to incorporating more digital tools into their teaching." Even as we speed along incorporating  new technological innovations into teaching we may be further adding to the gap between rich and poor by not moving quickly enough to close the digital divide.

                     From How Teachers Are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms

Of course throwing technology and the internet into the mix does not necessarily mean that the students are receiving a better education. Technology used without any real purpose other than just to have the latest gadget does not equal quality learning. In fact sometime technology can have a negative impact. While the teachers surveyed mostly agreed that technology has had a positive impact 76% did "strongly agree" that search engines have "conditioned students to expect to be able to find information quickly and easily." Also 60% agreed that “today’s digital technologies make it harder for students to find and use credible sources of information” While we should worry about students' ability to determine what a credible source is, should we worry about their dependence on Google and other search engines? I think yes, because they should learn that not every problem has a clear and quickly found answer. They also need to learn that not everything can be found online even though it may seem that way. 

I will leave you this week with a recently added TedTalk by Sugata Mitra titled Build a School in the Cloud. It is about creating a learning lab in India, where children can explore and learn from each other -- using resources and mentoring from the cloud. This is an innovative idea that combines self organized learning and technology to create a new kind of learning environment, one where the children teach themselves.This could could be part of the future of technology and education. As he says "it is not about making learning happen, it is about letting it happen."  

Sources:

 "Survey Finds gap in Internet access between rich, poor students," Cecilia Kang, Washington Post 27 Feb 2013.

"How Teachers are Using Technology at Home and in Their Classrooms," Purcell et al. Pew Internet and American Life Project, 28 Feb 2013.

"Build a School in the Cloud," Sugata Mitra, TedTalk, Feb. 2013.