Guys,

Firstly thanks for the daa and this attempt at being inclusive. It was so nice to see.
Can I point out a couple of things, which hopefully might be useful.

The first is that this attempt at starting to build a Learning Management System (LMS) - because that's what it is - is just so nice to see. The only problem is that it is about 10 years a bit late. We have so many LMS in the marketplace that have been developed and are supported around the world. The main thing that is important is that if you we're going to select one, it needs to be open source, as you're now encouraging.

But there are millions of teachers and students who are aready experienced with OS platforms like Moodle. Here is an indication of stats http://moodle.org/stats/ and conferences http://moodle.org/news/ that will give you some idea of the maturity of just this one 'platform'. So with respect, please understand that the EC is coming across what the world of online/distance education has been developing for the past decade.

The other consideration - we touched on during the converged media discussions - is that we are beginning to get to "the end game" in bringing together interactive media with broadcast. In practice that means, firstly, a broadcast(er) needs to address a global audience. This appears to be working for webcasted archived materials. It was certainly impossible to receive any live streams, so I have to conclude that your webcast is not delivered by a Content management Network.

Secondly, the basis of the way these medias are coming together is that the broadcast is to be integrated into the social network rather than vice versa. Just as Google's hangouts allows a group to tele/conference, and then by combining the stream with air, turn it into a broadcast programme, so it must be if the EC is going to join the convergence. http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/05/google-hangouts-on-air-broadcast-... The main difference being that we must ensure this is an open platform. These discussions are taking place between various NRENs at the moment. e.g. terena in Europe.

Forgive this long treatment. But this is so important now. The EC as the primary organisation responsible for how research monies are spent, needs to be at the center of these remote discussions (about the way research is aggregated and disseminated) rather than isolated from them.

So if you could give us some insight into how EC's INFO, Conference Technology unit, elearningeuropa.info and AV services might be collaborating to focus on hosting specialist groups (with virtual rooms/broadcast stations) like the 10 we have on the daa now, that would be useful. We might have a chance of bringing so many remote discussions together into the same digital agenda. Might even invent a few new media industries. Forgive all my words. Thanks for the hope.

Hello,

I would like to mention that the url for downloading the platform is broken
http://daa.ec.europa.eu/daa12.tar.gz%20
The requested page "/daa12.tar.gz%20" could not be found.

The trailing character %20 would just need to be removed.
http://daa.ec.europa.eu/daa12.tar.gz is the correct url

First thank you for making this platform and data available.

Could you provide a little bit more detail about the installation and the data?
For instance I have seen for instance that it is based on Drupal 7.
But could you provide a little bit more information about its architecture directly here (so that people do not need to download it to know what it is about)?

The content is provided as two .csv files. Could you provide more detail about its structure?
In particular, I am wondering how possible it would be to make a graph analysis of the discussion.
(I believe people having experience in graph analysis could be interested).
For instance, have you any idea if we could use this data in a tool such as NodeXL ? http://nodexl.codeplex.com/

To tell you the true, I am little bit skeptical that many people will make something out of this (it seems you would need some significant effort to set-up the system, and extract the data for automatic analysis).
Therefore it would be nice to be informed if people actually use this data and for doing what.
Maybe we will have a pleasant surprise.

Concerning the platform, it looks a little bit complex and kind of primitive in term of exportation of data.
It could be interesting to have some insight from the "data" people (big data, semantic data, open data), etc. of some possibility in the future to make the data of this platform available via an API (clean exportation of Open Data).
Note: I am not sure that Moodle would have been appropriate in this case (user interface not really friendly).

In anycase, congratulation for the work, hoping it is only a first step to making this kind of data openly available (and better access via mobile devices, more data analytics, etc............).
Maybe in the DAA 2013?

Hi Thierry, David,

I just had to say something about this one - "Note: I am not sure that Moodle would have been appropriate in this case (user interface not really friendly)". I'll let history say it for me. http://moodle.org/sites/ Not all 50m. students and teachers can be wrong. And if you'd like docs, which of the 90 languages would you like? http://docs.moodle.org/22/en/Language_packs

All learning environments have to be learnt. All i was saying here is that David & Co had such an opportunity here, if only they didn't try to reinvent the wheel. Sorry David, I don't mean to be rude. I just hoped, for once, we could have spent the money to tie two events together rather than, as is the norm, trying to build and grow a social network around one event.

Thats why we never get the convergence between broadcast and interactive media. (or progress on the other related issues). One is event driven and isolated,the other is pervasive and, over time, includes isolated communities of practice and interest. That list of 10 issues was a good starting point.

Regardless David, you gave it a go and that's great. We're all learning. I'm just a grumpy old media guy who's seen these 'flashes in the pan' too many times before.

Just one thing though, if you "want to use the web to hack EU policies". The EC obviously have one major problem in that they aren't using a CDN (or if they do I'd want my money back). I'd be interested o hear how many of the 4,000 viewers could actually watch the programme because 5 that I know just gave up.

One of the opportunities for Europe at the moment is that there are discussions going on at terena about using trying out a commercial CDN, even though so much money is spent on this EU network (backbone). http://www.geant.net/Services/Pages/home.aspx As the processes of the inquiries of .gov, and .edu, must align (eventually), I'd be suggesting to the EC guys that Geant should be providing a CDN for all EU media. Now there's a policy which will hack more than just the web. Stay well, si

Guys, I should make one more note as I've pointed the INFO conference feedback at this thread.

You're talking about "exporting the data", which means taking it out of the (learning) environment in which it was created. One of the innovative things which has yet to be invented for these "virtual rooms" (and in the daa's instance, we now have (say) 10; one for each interrelated GROUP'S issues.) Over time, if we continued, each will attract a community of interest, and would want some real time services attached. So they would eventually become something like a Google+ "hangout" or a global plaza space. http://www.globalplaza.org/spaces

The point here is that we have a habit of not treating these virtual rooms as permanent domains from which programmes are streamed and interactive responses captured, and the papers & slides attached, so that they become archives in their own right.

In order to begin this transition we need to consider that these rooms are independent of any existing domain, like ec.europa.eu; they are inter-institutional. So we do need the help of some good librarians in order to institute a directory, which peers can use to point from their old domains to their various (shared) virtual learning rooms. i.e. the place where research materials (in all formats), conversations, conferences, papers, etc are kept. Every other group of disciplinary-centric peers in publicly funded research wil want one too, as the utility offered by them is recognized.

As this new way of aggregating and disseminating research media comes into focus there's one thing which will offer some utility. You won't have to export data. You'll only have to refer to it, in situ.

In the media world its called "aggregation", by social behaviour, not by institutional content. That's why "professionals" use LinkedIn. It may not be a great tool. But people DO like to classify themselves. Self deception is a terrible thing to watch in the early stages of any new media :)

I believe we agree here. Aggregating and combining data (mashuping) is what we should be looking at. This is actually very consistent with the web 2.0 and could architectures.

Yes

That's one aspect of what we're trying to achieve. So far as policy, in my end of the world, this one's important. http://www.egov.vic.gov.au/focus-on-countries/australia/trends-and-issue...
It let's the geeks loose on the silos.

And if you want a Portuguese presenter's insight into the same "data centric thinking" here it is. http://blogs.gartner.com/andrea_dimaio/2012/06/05/facing-the-open-data-t...

But the other aspect is that this approaches like the daa "humanizes" institutions. That's why these postmortems are sooo important. You're always going to get people like me who, on first appearances, will say "I could have done it so much better". Maybe they could, if they've had a lot of experience in watching "the media" change. I might seem critical of David (and i don't mean to be), but I do hope you might give some consideration to what i have to say. e.g. If we had used a fairly mature LMS( Learning Management System) we would now be talking on the developers site about what additional plug-ins, extensions, etc that our users discovered they needed = the (endless) wish list.

As it is, I hope we might at least have the INFO team thinking that they are a bit too broadcast minded/orientated, and that there are other bubbles apart from brussels (who they should be collaborating with).

You know David, just that one little approach, of you putting a face to a decision, is probably the most courageous think any individual can do in a world of outmoded/degenerating institutions. So I'm only going to say one thing. Good onya mate!

Hi Simonfj, your observations are very relevant. Obviously, we did spend quite some time analyzing the possible solution, including easy ones like a Linkedin forum or Ning. Buddypress, Drupal Commons, Ning were also considered, as well as a copy-paste of capacity4dev.org . At the end we had an objective set of criteria and decided for own Drupal based development. I am still convinced that this is the best option, in view of time and ressource constraints. Obviously we can see all sort of shortcomings ex post, but it did the job adequately in the short term while leaving lots of open ways for further development in the long term.
There's been an interesting discussion on this on our Linkedin group on "Policy-Making 2.0". Your contribution would be very useful to the group!

Great to see the code and content made available - good move.

It could be interesting to consider what it would take to make an Empowered platform.

I would meassure it if
a) an elible person can participate trustworthy WITHOUT leaving any identifying data.

Here I exclude the many that participate to promote themselves as a brand - their motive is likely self-promotion more than solutions and as such they want to be identified.

What we particularly want to ensure is to eliminate the selling of personal data to commercial profilers such as Facebook, Google etc.

b) any pariticipant can join as two non-linkable entities (identities), ie. to discuss two different aspects without linking them.

One of the main problems for democratic debate is the tendency to argue with their own strawman or Ad Hominem instead of listening to the actual statement.

c) Their might be a staging model where participant needs to earn "streetcredit" to participate openly or be represented through moderators to maintain both tone and quality on discussion.

The aim not to exclude anyone, but to eliminate all the blatent marketing, technology-push and ad hominem and actually begin creatating structures that converge in a double-step - first on problem definitions and then on suggested solutions/steps to take

additional aspects not considered as the intention is not to make a full list

In short - eating the pudding making it a trustworthy social media in a manor that could even be put in cloud.

Hi Simonfj, I dont understand your point about "now go away". You should have received an email explaining the next steps of the process. The text is copied here http://daa.ec.europa.eu/content/thanks-and-follow-0

Dear DAA community, I hope debate can go on on this platform and I am interested in keeping it active, with particular reference to the Cloud group that I followed up more closely. With the European Cloud Strategy to be released soon (probably after summer holidays) and the recent publication of the ARTICLE 29 DATA PROTECTION WORKING PARTY Opinion 05/2012 on Cloud Computing, the European effort on Cloud has just begun and it will be value added for Europe to keep the DAA wide, interested and active community alive to continue the collaboration through open and fruitful discussion. Meanwhile, enjoy summer!

The current proposals to do not address the *real problems*

Windows PCs - a terrible record of network and software vulnerabilities.

There would be fewer DDOS attacks if the botnets didn't rely on these vulnerabilities.

no apparent desire to cure the disease.