Curating #KEDAI Tweets Using Storify

Digital Author Identifier Summit

A Digital Author Identifier Summit, organised by Knowledge Exchange, took place in London on 12-13 March 2012. As described on the Knowledge Exchange web site:

Knowledge Exchange organised a summit and brought together various national and international organisations working on Digital Author Identifiers. This summit took place on 13 and 14 March 2012 in London.

The web site went on to describe how:

The objectives were:

• to share knowledge and experience and to exchange views on desired developments
• to identify priority issues for technology, service and policy development
• to explore and stimulate interoperability and common approaches
• to inform and support future planning – explore the role Knowledge Exchange (KE) can play

I did not attend the event but some of my colleagues were present. In addition a number of people I follow on Twitter were also at the event and participated in the discussions and provided summaries of the talks given by the invited speakers and the conclusions of the breakout sessions.  I therefore became aware of the event via my Twitter stream and soon discovered that the event hashtag was #KEDAI

Curating Tweets from the Digital Author Identifier Summit

In light of UKOLN’s involvement in a variety of work associated with digital identifiers, having spotted the quality of the reporting of the workshop on Twitter, I decided that it would be useful not only to myself and UKOLN colleagues but also the wider research community if I were to keep a record of the significant tweets, or ‘curate’ the tweets to use a term which currently seems fashionable.

I used Storify to keep a record of the #KEDIA tweets and a screenshot of the first six tweets is illustrated.

It was interesting to note that the top aim of the event was:

to share knowledge and experience and to exchange views on desired developments

Nobody said that the sharing had to be restricted to those who physically attended the meeting, so I’m pleased to be able to amplify the notes provided by several attendees at the event, including those shown in the photograph (taken from the Knowledge Exchange Web site).

It should be noted that the tweets hosted on Storify can be embedded on other web sites using an embedded script tag. This requires use of embedding technologies which are not permitted on WordPress.com. However I have just noticed that there is an option to publish a Storify story directly on a WordPress.com blog. Unfortunately this did not work, so I have captured the first set of tweets as an image in order to illustrate what you will see if you visit the Storify page.

Reflecting on the Value of Tweeting at the Event

From looking at the tweets we can see evidence of the success of the two-day workshop, with @BasCordewener commenting:

#kedai meeting was a very good one. Vibrant discussions, relevant recommendations, increased knowledge! Led by @atreloar, inspiring chair.

and @atreloa modestly responding:

@BasCordewener You are too kind. I was only part of a team that worked very well to deliver an excellent event #kedai

The value of the tweets was acknowledged by two remote participants with @williamjnixon showing his appreciation for hearing about the event on Twitter

Diping in and out of the non-Indonesian Knowledge Exchange Digital Author Identifiers Workshop #kedai, thanks to @atreloar for heads-up

and @mopennock showing her appreciation to the two people who tweeted about the event initially:

Thanks to @bindonlane & @atreloar for the #kedai tweets, sounds like a fascinating event.

Emerging Best Practices

As described in a post on Resources from Andrew Treloar’s Seminar on Data Management on 1 April 2011 Andrew Treloar (@atreloar) gave a seminar at UKOLN on “Data Management: International Challenges, National Infrastructure and Institutional Responses – an Australian Perspective on Data Management”. As part of our work in maximising impact of such seminars we provided a live video stream of the seminar, with a video recording (taken on a smartphone) subsequently being published.

In the pub later that evening Andrew, my colleague Paul Walk and myself discussed ways in which events, ranging from a  seminar attracting a handful of people to a larger workshop lasting a couple of days, might be ‘amplified’, even if there is no budget available for commissioning professional AV services.  It seems that such approaches were embraced at the workshop earlier this week, based on a handful of people tweeting at the event and the tweets subsequently being curated and publicised to a wider audience. How might we summarise the emerging best practices for organisers of events who wish to maximise engagement opportunities from a wider audience?

• Have an event hashtag, ensure that it is publicised in a timely fashion and that its meaning and purpose can be easily found.  Note that for the #KEDAI tag @atreloar’s initial tweet helpfully provided the context:

About to start moderating/presenting at/taking part in Knowledge Exchange Digital Author Identifier workshop in London #KEDAI

He then went on to point out possible clashes with other uses of the tag:

By the way, apologies to those of you seeing a hashtag collision for #KEDAI. If it’s in Indonesian it probably doesn’t relate to the w’shop

• Encourage participants to tweet in order to obtain a critical mass (bearing in mind that being a solo person tweeting about an event can be difficult) as illustrated by @atreloar:

Will try and shame others into tweeting so you get more than just my take on it #keda

• Provide a concluding tweet which helps others (including a third party who may be curating the tweets) to identify when an event is over (although, as in this case, there may be subsequent tweets this may not always happen).  In this example, @atreloar provided a conclusion in echoing the comments made by the final speaker at the event:

In summary, very helpful and he wants to thank (on behalf of US!) the JISC and KE for organising the event #KEDA

But what of the possible risks associated with curation of tweets form an event?  Such issues are being addressed as part of the JISC-funded Greening Events II project which is being led by ILRT, University of Bristol, with UKOLN delivering a workpackage on best practices for event amplification.  In a blog post published yesterday on Assessing the Risks: Twitter Kirsty Pitkin described an initial risk assessment approach which will be included in the Greening Events II report on use of Twitter at events.

In this post, I’ll not repeat the warnings of possible risks (which include event spam and inappropriate tweets). However the initial risk is worth highlighting: the risk of doing nothing or failing to engage. For those who may be averse to taking risks it should be noted that doing nothing may be the biggest risk!

Reading Kirsty’s comments it occurred to me that in addition to inappropriate tweets resulting from the mob mentality i.e. “the audience may engage in a negative critique of the speaker whilst a presentation is ongoing” there may also be tweets which the person tweeting may feel not to be appropriate to be included in a curated record (e.g. jokey asides),  As part of the process for curating tweets I’m thinking that a summary which provides the context, the scoping criteria for including and information about removing inappropriate tweets may be a useful addition to a curated story would be useful.  My suggested approach is given below:

These tweets were curated by Brian Kelly, UKOLN based on tweets with the #KEDAI hashtag.  Duplicate entries (i.e. RTs) have been removed. A summary of the curation of this story has been posted ion the UK Web Focus blog at  https://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/kedai-tweets-and-the-value-of-storify/

If any inappropriate tweets have been included in this story, please contact Brian Kelly (@briankelly). If appropriate such tweets will be removed.

I’d welcome your thoughts.