I hope to have a measure of twitter analysis and integration in the future, but for now it’s just a humble blog.

If we spent ages looking for a solution via google and nobody had a useful blog post about it, that’s a clear cue. If someone in UK academia is helped by us, then it directly improves the reputation of my school and university.

http://www.lgeoresearch.com/lets-talk-about-government-consultations-with-joss-winn/

Brian

Unfortunately, I am not permitted to provide you with a copy of the
fulltext of this article. The item has been lodged in the repository by
author arrangement with the publisher for personal use and there is an
embargo on public access until June 31st 2010.

I would recommend that you contact your local library facilities to obtain
this item from either their holdings/collections or via Inter-Library Loan.

I am very sorry I cannot be of more help in relation to providing a copy of
this item.

Best regards,
Chris Roberts
Research Publications Librarian

I said (1)
“I find it really interesting that twitter gets this response; because there’s no good technical reason why this should be so.”

Tony Hirst said (5)
What does “technical” mean in this context?

Attributes of communications systems like speed, reliability, interoperability. The reasons why people generally use telephones and email rather than carrier pigeon, for example.

If a clique find some way of communicating that they obsess over, and start to assign priority according to the method of communication rather than the content of the message, then those sorts of attributes don’t really matter.

What does “technical” mean in this context? The conversation, being in public, resulted in a public commitment (albeit a weak, informal one) being made, and as such other parties not associated with the discussion can now also legitimately ask COPAC maintainers how progress on opening up RSS access is going?

The wider world can also chip in with ideas about the best way of providing feed access (see, for example, Owen Stephens’ contribution to the thread that I quoted in a comment above).

The thread also potentially raised public awareness hat: a) copac offered search results feeds; b) they are not full results feeds, they are currently fed through a latest books filter, c) there is a system migration at the moment, and seemingly a newcod release next year (so for other folk with low hanging fruit requests about COPAC functionality, now might be a good time to ask) etc etc

…and it generated a mini-case study, blog post and anecdote for Brian to use when he talks about this new fangled web stuff…

On of the reasons I’ve been advocating RSS is selfishness – if content is available as RSS, it’s easier for me to play with/look for ways of getting additional value out of it.

As with OER publication vs use, I think there is a real issue with the ’so what’?

I think it’s also important to remember that there doesn’t have to be a huge uptake in feed subscriptions to a feed for it to be useful.

Eg in a Library setting, if a new books feed is set up, and then someone realises it can push that listing to the library homepage, or the catalogue homepage, and they embed that result, that’s a success, right? That feed may now be getting thousands of views..

Which is to say, a single feed subscription can have a big effect…

It might also enable a developer in one part of an organisation to gain access to info that they want to republish from another part of the organisation that would ordinarily (if a formal job request was made) require an app to be built around hard to get sorted database read access.

[ostephens] @joypalmer @psychemedia (raising himself from his sickbed) wouldn’t opensearch be a more obvious way to go for copac results in RSS?
http://twitter.com/ostephens/statuses/5454013634

[joypalmer] @ostephens good point. need to speak to ashley a bit more on this one.
http://twitter.com/joypalmer/statuses/5454332874

[psychemedia] @ostephens @joypalmer if i can: a) hack the uri in a meaningful way, b) get rss (and maybe json) out, am i bovvered? ;-) but yes, probably
http://twitter.com/psychemedia/statuses/5455066763

First, I have often heard it said that flowcharts cannot be made accessible because there is no way to concisely convey their content through alternative text. No doubt that is true, but it is also true that no amount of text can convey the same information to people who process information visually. So what is perceived as a barrier to one audience is, in fact, the bridge to accessibility for another.

Similarly, generally people who need a display to have a certain level of contrast so they can see clearly need the contrast to be high. But I have one colleague who is blinded by high contrast. To see clearly, he uses a medium tan foreground and a beige background. Even people who see perfectly well have a hard time reading text that he can see clearly. Again, the barrier for most turns out to be a bridge for a few.

Your approach seems to be a refreshing new perspective on making the experience available to all.

For me the general point is the need to observe patterns of use and to be prepared to consider making use of successful patterns. So if SMBP proves more popular then SMTP, then go for it – perhaps even if SMBP isn’t standardised or interoperable :-)

In principle, some intermediate technology,like email, would serve just as well for communication. But we probably all accept that BK has a point: we don’t really expect emails to get a response. [A general observation, nothing to do with Copac.]

The point seems to be, the keenness to pay attention to a fellow Twitter user?

I suppose you could all agree it’s fashionable to write messages on your arses with magic marker, and moon out the window at each other.

If an elite agreed to give priority attention to SMBP*, a case could be made for saying it’s a great way to communicate.

Possibly Stephen Fry would have fewer followers, though.

[*Short Message Buttock Protocol]

From the official link to the resource you provided I have looked at some of the comments received about the report.

I note, for example, that comments from the Open Standards Alliance (in PDF format) state that:

The openness of standards (which neither implies nor is implied by the openness of source code, an unavoidable trend in the IT sector) is integral to the seamless interoperability among open source and non-open (mainly: proprietary) source software.
This function can not be fulfilled by proprietary standards by definition.

And yet PDF (and, indeed, MS Word) have until last year been properietary formats (according to an EU definiton of open standards. In these cases properietary formats eventially became open.

The MP3 format is encumbered by patents, as described in Wikipedia and yet is widely used. I’m pleased that the EIF document does acknowledge such complexities about the real world we live in.

I would agree that the document you cited is a monstrosity!

Open Library Training Materials and Custom Search Engines

The “binary approach” how you call it is not present in the discussions around the document. Of course such a document has to fully reflect administrative procurement interests. I can’t find any reasonable public interest to promote patent cartels for public standards. You find such misguided views in other directorates documents, e.g. from DG Enterprise which follow the competitiveness paradigm and promotional policies for industry. From a German conservative standpoint the core responsibility of governmental intervention in the market is enforcement of “market order”. From a procurement perspective you do never fraternise with vendors but raise your procurement power. For some parts of the Commission that is too hard to get. EU IDABC was an exception of administrative sanity.

Here is the worst Commission document I ever came across in that respect: “Evaluation provides a forum in which public procurement officials and the supplier community can review the effectiveness of measures to promote innovation.”, “Maintaining dialogue with the supplier is important for ensuring continuing innovation during performance. [..] Moreover, supplier-buyer interaction can be viewed as a learning process for subsequent contracts.”, “If government decides to keep the IPR, it will have to pay the price for exclusive development, as the supplier can not re-use IPR. A supplier who can keep the IPR may consider it to be an investment, a building block for other projects. This would normally be reflected in a lower price for the purchaser.”, “A fair comparison of bids requires a skilful evaluation committee. New innovative solutions are especially difficult to compare. In most cases this will require a mix of experts, including lawyers and technical specialists.”, “3. INVOLVE KEY STAKEHOLDERS THROUGHOUT THE PROCESS It is important to ensure the active participation of all internal key stakeholders, throughout the procurement lifecycle.”, “Like any other buyer, government ought to identify, via the technical dialogue or by other means, what is actually available on the market, before deciding whether and what to buy.”, “Technical dialogue… gives the market the opportunity to better understand the problem to be addressed and to offer optimum solutions. To ensure transparency, any information provided”, “To ensure transparency, any information provided by government during the technical dialogue would need to be circulated to any potential bidder.”.