Ken, Amy, et al,
I'm well acquainted with Google Groups. Ryerson subscribes to Google Apps
for Higher Ed, so we have special access to pretty much all of Google's
services, but sequestered from the rest of the world, and tailored a bit to
academic needs.
The key features, as I see them, of Groups that ListServ doesn't really
have, are:
* web interface. If one is inclined to prefer pull rather than push
technology, then the web interface works well. That is, rather than get
emails, you intentionally visit a web version. I'm a push guy; I don't
mind email at all. But I do recognize there are many pull-types out there.
* security. All of google's immense security team is behind you.
* Drive integration. Allows one to share *without uploading/transmitting
attachments* all kinds of other media. Whether you prefer push or pull,
this helps lower the amount of space your mailbox takes up.
* categories/labels/tags. Allows finer-grained organization of posts - esp
in the web interface view - to simplify searching for stuff.
* administrative control. There are lots of options to fine tune who has
access, to what extent, and how they receive information. Users can
customize that themselves.
It's true that JISCmail has done right by us for a very long time, and that
means a lot.
Still, I wouldn't mind giving Groups a shot, just to see what happens. One
can never tell.
Amy, depending on how interested/excited you are by the possibility of
using Groups, get in touch with me off-line and we can discuss it further -
see if the idea really "has legs."
\V/_ /fas
*Prof. Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.*
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
On 6 June 2015 at 09:53, Ken Friedman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Amy,
>
> This is really a new thread. It has to do list usability rather than
> respect, so I’ve changed the header.
>
> Google Groups, LinkedIn, and many other lists offer systems. One or two
> focus specifically on design research, and many focus on design. I don’t
> find them especially helpful — they are difficult to track, and despite the
> features for immediate usability, they do not work well for long-term
> research conversations. They do indeed have high readership — so do some of
> the LinkedIn Groups. High readership is not the main criterion for a
> research community.
>
> JISCMAIL was specifically designed for academic communities. They switched
> to ListServ from the old Mailserv system. There are other decent systems
> for academic groups and research communities, but they are not free, and
> only an organisation such as JISCMAIL or its counterparts in other nations
> can afford them and maintain them with the extensive archives that make
> such lists useful.
>
> If you feel that Google offers potential benefits, why not establish such
> a list and trial it? Rob Curedale launched a design research list on
> LinkedIn. Some of us subscribe there as well as here. I find the
> conversations to be far more terse, and the system is difficult to use, but
> interesting things pop up from time to time.
>
> If I were to try another system, I would continue to subscribe and read
> here. So far, other lists and other systems have not managed to generate
> rich, durable conversations of the kind that have taken place here for the
> past fifteen years, and none of them offers the comprehensive, searchable
> archives that make this list so valuable to researchers and research
> students. Moreover, private owners such as Google or LinkedIn have no
> ongoing obligation to users. Such services can vanish overnight, and when
> you use these services, you agree to their terms and limits.
>
> JISCMAIL is a publicly funded service of the United Kingdom. It may well
> vanish or change as a result of government policy decisions, but this seems
> to me unlikely in a world where the UK remains one of the world’s leading
> nations for university education and research.
>
> It is my belief that this list is highly usable. There are open questions
> on list culture, behaviour, and other issues. The usability of the system
> and its stability as a public resource are another matter entirely.
>
> Experiments are always worth trying. Rob has had immense success with his
> Linked projects — with over 100,000 subscribers, his audience is far
> greater than the audience for PhD-Design. Google might be worth a go. At
> the same time, PhD-Design remains valuable for those who find this system
> usable.
>
> To quote Morgan Freeman in Thick as Thieves, “I’m just saying, is all.”
>
> Ken
>
> Ken Friedman, PhD, DSc (hc), FDRS | Chair Professor of Design Innovation
> Studies | College of Design and Innovation | Tongji University | Shanghai,
> China ||| University Distinguished Professor | Centre for Design Innovation
> | Swinburne University of Technology | Melbourne, Australia
>
> —
>
> Amy Cheng wrote:
>
> —snip—
>
> Perhaps it's time to rethink the usability of the list. IMHO google groups
> tend to have high readership and work well. Members get digests emailed to
> them every so often with new topics, and can choose which subjects to reply
> too (privately or publicly) pertaining to what is relevant to them. Given
> that there is such a diversity of subscribers perhaps this is a great way
> to practice our user research and redesign the way we share our expertise
> and wisdom?
>
> —snip—
>
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
> Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
> Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
-----------------------------------------------------------------
PhD-Design mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
Discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subscribe or Unsubscribe at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/phd-design
-----------------------------------------------------------------
|
