1. With reference to Facebook, an online game, or any other Internet application or technology, look into how the developers and users negotiate its development:
a. Are there examples of the developers and the users disagreeing with some change or other? What was the outcome of these?
b. Have the people using the application found uses that the developers may not have anticipated?
Great examples to look at are Open Source Content Management Systems (OS CMS) like Joomla (Open Source Matters Inc, 2010), Drupal (Buytaert, 2010) or Typo3 (Typo3 Association, 2010). These applications heavily rely on the input by both users and programmers, also referred to as ‘the community’. They provide forums in which decisions are discussed, amongst them alternative program scripts, modules and what flows in to the latest release. All three are available free of charge.
My personal experience with an OS CMS goes back to October 2002 when we, as an ICT-department in a mortgage bank decided to use EgoCMS (Egotec, 2010) to implement a website on the Intranet of the organization. The web site should mirror the entire collection of rules and regulations in a reference book. Each web page would provide a set of instructions that would relate to other instructions creating one big weave of interrelated bits of information, each accessible to selected groups of employees.
However, the problem was that the CMS was programmed in PHP, while we were running Windows 2000 servers. As the business Egotec, providing the CMS, was still very young and they were keen to have the bank on their reference list, the management went to great extent in customizing their standard software to the needs and requirements of us, the customer.
Why would the bank go through the lengthy process of heavily customizing a standard tool to implement something that would usually not fit together? Today this is an eligible question, but in 2002 options were still very slim. You could either use a CMS like EgoCMS for the total amount of 30,000 Euros or something like NBS Infopark (Infopark, 2010)which would have cost about 250,000 Euros in 2002.
An example from Australia in terms of collaboratition between users and developers is Careerhub (Visual Eyes Creative Software, 2010). Careerhub hosts almost the entire set of 39 Australian university job engines. Maintaining the web site of Swinburne University, I am the middleman between staff and the provider, administrating our mandate of Careerhub called SwinEmploy Swinburne University, 2010). As we heavily use the application for posting jobs, registering students to our services, announcement of events etc. , we also retrieve all sorts of statistical data to give evidence of the efficiency of our services. It has happened randomly that we needed specific reports that were not available with the standard version. If it was of mutual benefit to other universities to implement a change or to create another report from the central database, Careerhub would be happy to fulfill our wishes without any extra charges. To help the community keep up with latest developments and tpo encourage discussions, founder Darren Hughes established a blog (Hughes, 2010).
The great advantage that all parties gain from collaborations like this, where issues are openly discussed in the community is that they learn through a trial and error process and gain insight into each other’s way of thinking.
Reference
Buytaert, D. (2010). Drupal. Retrieved November 3, 2010 from http://drupal.org/community
Egotec GmbH (2010). Egotec WCMS. Retrieved November 3, 2010 from http://www.egotec.com/en/Applications/Web+Content+Management.html
Hughes, D. (2010). Careerhub Central Blog. Retrieved November 3, 2010 from http://blog.careerhub.info/
Infopark AG (2010). The Infopark Story. Retrieved November 3, 2010 from http://www.infopark.com/1036388/infopark-story
Open Source Matters Inc. (2010). Joomla! Retrieved November 3rd, 2010 from http://community.joomla.org/
Swinburne University (2010). SwinEmploy Login Page. Retrieved November 3, 2010 from http://www.swinburne.edu.au/corporate/careers/SwinEmploy_Welcome.html
Typo3 Association (2010). Typo3. Retrieved November 3, 2010 from http://typo3.org/community/about/
Visual Eyes Creative Software (2010). Careerhub Homepage. Retrieved November 3, 2010 from https://www.careerhub.com.au/default.aspx
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