Celebrating Progress

This post is a copy of an email I sent this morning, briefly documenting some small and large jobs we agreed in the meeting in Bangor but which have not yet gotten attended to or are still in progress :O) {likely I have forgotten some ]

1 - simple-views option in weblogs

• - have an option to make the sidebars go away
• -- they would be replaced by a link to open the same navigation options / info in a separate page? Or in the combined, current view?
• -- 2 levels of the option
• 1. end-user can choose for herself ( a cookie and some simple way to toggle the preference )
  2. weblog manager can set the default ( for users who have not made an individual preference )
• .... since there would still be a link in the page to get the combined view, google would still index the entry content together with the contextualising stuff in the sidebars, so the nice co-located-terms hits would still happen

2 - print-all option for future trends sectors

• - Sal wants user to be able to print a whole sector
• - we can do that pretty quickly once we get onto it

3 - simpler, cleaner, quicker discussion / commenting

• - we've been absolutely hammering this one since the meeting
• - we expect to make really impressive improvements soonish

4 - clean up the Group Discussions page - too cluttered

• - we have not forgotten this; we'll get onto it as soon as we can pause in [3] :O)
• - when we attend to it, we'll likely want to get some feedback from you guys on options

5 - makeover for the front of site

• - a general Trinny and Susannah for the front of site
• - probably assemble bits of content from blogs and categories into a nicely laid out set of boxes?
• - this'll entail some thinking about how to most easily keep the front of site looking fresh
• --- ie how to sort a few sources for front of sote content and assign people to posting occasional stuff into those

6 - Member profiles

• - We hope to have the beginnings ready within a couple or three weeks
• ... another one which is waiting on breaking thre back of issue [3] :o)

7 - Glitches - eg personal bar into searchbox

• - I made a quickchange that should lesson the problem from the personal bar bleed issue ( it may still happen in *very* narrow windows )
• - but still need to fix properly
• - also we know of several smallish glitches to do with scrolling in the weblogs etc which we keep meaning to get round to :O_
• --- we will have a review of the glitches at the beginning of next week

OTHER TO-DOS OF LONGER-TERM NATURE COMING FROM THE BANGOR MEETING:

8 - citations and annotated references

• - LOADS of work to do here, but also loads of potential
• - I'll be emailing/posting occasionally on this
• -- a first step would be for us all to start looking at the social-bookmarking services and thinking about using them
• ..... eg I have tried to be 'good' about collecting useful links and citations 'in public' with good categories
• ..... ... ( 588 links in my delicious now! ... they build up quickly)
• ... eg 2 see my earlier email about mentoring citables in NGRF

9 - other 'social-software' integrations

• - We are finally starting to get some uable ideas about ho to make good use of the new 'web2.0' style open services from portals like NGRF
• ---- but still in the future
• - for small examples of added-value of little steps though, see the photos in the vetnet and sigossee sites --- now all done through Flickr which makes it mush easier to post photos and much slicker to show them in the sites
• - be nice if we could think of a similarly 'natural' scope of NGRF photo stream - vetnet has ecer conference photos, ossite has sisossee meetings

• http://www.vet-research.net -- about the move
• http://www.ossite.org -- about the move

I've made a crude effort to turn our top 200 referring search words into a 'zeitgeist' display like those that are ripping around the tagosphere at the moment. It's big, so I've placed it in the extended text... click 'extended text' link below if you do not see them:

What is a 'zeitgeist' display? It is a way of displaying the search terms used by recent visitors to the NGRF site: the words they entered into search engines when they made searches which led them to come to our site. 'Zeitgeist' in the sense of giving a rough and ready picture of what is happening 'out there' in the living web at this moment. There are other kinds of zeitgeist displays, for instance showing the latest images uploaded to Flickr or the most popular tags added to shared bookmarks at del.icio.us. They are useful because they give an overall 'gestalt' impression of patterns rather than more accurate but less visual numbers (see - two german words needed to name and describe them - they must be neat!)

How rough is this one? Very! :o) If NGRF regulars like the idea of a display like this, we here at KnowNet will write the scripts required to make better displays automatically. This is just a one-off illustration of the concept.

All Keywords - # Unique Visitors

Those of you who are interested in the software running behind the NGRF site - especially progress on improvements - might want to watch the KNotations weblog in the KNowNet site. If you have an RSS reader, include the KNotations RSS in your feeds. It is where Mike documents issues, plans and progress on the software systems used in the NGRF site.

In the next month or two, a large number of improvements are planned, including member profiles, faster and easier posting/replying, and a more powerful citation system.

Mike Malloch and Steve Tufail are KnowNet's development team working on knotes. They will be using this blog for technical annotations and notes about the development and testing of knotes and other KnowNet products.

Mike said:

noted the following from a technorati search on ngrf url : -- thought it interesting as eg of a guidance bod with a blog :o)

http://www.ecademy.com/node.php?id=31424

(by the way there is RSS feed from his blog --- paste

http://www.ecademy.com/module.php?mod=blog&op=feed&uid=44282 into a feed reader to subscribe to it --- ooops it is empty at th moment - maybe the software at ecademy is broken)

Duncan Bolam's blog | 4 comments
Business : People are crying out for fulfilling careers..... by Duncan Bolam on 24-Sep-04 11:28am    Duncan Bolam....but don't seem to understand where to go for 'advice'.

It is a sad indictment of the world of career professionals but the young person, man or woman in the street does not automatically think of us when they have a pressing career decision to make or are in transition in some way. It seems the 'G' word - guidance - is a huge turn off. Commercially, I'd have to agree, it is not a very 'sexy' descriptor, that's why we coined the more 21st Century facing - Career Strategist. But don’t knock us because of the label. Career development professionals have a lot to offer a competitive economy!!

(Did you know that we are fighting to be allowed to use even the word 'career' because the politically correct consider it to be "elitist, aspirational and discriminatory").

Due to the dreadful state of semantics in my ‘would-be’ profession I have thrown to gauntlet down to my industry to do something about our image and our language. The aim is to be more approachable, have a more professional 'vocabulary', throw a lasso around fragmented sectors and debate semantics.

We are planning the 'Great Career Guidance Debate' (working title), in the Spring of 2005. The plan is to make it a real time, on line national (potentially global) debate with a live audience and a celebrity panel.
Perhaps we can get the BBC or Channel 4 to get behind it in week long feature. It'd be great to get Ecademy to host the online technological dimension.

There is irrefutable evidence to support that a competitive nation needs to have an established, all-age, career development profession. For those who don’t believe this fact, the OECD in Paris have done a fantastic international review of career development and there is a lot supporting documents such as:
http://www.oecd.org/linklist/0,2678,en_2649_34511_2735939_1_1_1_1,00.html

In addition, James Wolfensohn, The President of the World Bank, who in my view runs as being my profession’s greatest advocate, he states that his raison d’etre is to have every citizen on the planet have a sense of livelihood and purpose. Have a look at:
http://info.worldbank.org/etools/bspan/PresentationView.asp?PID=930&EID=476

The thing is as many as 20-40% of undergraduates are dropping off degree courses in the UK before the end of the first year! In my humble opinion the target that 50% of school-leavers should obtain a degree is
economically unsustainable. There is less and less access to career guidance (call it what you will) in this country and it is important because the wheels are coming off the next generation. And what about
pre-Retirement guidance?

Who would you like to see contribute to our celebrity panel? Do believe in the validity of a career evelopment plan?

What is your career development plan?

If you are retiring, what are you going to do with the rest of your life?

Are you aware that the UK is a world leading nation in the development of the career research, thinking and practice?

If not have a look at: http://www.guidance-research.org

Why not play your part in development? – Have a look at the Career Strategists club on Ecademy. Come along to Champagne Charlies for a drink tonight and let’s get things started!

I look forward to your suggestions – SORRY IF THIS IS A LONG BLOG

Duncan Bolam

Details of the 2005 ICG National Awards scheme are available on their website.  Surely we should be in with a chance for the 'Innovative use of IT' category.  The NGRF website is certainly innovative and when I last looked it seemed to be using IT a lot as well?  What do others think.

Deadlines for this one is as folllows:

THE 2005 TIMETABLE

4 July Closing date for entries
15 July Research Committee meets to judge the Research Category
21 July Short-listing Panel meets
28 July Judging Panel meets
August Winners notified
3 November Presentation of Awards

Full colour publication available following the Awards ceremony

One idea proposed was the BECTA competition. 

According to their website:

Becta's Awards schemes play a vital role as part of the organisation’s commitment to identifying, exemplifying, rewarding and disseminating effective practice in ICT. The Awards are complementary, highlighting good practice across the spectrum of teaching and learning. The awards focus on practitioners (ICT in Practice Awards), learners (Creativity in Digital Media Awards), industry (BETT Awards) and whole educational institutions (Web Awards).

Unfortunately the deadline for this was the 7th April - but could we think about a late  entry?  What do others think?

This article 'Mining the Data Field', focused particularly on the role of labour market information (LMI) in guidance, and the importance of the LMI Future Trends section of the NGRF website in the context of this growing interest in LMI.

Careers Guidance Today CGT, is published as the professional journal of the Institute of Career Guidance, ICG, and is distributed to members as one of the benefits of membership.

Chapter 4, page 42, paragraph 167 is concerned with information and guidance for adults - it's the final section g that the NGRF team are really excited about!  The whole paragraph states:

167. On information and guidance for adults, we have made good progress over the past two years. In particular:

a.  We have integrated the services of the local information, advice and guidance partnerships and Ufi learndirect’s national helpline, under the management of the Learning and Skills Council (LSC). That means they can provide an integrated service of face-to-face, telephone and web-based information and advice services.

b. We have published new service standards for the delivery of information and advice for adults, which set out what services people are entitled to expect and the standards to which they should be delivered.

c. The LSC has agreed new contracts for the delivery of information and advice services for adults, operating to higher quality standards and requiring accreditation against the ‘matrix’ national quality standard. There is a new brand for LSC local advice services – nextstep – to complement learndirect’s national brand.

d. 1,200 public and private sector organisations have achieved accreditation against the ‘matrix’ standard for high-quality information and advice services.

e. The Adult Learning Inspectorate (ALI) has completed a first review of information and advice services. From January 2006, regular inspections will provide a clearer picture of quality and good practice.

f. Information and advice services have been components of the Employer Training Pilots (ETPs), and will be integrated in the National Employer Training Programme.

g. We have improved the collection and use of labour market information to support advice services. Online information is available through Worktrain, the National Resource Service and the National Guidance Research Forum websites.

Don't forget, you can see more about the Skills White Paper (2005) elsewhere on this site.

Lucy Marris and Jenny Bimrose wrote an article about the NGRF website for the May 2005 issue of Newscheck.  This was to encourage new users to log on and participate in discussions.  Time will tell if the publicity helps generate more activity on the site, but we were really pleased with the high quality reproduction of the front page of the NGRF website in the publication.  Fingers crossed it creates a wave of interest!