Knowledge Ergonomics (That Thing We Do)

For the last few years I've been involved in research and development projects where the goal has been to design, build and evaluate useful and useable knowledge and information interfaces. But I've always had a problem articulating this as a research challenge. It's related to Human Computer Interaction (HCI) but isn't so much concerned with surface details or visual interfaces, but seems an inherently deeper problem - how does the system match with working patterns, are the information models at the right level for users, is the workflow aligned with what they do?

For example, when designing mobile tools for placement learners the MPLAT Project ran into the well known problem of co-design. The technologists don't understand the domain well-enough to design an appropriate fit, but the domain-experts don't understand the technology well-enough to be truly innovative. I once heard this described as the Problem of the Robot Horse, a fictional scenario where scientists from the 1700's are asked what vehicle they would build with modern technology, and all they can think of are robot horses - because a horse is all that they are familiar with.
In MPLAT we developed an extensive co-design and co-deployment methodology to try and enable innovative but informed design. HCI is not the right name for this research, it's about new processes of system design that incorporates elements of HCI in its core, some other phrase is needed.

In the FREMA project we experimented with a Semantic Wiki (a wiki where pages and links have types) to see if a community folksonomy (the set of types authors chose) would converge over time into anything resembling a designed ontology.

Through experimentation we showed that while creative interfaces helped authors, it was seeding the wiki that had the most significant effect on the quality of the emerging structure. This work was all about how communities expressed their knowledge, and how much they were aware of the process of knowledge construction. It certainly has elements of HCI to it, but again the term HCI doesn't capture it accurately.

As a final example consider the work we've done most recently on trying to redesign teaching and learning repositories, by examining how teaching repositories differ from research repositories, and exploring what elements of Web 2.0 design are most appropriate for them. Our more theoretical starting point led us to reject many of the commonly held beliefs about Learning Objects and repository design, resulting in a number of emerging repository installations that have a radically different feel to them (such as EdShare and HUMBox).

Once more our approach goes beyond interface design, and includes a number of more holistic factors, such as balancing the meta-data needs of the system with the tolerance of the users, and aligning the purpose and services of the software with potential users. If the term HCI is to broad to capture this, then what does?

This problem came to a head for me recently when I had to present our repository work at the first EdShare workshop. I needed to somehow express this process of aligning an information system with its users, in terms of both workflow and knowledge.

As a happy coincidence I happened to mention some of this work (in an entirely unrelated conversation) to Stephen Thomas from the School of Management, and he noted that it sounded a lot like ergonomics - the science of designing equipment (normally physical equipment) to fit the user. A few googles later and I had introduced myself to the discipline of Cognitive Ergonomics - the science of designing equipment to fit the mind - and the concept of Macroergonomics - a broad view of ergonomics that includes environmental and cultural factors.


So perhaps the work that we do is best described as a type of cognitive or Knowledge Ergonomics - the science of building knowledge structures and systems that fit the ways in which the users of those systems conceptualise, express, communicate, process and use knowledge.

In simpler words: building systems that better fit how people think.

Killer Semantics: The Challenges of Linked Data in Higher Education

This week I was at ECTEL - The European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning. The main event for me was actually the workshop for Semantic Technology in Higher Education (SEMHE), where I was on a discussion panel at the end of the day considering potential roadmaps for semantic technology adoption in HE. The atmosphere was unusually pragmatic for this type of event, with real open mindedness mixed with realism - that meant lots of discussion of pedagogy and the potential of linked data.

The question for the panel was what key challenges lay ahead for Semantic Technologies in Education and what might be the Killer Applications. I drew three things from the day that I used as a position statement for the panel:

1) Semantic Technology is often invisible - one of the commonalities of the work presented was that Semantic Technologies like RDF, RDFa, OWL, etc. were often hidden from users deep in the infrastructure. I've argued before that this is a good idea, and that a common mistake with Semantic technologies is to forget that it is for interoperability and inappropriately push it down to the storage layer (e.g. triple stores rather than databases) and up into the interface layer (e.g. graphs rather than forms). However, this does make it invisible to users - like a brilliant new engine oil it makes things run much more smoothly, but users may be unaware of the advantages.


This left me wondering about whether advocacy is the right goal for this community - rather than searching for the Killer Semantic Application perhaps we just let the engineers get on with it, slipping semantics in quietly behind the scenes without a fuss. This would leave us free to look for low-hanging lightweight applications, and to explore the impact on policy and pedagogy. This leads to the next two points...

2) Linked Data is Not Philosophically Neutral - Semantic Technology, and Linked Data in particular, is all about data interoperability and the power of data integration. But this means that, even in a relatively closed system, it involves transparency and openness that can be very threatening to both individuals and organisations. Linked Data will make it possible for students to compare Universities without the usual spin, it will allow Universities to compare students (or potential students) with cold, hard analytics. Linked Data changes the game.

This all means that Linked Data will be a major challenge to policy makers in institutions, who may not even realise what the technology is enabling before it becomes to late. In the past you could disseminate information about your University and market your courses without exposing your data for analysis. This will soon cease to be the case.

3) Technology Changes the Goals of Education - Open Information (i.e. data on the Web) has been very challenging for Education, we have seen a huge rise in problems with Information Literacy (students knowing good sources from bad sources) and in plagiarism (students cutting and pasting from the web). It is easy to lambast students for these academic crimes, but it misses a core truth. That technology has changed what we need to know and the skills that we must possess in order to get by in life. The value of information has changed, and recall is less important when information is available at the click of a mouse or tap of a finger. The problems of plagiarism are a result of educators trying to teach and assess skills that are not seen as valuable by modern students. What's the best way to write a short factual article on any given topic? Actually, a bit of Googling and Wikipedia cut'n'paste is probably the quickest effective solution.

I'm not arguing that this is a good thing (and I've not argued it before), only that it is a change that we must face (for example, by accepting that simple factual articles are no longer a good measure of student's research and rhetorical skills!). Calculators decreased the value of mental arithmetic in schools, allowing teachers to concentrate on higher level skills and methods, but mental arithmetic has side effects (such as improving mental agility) that were thrown out with the bathwater. The solution is not to ban calculators, but to try and understand how this technology changes things, spot the side effects, and develop strategies for managing the change so that we can put the baby back again.

We're still in the process of managing the change to Open Information, but its worth thinking ahead. What might be the impact of Open Knowledge? What happens when the Web can do the things from higher up Bloom's stack - comparison, synthesis, analysis? What happens when you can go to Google and not only ask 'Show me stuff about the English Civil War' but 'How does the English Civil War relate to American Independence?'

So my final suggestion for a challenge is a pedagogical one - what should we be teaching students who will work and study in such a world? What core intellectual skills will society need, and what problems will this technology introduce that will need to be overcome?

Technology has profoundly impacted on education, but the key technologies are not actually those that are specifically about learning. Email, the Web and WiFi have had a huge impact, far above things like QTI or LOM. Linked Data and Semantic Technologies will change society again, and I believe that this contextual change will impact learning far more than specific tools or killer applications.

District 9: A Watchmen moment?

District 9, the new film directed by Neill Blomkamp and produced by Peter Jackson, is getting a lot of good press. Critics like the vision of the young director:

"District 9 proves that genre films, besides being a hell of a lot of fun, can say things you hadn't considered and show stuff you haven't seen." Time.com

They like the quality of the acting, and the special effects:

"District 9 is the rare arms-and-ammo flick in which the central human performance is as high-caliber as the hardware." Washingtonpost

And they like the setting; squalid Johannesburg slums in the blinding glare of the African sun:

"Who needs Manhattan when there are so many megalopolises and sprawling slum-republics about which brilliant films like District 9 can be be made?" Telegraph

I liked the film a lot too. Despite a slightly flappy story, the heavy-handed metaphor and a short-change ending It's almost certainly the best sci-fi film of the year and possibly the film of the year. You should go and see it.

But what really struck me about it was not the quality of the acting, the set-pieces, nor even the CGI, but the construction of the film itself. This is an oddly put together piece that starts as mockumentary, before descending into a more traditional third-person style, but peppered with news stories and spliced with character interviews and soundbites. Honestly, bits of this film resemble Transformers, and other bits resemble The Office.



Different scenes draw from different filmmakers and styles, but there is only one thing that the whole reminds me of, and that's not a film at all. What Blomkamp has done is pick different styles purposely and deliberately, his choices have cinematic and story purpose (for example, the mockumentary approach quickly normalises the bizarre idea of an alien slum, the news clips establish the broader context and set up audience expectations, while the action-packed third act accelerates the story and creates a sympathetic context for a little sentimentality).

This postmodern raid of the stylistic drawer reminded me heavily of Watchmen - not the mawkish film, but the brilliant original graphic novel. What Alan Moore did with Watchmen was use different media to get past some of the shortcomings of the comic medium. He interspersed the graphic chapters with letters, book chapters and newspaper articles, and even interweaved a second text, a comic within the comic (The Tales of the Black Freighter). The medium is the message, and with Watchmen the genius was in the telling - which is possibly why the literal film translation was a little disappointing.

Well, Blomkamp is doing with film what Moore did with the graphic novel. He throws away convention and presents a disrupted narrative, making stylistic choices that make his film deeper and more interesting while keeping it lean. It's just different enough from what we normally expect to be a little disconcerting, but it's very effective.

I liked this film a lot, but I'm more excited about what it's shown us is possible. These past two decades we have gotten a little to used to the polished tropes of epic sci-fi, District 9 reminds us that there is another way, that filmmakers are free to draw on all the facets of our media age and make their films the way that best fits their story rather than our expectations.

Changing the Blog Roll

It was about two and half years ago that I belatedly jumped on the blog bandwagon. I had resisted for a few years because I already had a perfectly serviceable website, but by the beginning of 2007 it was increasing apparent that if I wanted to continue to teach and research people's relationship with digital media and online content then I really should be one of the guinea pigs.

I've got a surprising amount out of it, from simply sharing fun stuff I've discovered online, or getting things off my chest, to developing ideas that are a bit to speculative for academic publication. I've discovered that for a professional academic a blog can fill the scholarly hole left by journal letters and other informal correspondence, it's a good lightweight way to get ideas out there and participate in community discussion that may or may not lead to a more formal publications.

It also turns out that it's a perfectly good way to put other types of occasional content onto the web without having to mess up a perfectly good site-map, although its a bit of a reality check that my Ticket to Ride map gets more monthly hits than my academic-style articles - even if you add them all together :-/

Old site design: Blogger

I chose Blogger out of laziness, and went with one of their standard templates, but it's been looking more and more tired, so this week I started having a play with the templates, and have redesigned the site using the SoulVision open source template and an icon set from WebTreats.

New site design: SoulVision

Twitter may have taken the place of short and pithy posts, but all things considered I've enjoyed being a blogging guinea pig, and I've had a lot of fun writing in a less formal style. Academic workshops, conferences and especially journals will continue to be the gold standard for new science and research, but there's a soft spot in my heart for the humble blog and the new voice that it can give to all of us.

Adolescent 30's: Grand Theft Morality

Two years ago I wrote how the arrival of a bouncy baby Wii for my birthday had caused me to revert to childhood, well my birthday has rolled around again and this year I received a much more mature and responsible present: an XBox 360.

I know, I know (holds head in hands), I'm just so late to the party. However, there comes a time when a man must put away childish things, set aside his Wii-motes, and tackle a series of 18 certificate gaming titles.
Before you do that you need to set the XBox up - and it turns out to be a large, heavy, noisy, warm and rather clumsy beast. Having spent nearly 18 months in Apple Nirvana, it was an odd bump to return to Microsoft land. Setting aside the ludicrously tiny 256MB memory, probably the nastiest surprise was being fleeced for the leads. For some reason the HDMI cable didnt seem to transmit audio (could be my TV for all I know) so I need to connect an audio component cable the AV slot as well as use the HDMI connection. However, the component lead supplied with the XBox covers the HDMI port when plugged in, meaning that you cant plug both in at once, and instead are forced to buy a special Microsoft lead (for 30 ukp) to do the job for you.

Awkward, and perhaps just one-of-those-things? No, I'm afraid not. The component lead is intentionally too big, designed to make you shell out more cash, but in fact you can do something about it. Following this advice I broke the cover, removed the fat piece of useless plastic blogging the HDMI port, and managed to get the original lead working alongside the HDMI connection just fine.

Microsoft, you are truly evil.

Since getting the XBloat 360 up and running I've been venting my frustration on Gears of War 2 and Grand Theft Auto 4 (which makes me feel really old because the last GTA game I played had a top down view :-(



Both are a lot of fun, but I have a tremendous amount of respect for GTA4 in particular. What is so cunning is the way in which it gently coerces you into a life of crime. Starting as a legitimate taxi you pootle around the town being careful to avoid other cars and pedestrians and doffing your hat to the occasional police car, but then a few missions cause you to get a bit reckless, drive dangerously, get into a fight or two, and you realise that there are no consequences to your actions. The character you play, Niko, deals with the gathering mayhem in such a matter of fact way that its all nicely normalised, and before long you're tearing along pavements, pedestrians bouncing off your bonnet, while strafing police cars with machine gun fire.

This is no smiley Wii-faced party-game, this is a full on case study of social disorder, nihilism and psychopathy. I think I'm going to enjoy it :-)

Thank you for the music

For over two years now we have been able to download music online - and by music I of course mean music that you have rights to, music that you own, music with no Digital Rights Management (DRM). In fact the trickle of real music download sites became a flood when Amazon stepped in, and this year even iTunes decided to let you buy music online.

This is great news. DRM technology was the result of small-minded pernicious thinking, and I am glad to see the back of it.

I'm not sure where we got the view that technology should replace social responsibility, we don't seem to be keen to do this elsewhere in our lives (if we did our cars would all have speed limiters and we'd all be wearing electronic tags), but hopefully now that the media companies have grown out of this view we can start to have a sensible conversation about piracy, funding models and the criminality of file-sharing.

(don't worry, it didn't and it isn't)

Perhaps the first step is to move the conversation about piracy into reality. The image above is from the 1984 campaign to save the music industry from home taping. Twenty-five years later the music industry seems in rude health, and you might think they would be sheepish about their tendency for exaggeration. Sadly, while the technology has changed, the overstatement lives on.

Hats of to the Guardian newspaper for challenging the figures and for looking at the real evidence about how we spend our disposable cash. To summarise: if you unpick the industry figures they assume that every download is a lost sale, and that each lost sale is worth £25 (if you follow these figures through that would mean that each UK citizen would spend a third of their salaries on music and movies were it not for piracy - this is clearly a fallacy). In fact the Guardian points out that the amount of money spent on media items over the last ten years has actually risen (its almost doubled to £8bn!) but that music as a proportion has fallen (the increase is in DVDs and Games).

So if piracy isnt the problem that the industry makes out then what are we to make of file-sharing and of file sharers? In his latest podcast Steven Fry made an impassioned call at the iTunes festival for a change in the way that file-sharing is viewed, and called on the industry (he is the first to point out that it is his industry) to stop prosecuting and criminalising ordinary people.

He makes a number of interesting points, top of which is that piracy is not the same as theft (they are demonstrably different processes, whatever the ad-men say), and that casual file-sharing should not be criminalised as piracy, but as a natural part of human behaviour that self-regulates across different social and financial circumstances, ultimately harming no-one. Although it's far from proven, the sales figures we have already mentioned seem to support this hypothesis - that in general people buy what they can afford and act within a sensible moral framework.

This does not mean that the industry should not be looking at alternative funding models. Spotify is probably ahead of its time (let's see how their mobile apps pan out), but advertising and subscription is certainly one approach. There is also money to be made from live performance, and the sale of rights to other media that has a more secure funding basis (such as pre-pay TV or movie ticket sales).

The music industry is not a sacred cow, it has no right to make money hand over fist, and while I respect the rights of musicians, singers, producers and writers to make a living and have their work protected from abuse, this does not mean that things should not change. Simple economics dictate that if music/media is more available then it will also be perceived as less valuable.

As long as it's still viable, I'm not sure why the rest of us should care.

Torchwood Ex Machina

The BBC have just screened the final episode of the five night Torchwood season three, Children of Earth, and already the fan sites are exploding with debate about characters lost, plot holes, and open endings.

I don't normally watch Torchwood, but I was pleasantly surprised by the mini-series. It was well-made, intelligent sci-fi.



There were flaws, mainly in the actions of the government, which was realistically evil but uncharacteristically feeble (when will people learn that our government is dangerous precisely because it is capable!), but I have tremendous respect for the way that the series challenged our conventions of heroic sacrifice - through the tragic homosexual romance of its leading men, and the cold-hard rationalism behind not only the government's actions, but also those of Captain Jack in the final concluding moments.

Perhaps most impressive part of all was the final conclusion. This is so difficult to do in a grand story, because Act II is so necessarily dark and full of despair, that when the light finally shines it can seem trite and forced. But Torchwood paid for its particular Deux Ex Machina moment - and the cost fitted the theme so perfectly that it concluded the story neatly, without leaving the viewer feeling cheated.

Having praised modern American drama, I was very happy to see similar quality on the BBC. Torchwood aired on BBC 1 and apparently attracted nearly 6 million viewers. It was brave of the BBC to pitch this over five consecutive nights, and very brave to put this subject matter on at prime time, but I think its worked. Torchwood is not genius - check out Psychoville for that - but this was solid mainstream sci-fi drama, and a real return to form.

Ticket to Ride - New UK Map

A few years ago I created a UK board for Ticket To Ride, the excellent board game from Days of Wonder. Since then the board has been downloaded thousands of times, and I've received loads of kind comments from players around the world who have tried it out.

Earlier this year I was contacted by Ken Meyers, an American who fancied having a go at updating the board. I'm pleased to say that Ken has just finished his update, and the new version is now available from Ken's website.

I think Ken has done a fantastic job, some of the key improvements include:

• A new map graphic that better replicates the canvas look of the real boards
• A 100 space points counter (my version used the original 80)
• An improved spread of colours around the board
• An improved track layout (sticking more to the grid layout principle)
• More destination tickets (a la the 1910 version of the game)

I love the fact that someone has taken the time and trouble to improve the board in this way, and I'm genuinely impressed by the effort that Ken has made. If you're into Ticket to Ride its definitely worth taking a look at his version, and remember to send Ken a note via email or BoardGameGeek to say thanks.

Prepare for Disruption

Back in November I wrote a blog article on the momentum that was building behind Open Educational Resources (OER) and I have just published a similar essay in the Language and Linguistics Area Studies (LLAS) Liaison magazine.

When I was writing the article I was hoping to address many of the concerns that teachers and lecturers raise over OER, such as worries over copyright and competitive advantage, but I increasingly found myself seeing OER as part of the Education Sector's response to a significant challenge - the Web as a disruptive technology:

"It seems that the Web is changing the balance of power; in the future Universities will no longer be seen as the primary custodians of public wisdom, there is a need for us to reinvent ourselves as voices of authority in a more open information world.

The growing movement for Open Education Resources (OER) is one attempt to rise to this challenge. OERs are teaching materials that have been released into the public domain, normally through one of the Creative Commons licenses that makes it free for public or educational use as long as the original author is acknowledged.

The argument is simple, by developing OERs Higher Education Institutions are able to contribute to the public information space, share new ideas, raise the profile of teaching, and give individual academics a more public voice."

Having also written recently about the demise of the TV industry I think that its likely that any industry that is based on information will need to change its business model or practices. Higher Education may be dealing in knowledge and learning, rather than just disseminating information, but it will still be effected by this change in values.

Increasingly what I like about OER is that it's pro-active action to reorientate ourselves to a world where information itself is of low value. The core business model of Univeristies, providing an education for a fee, may be reletively stable, but the way in which we deliver that educational experience, and how we participate with broader society is likely to change dramatically. If we accept OER it should mean that we are better prepared for that disruption.

Web Literacy Revisited

How do modern students study, and how good are they at it? That's the question posed by the emerging topic of digital literacy. Last week I attended the Shock of the Old event in Oxford that addressed this question.

The topic of digital literacy is particular interesting to me because for the past year or two I've been trying to make sense of the new attitude that learners seem to have towards technology, and back in November 2007 I coined the phrase Web Literacy to describe that attitude. For me Web Literacy is not about a person's age or background, and it doesn't refer to their ability to use technology, instead it is more about their "... desire to create an on-line identity, a willingness to forgo some aspects of privacy, and to embrace online relationships as the equal of real ones".

Literacy vs. Literacy

At Shock Tabetha Newman presented a Becta review she is completing on digital literacy, in which she concludes that there are three ways to think about student capability:

1. Their knowledge of, and skill with, digital tools and applications
2. Their ability to think critically, and evaluate and analyze information sources
3. Their social awareness and ability to represent themselves digitally

The first of these is what I would call good old fashioned Computer Literacy, the second is Information Literacy, and the third seems closely linked to Web Literacy. In fact I think Tabetha means it more broadly - so its our social skills and abilities in all learning contexts - but I think its still a pretty good match.

We had a number of discussions about how these things do or don't map onto Generation Y or Digital Natives. Those two terms have fallen out of favor in the last year (partly through overuse, partly because of their shaky scientific origins) but its still useful language with which to discuss the current and impending mismatch of skills and expectations between teachers and students.

My view is that both students and staff actually have a similar level of Computer Literacy, and that recent evidence (and our own experience working with students from nursing and social work) indicates that this is more varied than you might expect for both groups. The real mismatch comes in the other two areas.

Students tend to have poor Information Literacy, but good Web Literacy; this means that they do not have the search and research skills HE courses typically need, they find it difficult to assess information sources, and don't appreciate plagiarism or respect attribution in the ways we might want. However, the same attitudes enable them to interact much more freely online, and they are able to merge their online and digital experiences much more effectively.

Staff on the other hand tend to have good Information Literacy, but poor Web Literacy; this means that they are very good at finding and assessing information online, but are reluctant to participate in online interactions and view the virtual world as a separate (perhaps unimportant) space.

It is interesting to see how there might be a tension between these two skillsets - as higher Information Literacy is likely to reduce the trust and openness necessary to build a high Web Literacy.

The PLE as a Way Forward?

One of the problems that institutions face with Web Literacy is that it means that students are increasingly escaping from institutional IT systems, and learning in-the-wild. For some Universities this is a problem in itself - how do we monitor them! - for others the problem is put in more progressive terms - how do we support them?

At Shock there was a good presentation by Palitha Edirisingha and Ricardo Torres Konpen (from the University of Leicester) about an experiment they have running to help students build their own PLEs from third party tools. For example, how to use the Google Suite of tools, or how to incorporate a number of applications into Facebook to help manage learning. Students reported that the experience had changed their approach to learning, and had strengthened the social relationships between both students and staff, although they had required guidance to deal with the complexity of managing their own learning toolset.

Miles Metcalfe, from Ravensbourne College, gave a spirited presentation on their approach to supporting personal learning by directly supporting personal technology. Rather than help students build an explicit environment, they support them by helping students purchase personal technology and by making sure that their IT systems are open and cope with heterogeneity. This results in funding moving from traditional IT (such as workstations and networks) to personal IT (such as laptops and wireless).

I really liked both of these approaches, they are technically lightweight, but emphasize a need for a supportive atmosphere and an open attitude to student's tool choices.

The VLE and Digital Literacy

Shock was also my first experience of the Twitter soundbite. In reply to someone's comment I noted that the VLE is the last refuge of the digitally illiterate - and then watched as my tweet was retweeted around the world.

It's a pithy note, but I meant it sincerely. If digital literacy is really an amalgam of three skillsets including Social or Web Literacy then how can the VLE, a place where teachers can hide from the greater internet community, possibly promote it.

The VLE is a safety net that supports people who are not fully literate, this could be a good thing but not if by supporting them it also prevents them from developing those skills.

The Last Golden Age of Television

When I was a student one of my neighbors in my University halls of residence popped in with a 3.5inch floppy disk, and told me that on it was a file in a new format called MP3. At the time audio compression was pretty abysmal, and a 3 min song made around a 30MB file. Given that my hard disk at the time was 200MB this didn't make for very feasible digital music. As I listened to that 1.3MB MP3 file for the first time I realised that the world had changed.

One of the reasons that the moment sticks in my mind is that I was continually amazed that this epiphany seemed to be restricted to my Computer Science friends. As the 1990's lengthened I kept coming back to that striking moment, and we wondered when the general public would realise the possibilities, and more interestingly, when the music industry would wake up. The game had changed, had changed radically, existing business models were going to fail, and the companies seemed to be sleeping.

Luckily Apple wasn't, and in 2001 they launched iTunes and saved the music industry.

So who is sleeping in 2009, which businesses are facing a tsunami of change and seem ill-prepared? Well, has anyone watched television recently?

TV viewing figures are dropping. In 2006 Ofcom in the UK released a report showing that fewer young people were watching television, and in 2007 an IBM report showed that in terms of time spent, the Internet now rivaled TV. For a child of the 80's its a weird notion, but when you think about it, is TV dying?

The irony of the question is that we are arguably living in a golden age of programming, much of it coming from the US. Consider shows like Lost, the Sopranos, 24, or the West Wing. But this quality has emerged from a system that is on the brink of failing. For example, in the UK ITV has recently announced serious cuts as its advertising revenue is shrinking.

A recent article by Paul Graham was recently highlighted on Slashdot, in it Paul describes how computers have fatally wounded TV, and argues that this is down to bandwidth, piracy and social applications that have eaten into leisure time. These are all certainly factors, but I would actually place more emphasis on the first two than the last. It is TV-on-demand that has done the damage, and much of it is unofficial or illegal, because the TV companies have not yet got their act together.

For example, I recently I decided to catch up on Lost - I stopped watching at the end of series 3 a few years back, and so I needed to get hold of a copy of series 4, which had 14 episodes, to bring me up to date.

On Amazon the dvd boxed set for season 4 is 34.98 (with blu-ray a ridiculous 44.98). I also watched several disc sets on ebay, and the average price was £26.40, which compares favorably with the price on iTunes of £25.99. However I also checked on the BitTorrent network, and sure enough the series is illegally available as a free 5GB download.

Perhaps the problem here is in a mismatch in the expectations of the buyers and sellers. Media has become temporary. Teenagers delete music after having it on their devices for a few months, something that seems quite weird to me, but then I would do the same with a TV show. Buy it. Watch it. Delete it. Two or three pounds an episode seems rather expensive when you look at it like that.

There are alternative funding models that can work in this temporary digital age, but alarmingly for fans of broadcast television they are not being recognized as important. Product placement was recently ruled out by the UK government as a potential income stream, and there is confusion and disagreement about how the BBC license fee should develop in the future.

There needs to be a much more serious and urgent debate about the future of television. In the UK we need to protect the license fee as its one of the better viable funding models, but it needs to be reformed (perhaps absorbed into general taxation) so that it more accurately reflects the radio and online activities that will form an increasingly large part of BBC effort. Product placement seems initially to be quite obnoxious, but along with show sponsorship it is viable in the digital age and resistant to piracy.

This debate is not about how we allow television companies to increase revenue, its about how we save broadcast television. We also have to face facts that in the future there will simply not be as much money in the industry - change is coming, enjoy it while you can, because this is the last golden age of television.

Must Invaders Die?

The Prodigy make angry music for calm minds. I've been a fan since a friend lent me Music for the Jilted Generation some time around '95, and since then the Prodigy's music has got angrier and louder, and thumped and twisted its way to the edges of genius.

Fat of the Land was a heavier album, and deliciously furious. Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned lacked much of the vocal talent, but was funkier, and somehow kept its aggressive edge.

So what to make of their latest album, Invaders Must Die?



Well, it's not a disappointment. Whatever witchcraft the Prodigy use to make their seminal sounds is back doing its unusual evils, and the full ensemble is in attendance. The album is less nuanced that Never Outgunned, almost a throwback to the endless layers and visceral sounds of the Jilted Generation. The Prodigy have returned to their roots and constructed another great opera of noise.

The vocals are very English, and I wonder if there isn't something of our frustrated little island in the frenetic beats; as if punk got lost on acid. There's also a speaking part for 8-bit classics in tracks like Colours and Piranha which made me get all nostalgic about early gaming (and also took me back to Fire starter races in Wipeout).

So Must Invaders Die? Armed with this album I suspect that the Invaders are in deep trouble. The music is merciless and the Prodigy aren't taking any prisoners. Turn up the bass, turn up the treble, then give up and buy a better stereo.

This kind of thunder breaks walls and window panes :-)

Stephen Fry: Computer Science Linguistics 101

Stephen Fry continues on his merry rise to sainthood with his latest podcast about Language and Linguistics. In fact it's more of a love poem to words, but it's so sprinkled with wry commentary on structuralism, etymology and modern day pedantry that you could use it directly as a student primer on all three.
My early research work was on hypertext systems (I did my PhD around the time the Web came to be) and that led me to look at narrative systems and onto narratology, structuralism and linguistics in the large.

Linguistics is a fascinating subject, with real relevance for computer scientists as it's all about how intelligent systems (us) express ourselves. It's thus well placed to help explain how machines (them :-) might do the same.

It impacts on aspects of agent technologies (speech acts and conversational frameworks), knowledge technologies (contextual grammars and knowledge frames) and HCI (such as *my folksonomic properties like synonymy, hyponymy, holonymy, meronymy and metonymy).

Computer Science students interested in building information and semantic systems could do a lot worse than familiarising themselves with Linguistics - and what better way to start than this informal lesson from a Grand English Gentlemen :-)

The Dangerous Future of Hard Semantics

Today I've been at a workshop organised by the JISC SemTech project (which I am a part of, but which is being led by my colleague Thanassis Tiropanis). The aim of the workshop was to discuss the possible role of semantic technologies in HE and FE, reflect on which semantic technologies are being used already, and to identify future use cases and challenges that might be targeted by JISC.

There was some good discussion, but for me, the most helpful thing was the distinction between Hard and Softy Semantics, and the most interesting was a discussion on the long term impact of Semantic Technology on Teaching and Learning in the Large.

Hard and Soft Semantics

A bugbear of mine for a while now has been the confusion that exists in the e-learning community about whether semantics is about knowledge structures for people (like concept maps) or knowledge structures for machines (like RDF/OWL documents). In the workshop it was clear that people thought about it in both ways, and it was useful to be clear about each.

Soft Semantic Technologies help people conceptualise their knowledge - for example, by using mind maps, or by tagging items in a controlled vocabulary (community tag clouds). These kind of technologies require the learner to be aware of the knowledge construction process, and to use it as a learning activity.

Hard Semantic Technologies help machines communicate - for example, by swapping RDF controlled by an agreed ontology defined in OWL. These kind of technologies might not even be visible to end users, but instead make it easier to integrate systems and develop mash-up style applications.

A standard like SKOS is interesting because it is a hard semantic description of a soft semantic activity.

Thinking of Semantic Technologies in this way makes it easier to consider the advantages and challenges for each, as hard semantics are several steps away from everyday users, while soft semantics might be included in their work or learning activities.

The Impact of Semantics on Learning in the Large

A lot of the discussion at the workshop was based around fairly short term benefits - this was deliberate, as the focus was on how to move the e-learning community forward, not speculate on the future. However, one thread did emerge that might have major consequences for education in the longer term.

Les Carr talks about the Google Test, a version of the Turing test where the question is not 'are you talking to a human or computer' but 'are you talking to an expert, or a good Googler?' The point Les is making is about the value of information in a society where information is plentiful, and therefore the worth of learning that information in the first place.

We've already seen the impact of this in education - where the web (and in particular sites like Wikipedia) have devalued the ability to memorise and recall information. It is now trivial to find information on subjects that only ten years ago would have required days in a library to unearth. This has changed the way that we assess students, and challenges the first level of Bloom's taxonomy, which is all about memorising and repeating facts.

The interesting question raised at the workshop was that if Semantic Technologies are successful, and reasoning and expert systems follow, will technology also challenge the higher levels of Blooms - such as analysis and synthesis?

At present you could ask a student to write an essay on the influence of the Royal Society and expect them to begin by finding out what the Royal Society was, when it existed and so forth - this aspect is already easy. But imagine a world in which they could gather not just facts, but an entire essay, because the system understood not just the data, but how the data was related, and not just answers, but how to structure those answers into an evidenced argument.

Such a world raises questions that go to the heart of what it is to learn, and questions the objectives and values of modern education.

I certainly don't think that outsourcing our thinking to machines is a good way to go (especially if those machines are really just glorified Prolog engines), but if there is an easy path then some students will be tempted to take it, and that is a genuine challenge for the future.

Cynical Ticket to Ride UK Variant

We all know that it was the railroads that built America, which might explain the happy and nostalgic feel for them in Ticket To Ride. However in the UK it was the Romans that built everything and frankly the railroads just cut dirty great lines across all their great stuff.

In 2007 I received an unofficial expansion to my unofficial UK Ticket To Ride board that celebrated the slightly more cynical British view with added government legislation and duff contractors. Thanks to Jay, Alex and Ubbie for sending it to me.

Happy British train traveling!

Ticket To Ride: UK Cynical Edition

This expansion was created by a small group of game playing friends namely Jay, Alex & Ubbie. It is meant as a bit of fun and is in no way endorsed by Days Of Wonder, any Railway Company or the UK Government.

After playing Dave Millard's great UK expansion we collectively decided that it played very well but lacked a certain modern Britishness. The Ticket To Ride games exemplify an idealised 19th century railway system, not the crud we have today. In the UK news a week can barely pass without some train problem or transport minister making an arse of himself. So we decided to put our not so serious heads on and invent an expansion to Dave's unofficial map to bring back those elements we miss from our modern railway system.

Warning, if you have no sense of humour and have no idea of the calamities we have on our railway network you may just not get it!

What You Need

• A Copy of Ticket To Ride, preferably Ticket To Ride: Europe, available from all fine game retailers. We all got ours from Plan 9 in Aberdeen who do mail order
• A copy of Dave Millard's UK Map
• These rather simple rules
• A print out of the event cards shown below (each file is around 1MB in size). Do the Blue Peter thing and get busy with the paper & scissors (remember to ask a parent to help you)

Updating the Map

This needs a little modification. Don't worry, you can still use the map for the normal game afterwards so no real damage done.

We have 3 new symbols that are placed on the map. 2 of these are straight out of Ticket to Ride: Europe but Bridges are all our idea. So familiarity with Ticket to Ride: Europe is useful.

Where these symbols are placed and their meanings are described below.

Ferries

As per Europe version these have a number of locomotive symbols on the route. A locomotive must be played instead of the normal coloured card for each locomotive symbol

1 locomotive ferry routes:

• Stornoway to Wick
• Londonderry to Glasgow
• Belfast to Stranraer
• Stranraer to Douglas
• Douglas to Liverpool
• Dublin to Holyhead
• Dublin to Douglas

2 locomotives ferry routes:

• Fort William to Stornoway
• Dublin to Liverpool

Tunnels

As per Europe rules. After completing these routes turn over three cards. Each of these cards that have the same colour as the completed route (locomotive cards will automatically be the same colour as the route) require the player to play an additional card of the same colour (locomotives can be used). E.g. complete red route. Turn over three cards one of which is red and one is a locomotive, player must play two further red/locomotive cards to complete. If player can't do this he takes all his cards back into his hand and his turn end.

Tunnel Routes:

• Cardiff to Aberystwyth
• Aberystwyth to Birmingham
• Aberystwyth to Liverpool

The London Underground:

The inner four spaces of the four London station double routes are also tunnels. Leave the outer routes as they are - they represent the over-ground network

Bridges

These routes require an additional card of the same colour (locomotives can be used) only score as the route length however not the number of cards expended.

We marked these by placing a \____/ symbol either side of the bridge sections (i.e. over the water bits)

Routes with a Bridge:

• Newcastle upon Tyne to Aberdeen
• Holyhead to Liverpool
• Newquay to Swansea

Playing the Game

This is the easy bit, honest.

At the beginning of the game deal out 3 of the event cards to each player where they are kept in hand. Less cards at the beginning of the game may be preferable.

Cards can only be played when stated on the card:

• Play In Turn: These cards must ONLY be played when it is your turn. They can be played IN ADDITION to anything else you do in your turn.
• Play Out Of Turn: These cards can ONLY be played during someone else's and cannot be played in your own.
• Play Any Time: These cards can be played at any time cards that are being played on other players must be played during their turn as they are carrying out the action that the card influences. You may play them on yourself or as a counter to another player playing a card on you.
• Play As Turn: These cards are played instead of you having a turn. i.e. To play one of these cards you must play it in your turn as your ONLY action effectively skipping a turn.
• Play End Game: These cards are kept in hand until the end of the game and final scoring commences. A player must show the card to finalise their score.

Cards that affect the actions of another player must be played during their turn as they are carrying out the action that the card influences.

Some cards may need to be laid out in front of the player to take effect - this is indicated clearly in the card text.

Players may draw one additional card as their turn. Allowing players to draw 2 cards and discarding one, or keeping both are options to use if you wish to encourage more card use.

General Card Usage Notes

• Cards can be discarded freely
• There is no hand limit
• Imposing a hand limit of 3 or 5 cards may be worthwhile if you find people are hoarding to the end of the game - this limit may or may not include cards laid out in front of the player.

To discourage similar gamesmanship you may want to ban card use after one player only has 10 train pieces left except for Play End Game cards which can still be played.

Countering Cards

Cards that cancel other players cards must be played immediately. Any player can cancel a card being played if they have the appropriate counter card - not just the target of the card.

Ministerial or Government cards are indicated by the words Minister, Gov., Government or Ministerial in the TITLE BAR. For Example:

• The New Transport Minister counter card can itself be cancelled by a card that affects Ministerial or Government cards thereby allowing the original card to remain in play.
• The Pending General Election card cannot be countered using a Ministerial or Government card as it does not contain the necessary wording in the title

Extensions

A few people have suggested new cards to me. You may like to add these to your pack:

• Influence with Civil Servants: When you play this card you can steal another randomly from another player. Play in turn.
• Vandalism is Rife: Lose one train car from your unused stock. Play in turn.
• Grant from EU: Add one extra train car to your stock. Play in turn. Compulsory Purchase: An extra grey route can be built parallel to any fully occupied route. Play in turn.
• Stock Market Crash: The second line of all grey double routes is closed if unoccupied. Play in turn provided there is a ring of occupied routes around London.
• New Rail Company: An unbuilt route is changed to whatever colour you like. Play in turn when you build the route.
• Sleaze: Honours For Cash: 4 identical train cards can be traded for 4 victory points. Play as turn.
• Cabinet Reshuffle: Any number of train cards can be exchanged for the same number of cards from the stack. Play as turn.

Credits

Put together by Jay, Alex & Ubbie.
Thanks to Dave Millard for his great UK map and for hosting this.
Thanks for Alan R Moon and Days Of Wonder for a great game.
Thanks to Ron for his suggestions for new cards.
Thanks to www.BoardGameGeek.com for just being a great web site.
Thanks to the UK Government and all the train companies folks for providing such hilarity and rich inspiration.

Ticket to Ride UK Ferries and Tunnels

One of the first updates for my Ticket to Ride UK Board was this Tunnels and Ferries version (based on the Europe edition of the game) sent to me by Rob in May 2007.

Or you can download the map as eight separate A4 (or US Letter) sheets:

• R1C1 - R1C2
• R2C1 - R2C2
• R3C1 - R3C2
• R4C1 - R4C2
  

Rob also made a few other amendments to balance the colours more evenly. He also recommends reducing the number of trains to 37 as there are fewer tracks on the UK map than the US one (definitely a good idea for games with 4 or 5 players).

His last change is to replace the longest track card with the Brunel Trophy as its more appropriate for the UK (details on the board itself).

Thanks Rob - great job :-)

Ticket to Ride UK Map

Back in 2006 I created a UK board for the Ticket to Ride game published by Days of Wonder. I posted the map on the BoardGameGeek website and to date the page has been viewed over twenty thousand times. In the Summer when I redesigned my website the Ticket to Ride page was orphaned, but in an effort to reconnect it I've decided to add the board (and the related extensions) to this blog.

You can find all the related posts by clicking the Ticket to Ride UK tag. Including an improved version of the board created by Ken Meyers.

The UK Board

I know - I should get out more - but Ticket to Ride is such a great game that I couldn't help but have a go at creating a board myself. A map of the United Kingdom is an obvious choice for a British guy, even if Britain is a bit thin and spindly. You will therefore have to excuse the creative license with the train tracks, particularly the ones which in reality would require special trains with portholes and a lot of silicon sealant.

Here is the main board, you can click here for the full size file (approx 2MB):

It may be easier for you to download the map in A4 (Letter) sized sections (each is around 250 Kb).

• Left 1 - Right 1
  
• Left 2 - Right 2
  
• Left 3 - Right 3
  
• Left 4 - Right 4

The map has it's quirks but then there's no point in replicating the feel of the original US map. If you're looking for a further alternative then you might want to take a look at the Les de Jeux de NIM, Belgium version as well (I used their stuff as a guide - so thanks guys!).

Bare in mind that in order to get a suitable number of tracks in (and make them an appropriate length) I've had to make some difficult decisions about which cities to use and also had to shift the cities around a bit. So apologies if the place where you love to live has moved around a bit while you weren't looking.

The UK Cards

You will also need to download and print out the following ticket card sheets (sheet1, sheet2). The cards follow a similar points distribution to the ones in the USA set.

I've included two blank cards if you want to experiment with your own routes.

Tactics and Notes

• Each of the UK capital cities is a hub, this means that more routes run through Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh than any other city. Dublin has the same number of routes (although of course it is the Irish Capital). London is represented by four of its principle stations, collectively they participate in more routes than any other city on the board.
• One of the UK cards is called the Circle Line, it represents a route between all four of the London stations. You only need three of the four routes to achieve the card (because the fourth can be satisfied by the other three in a chain). You get double points for the Circle Line (six) because it is so easy to block.
• There is a bottleneck in Scotland around the Glasgow-Edinburgh point. If you want to get those high value South to North routes then you need to grab a route through here early.
• There are three lanes between the UK's second city, Birmingham, and Paddington. Only one can be used in a 2-player game, two can be used in a 3-player game and all three can be used in a 4 or 5-player game.

FAQ

Over the years I have received a few email comments from people who have tried out the board - thanks to everyone who has commented, either directly or via the BoardGameGeek website. Apologies if I have paraphrased you!

Q: How does the board play with the Europe rules?

Actually I haven't tried it with the European rules. It seems a fairly obvious candidate since so many of the routes represent ferry routes and could use engine ferries on the spaces where the route crossed water. There are also a few candidates for tunnels, particularly in Wales and Scotland.

However, I have a few reservations about how the stations would effect the game. This is a high scoring board (lots of routes) and blocking people can be a major strategy. Stations can prevent this and would probably make for very high scores. There are also a number of long routes (unlike the Europe version) and snatching those can easily connect two disparate parts of the map. I'd be interested to hear of peoples opinions.

Q: How much play testing did you do - did you make any changes as a result?

Lots of playtesting, very few changes. When I made the board I did an analysis of the US version to see how many routes there were, what their distribution was and how connected everything was, and tried to mimic that in the UK map. Given the statistical similarity its interesting that they are so different to play. On reflection the main thing I would now change is not the board but the cards; I think that there are probably too many north-south routes and not enough east-west ones.

Q: Isn't Britain a little less stubby in real life?

Erm... yes it is a bit. The UK really is rather long and narrow and to make best use of the board space I squashed the map slightly (the country is about 20% shorter than it should be).

Q: Have you though about doing an African or Asian map?

Both Africa and Asia would make splendid boards, and might actually teach me a little non-western geography which must be a good thing, but I think its better left to people who actually know those continents well. Johannesburg to Cairo anyone?

Q: I am looking to ask an online digital photo shop if they can print out the jpeg for me, but was wondering what size I need them to do it?

It is designed to be printed out on 4x2 A4 pages - which is the equivalent to an A1 sheet (A1: 841mm x 594mm, 33.11 inches x 23.39 inches) - Im guessing that a 30x20 inch print should be okay.

Q: I am thinking about doing my own map - how did you create yours, and can I have a copy of the files?

I used a copy of Adobe Photoshop to create the main file, with many, many, many layers. The background is a faded out physical map of the UK which has been edge highlighted to define the coastline, this is surrounded by a scanned track which I took from the Belgium extension. The cities and (horror) tracks are placed by hand by defining and rotating buttons to make each track piece. The cards are scanned from the boxed game and then altered with a much smaller version of the map, which has been washed with grey and then speckled to get a suitably grainy effect. Im afraid that the original files are locked away on an old PC at the moment, but I'll try and make some of the different layers available as a resource to other people as soon as I can.

Q: Any ideas about how this might be used with the Marklin edition?

I've never played the Marklin edition so I haven't really got any firm ideas. If anyone has any thoughts then I'd be happy to add them here.

Smallprint

This is an unofficial extension - you need the full version of Ticket To Ride to play this, and it's well worth the cash! This material is my own and is no way associated with Days of Wonder (although their Art Director dropped me a message at one point to say that he liked it - so I think they are pretty supportive of community extensions! :-)