billso.com

I’m doing a guest lecture on action research in Larry Rowland’s IS 6000 course in a few minutes. The PPT file is here.

The New York Times ran an interesting critique of the mobile Web yesterday. Michael Fitzgerald identifies some of the major obstacles to mass-market adoption of mobile websites, including the following items.

1. Inconsistent user interfaces on mobile devices – new users have difficulty finding the address bar and bookmark features. Fitzgerald fails to mention that, on some mobile devices, the font sizes are too small for most older users to read. Managers, who make media placement and Web development decisions, tend to fit an older demographic than their customers.
2. Poor formatting on small screens – RIM, Google, Bloglines and other service providers include reformatting and filtering technology in their mobile portals, but many web sites do not resolve well on a small screen.
3. Lack of support for Flash – as more Web sites adopt Adobe’s Flash technology for animation and other features, Web developers often fail to provide a low bandwidth or text only version that will work well or at all on a mobile device.
4. Slavish duplication of the desktop web model – this can also be seen in Microsoft Windows Mobile, which includes a Start button as a key part of the user interface.

For the most part, I agree with him – but I still use the mobile Web every day to check Gmail and read other web sites. The mobile Web isn’t a smooth experience yet, but it’s better than toting around a full computer, as my previous post about the US Census suggests.

Engadget reports on a new Windows Mobile PDA that census takers might use for data collection. bandwidth is provided by Sprint. The batteries last 10 hours – an amazing result on a PDA that is deisgned for heavy data entry and network usage in the field.

The US Constitution requires a national census every 10 years. One early use of Hollerith cards was in the 1890 US Census. The previous census in 1880 used manual methods and took 9 years to complete. With Hollerith’s cards and tabulation equipment, the Census Bureau finished the 1890 count within 7 years at twice the cost of the 1880 census. The reports and data were far more complex and complete than any previous census, however.

I keep a stack of vintage Hollerith cards in my office, so I can remember the good old days.

One of my favorite blogs, Passive Aggressive Notes, provides two examples of neighborly wireless network management. Many students, roommates and neighbors think nothing of borrowing or piggybacking someone else’s wireless Internet connections, with or without consent.

Changing the SSID on your wireless router is one way of marking out some wireless territory. I have a better idea: turn on encryption and use a strong password. I’m always amazed at how many people run their wireless access points wide-open, without any security measures at all. In many cases, they’re using the default SSID and password that was set at the factory. About.com has a good list of tips and links here.

This is not a new issue

Here’s a good October 2006 interview with Corey O’Donnell. He discusses various issues with WiFi security. CNet ran this discussion in 2005 – I’ve often used a phrase from this article to describe how an unsecured WiFi network is like an unlocked front door. Mark Rasch discussed it in 2004, for example. InformationWeek had a good article on this topic in 2003, also.

‘Tis the season for final papers and exams. As time grows short in the semester, I’ve seen more of my graduate students cite Wikipedia in their papers.

Some students have noticed that I cite Wikipedia in my blog posts. I include links to Wikipedia so that students can find a quick, reasonable discussion of a specific topic.

But that doesn’t mean that I will let graduate students cite Wikipedia in their assignments. I wouldn’t let undergraduate students cite Wikipedia, but I do hold graduate students to a higher set of standards. Masters students should be able to find, assess and use reliable, authoritative references for their assignments.

Here’s a good response on this issue. Jorge shares my opinion that the reference lists in some Wikipedia articles can be a good source of reading material for students. This practice is similar to using the reference list of a good textbook or an academic article to find additional readings on a topic. I encourage students to do this, as long as students find, read and cite the sources.

Wikipedia is not a textbook, dictionary or paper encylcopedia. Wikipedia is a user-created database of articles on a wide variety of topics. As I’ve mentioned on 7 March, Wikipedia is, at best, a tertiary or third-level reference. Wikipedia articles should not include any original, primary or first-level research.

That means that all Wikipedia articles should be based on secondary research.

TurnItIn.com does check student papers against Wikipedia articles, which helps deter students from using Wikipedia as a reference. Jessica Farris wrote a brief article on QuestionCopyright.org in which she mentioned some of the deterrent qualities of TurnItIn.com. Bill Zeller discussed the legal status of TurnItIn.com’s indexing in this article in one of his course blogs. Zeller also refers to this 13 March 2007 BusinessWeek article about TurnItIn.com.