Blogs

Weblogs, or simply blogs, have become a common form of sharing information on the web. The Pew Internet & American Life Project recently published a report describing the wide spread use of blogs by Internet users. Blogs offer several advantages over other forms of communication on the web:

• Blogs are usually updated frequently.
• A blog generally includes postings in reverse chronological order so others can easily see the most current information first.
• The information on blogs can be written by the owner, provided as links to other sites, or updated by other users.
• Group discussions can be held on blogs as people comment on entries, creating threads.
• Easy to use software allows someone with little or no technical skills to create and update blogs.

Anyone can create a blog, and the entries or topics of the blog will reflect the opinions and interests of the creator or other contributors. A number of different software packages are available for anyone to create a blog and to host it. Some of the most popular include:

• Blogger
• Moveable Type
• Radio Userland
• Greymatter

TIP: There is often no way to confirm if the contributor is an authority on the topic being discussed.

Blogs can serve a number of purposes:

• Personal - people can share their diary or journal for others to read. Many users will allow others to comment, allowing friends and family to communicate through the blog.
  • Example: librarian.net
• Topical or political - users can share information on a particular topic or special interest.
  • Example: Instapundit.com
• Corporate or business - employees of organizations are turning to blogs as a means to communicate about their work.
  • Example: Making Sun Policy

Blogs can be published by anyone, with no peer review or editorial oversight. Using them when doing research requires careful evaluation. Blogs can be good sources of information, but you must apply the usual evaluation criteria before accepting the information presented in a blog For example, can you determine who is the author? If so, does that author have credentials or expertise in the area on which they are writing. Is the blog up to date? Does the author show bias on the topic? Does the author cite other authoritative sources for the information presented?

RSS Feeds

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary. An RSS news feed is a way to get automatically updated information from other websites. When you see a small button that says either RSS or XML that means you can subscribe to a news feed that will show headlines for the newest information on the site. Podcasting is a way of using RSS to distribute sound or video.

There are several ways to access RSS feeds.

• You can install a piece of software called a news aggregator.
• You can sign up for a free web-based aggregator such as Bloglines: http://www.bloglines.com/
• Sometimes you can just add a line of code to an HTML document

Example
The live RSS news feed below comes from the U.S. Dept of State: http://usinfo.state.gov/usinfo/products/washfile/rss_news_feed.html

Wikis

Wiki comes from the Hawaiian term for "quick" or "super-fast." A wiki (pronounced "wicky" or "weekee") is a collaboratively-edited website. The unique feature of wikis is that they allow all users to edit any page, which includes the rights to edit, change and delete the work of previous authors.

The term wiki can also refer to the collaborative software used to create such a site (see Wiki software). Wiki is a piece of server software that allows users to freely create and edit web page content using any Web browser. Allowing all users to create and edit any page in a web site encourages democratic use of the Web and promotes content composition by a wide variety of users.

More information on wikis can be found at:

• Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Webopedia description
• The open source wiki software

Wikis are difficult to evaluate, as there are often multiple authors of any given page. There is no formal peer review. For some wikis there is a more informal system of review built upon a "reputation system" where authors gain respect within the wiki community by proving themselves to be accurate and knowledgeable. In a recent experiment to test the validity of Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia created by hundreds of authors, "Alex Halavais, assistant professor at SUNY Buffalo's School of Informatics, inserted 13 probably incorrect entries into Wikipedia, and within a few hours, they were caught and fixed." (http://ojr.org/ojr/glaser/1094678265.php) Still, always evaluate a wiki site very thoroughly before using it as a resource when researching a topic.