Cole W. Camplese

Press Enterprise and Openness?

I and others have been critical about the lack of open and available news in and around Bloomsburg, PA over the last several weeks. It has been widely documented that the Press Enterprise offered two or three days of free digital distribution following the flood -- primarily because they couldn't deliver the physical paper to residents in flooded areas. After those first three days, the Press went back to posting daily stories behind a paywall.

Since the flood that has so devastated Bloomsburg, PA there have been several Facebook pages started to try and organize help and information for the people in town -- many of whom have lost everything. Demands to the Press Enterprise to open their flood related information has been met with silence from them. Amazingly there have been so many people who have defended the approach by the Press, saying it is a business and we can't expect them to give away the paper. That has been a faulty and mismatched argument from the beginning as I haven't seen anyone demanding that all of the Press be opened, instead the focus has been on flood related images and news.

I haven't been shy about sharing the numbers of views I've received for the 373 photos I posted openly to Flickr in the days following the flood. As a matter of fact, in a presentation I gave at the PA Newspaper Association's Advertising Conference last week I shared that these photos were viewed 153,650 times from 9/11/2011 through 9/28/2011. What that tells me is that there is a market of need that wasn't being filled by traditional channels.

Today, my wife shared with me a new page that appears in google search results for an open archive of 30 pictures from the Press Enterprise. The photos are shared in a gallery outside the paywall and are openly available to view and download. Like we have hoped from the beginning, the photos are excellent in that they are taken in the moment by newspaper professionals. Is the Press Enterprise listening to the pleas and (in my opinion) appropriately toned criticism? Perhaps, but either way we now have access to at least 30 images linked from the official newspaper site of the greater Bloomsburg area. I call that progress by any measure.

Bloomsburg Flood Destroys More than 1,000 Homes

I am still waiting to see this news somewhere other than Facebook or behind the paywall at the Press Enterprise. Since I haven't, I think it is important to help get some of the facts being reported to the open web. The American Red Cross is now reporting that the flood destroyed more than 1,000 homes and did damage to another 2,300 in Columbia County alone. According to Peter Kendron, Press Enterprise writer, in an article published on September 16, 2001, "If those numbers hold up, it means more than 10 percent of the county's 29,500 households saw some sort of flooding last week."

What is crazy to me is that if this happened in a larger area and 10 percent of the homes were flooded, in say Philadelphia, don't you think it would be making news? Remember, percentages are percentages. In my mind part of the reason for this lack of broad awareness lies on what D'Arcy Norman called a "cone of silence" in a post he made this week. My friend and colleague, Ellysa Cahoy, built on that concept when she wrote an excellent post yesterday bringing to light the complexities associated with access to local newspapers. The cone of silence doesn't seem real to people at the local level because they are both living in the midst of the disaster and there is near pervasive access to the local paper via the little blue boxes selling the physical paper on every corner.

This poses two immediate problems. The first is that news doesn't move across the open web in a way that stories can be picked up and shared in ways that builds awareness to the intensity of the damage -- remember that 10 percent of the homes were flooded. When local news doesn't get picked up and shared it doesn't provide strong returns via google and other search engines so non-local news agencies can't report on the tragedy as widely as they should. When that happens everyone loses -- relief organizations are slower to respond, national media is under represented, and philanthropic organizations never get involved. The other issue is one that Ellysa identifies in her post -- access to long-term historical information is lost. That means the history of our town is limited to first hand reports and memories by citizens. The problem dramatically impacts historians, scholars, and future generations … according to Ellysa who is a Library Research faculty member at The Pennsylvania State Unviersity,

What this tells me is that a researcher studying the recent Bloomsburg flood (and wanting access to local news coverage) would have to travel to Bloomsburg to access the articles. It's a similar story for any other news events occurring in Bloomsburg, including the 1972 flood. We can't depend on local news institutions to look any farther than their print subscription proceeds … They've already proven that they are myopic and doomed to eventual obsolescence. It's just a matter of time for that.

Let me remind everyone that we aren't talking about free access to today's news. Reporting news costs money and if local papers want to sell that news on a daily basis, they should. We are talking about searchable, open, linkable archives of yesterday and back that are openly accessible online. For the sake of broad awareness and access to historical archives this should be happening. I pulled some more facts from the Press Enterprise article that I'd like to share from the Red Cross reporting. I certainly hope the Press allows me to share this more broadly:

• 976 single-family homes destroyed, along with 190 apartments
• 801 homes, including 676 single-family homes, 10 mobile homes and 115 apartments had major damage, which means they will not be habitable until they are repaired
• About 301 single-family homes had minor damage. Those homes are habitable, but need repair. They might have minor roof or structural damage, broken windows, some roofing or siding missing and up to 3 feet of water in the home.
• 1,012 single-family homes and 20 apartments were affected. Such homes have nuisance damage but are habitable without repair. Examples of damage to affected homes include shingles or siding missing, debris around the home, 6 inches to 1 foot of water in the home, and mobile home skirting damaged or missing.

I am a subscriber to the Online Edition of the Press Enterprise, and you can become one for $2.50 a week. If you would like to view or republish an archive of photos showing the damage from the flood, you can access my growing set of associated photos at Flickr.

Talking About the Bloomsburg, PA Flood on DTLT Today

Last week I was lucky enough to catch the University of Mary Washington's DTLT crew getting set to broadcast episode 40 of their daily web show. I saw in a tweet that they were planning to talk about the stuff I had been doing with social media around the Bloomsburg, PA flood and the apparent lack of news converge. I happened to be home, working in my home office when I replied to the tweet and asked if I could be a part of it. We got hooked up with Skype and the results are below.

I really can't thank these guys enough for not only having me on, but for taking the time to really think about the things that are happening in Bloomsburg. The fact that they only know about this via the social web is astonishing to me and continues to point towards a need for a more open local news approach.

On Being Open: An Open Letter to Bloomsburg, PA's Press Enterprise

To the Editor of the Press Enterprise,

I was going to post this to your Facebook wall as I am a fan, but the character limits of that environment forced me to do it in my own space. I am hopeful you will see my letter in the spirit it is offered -- as a concerned and compassionate plea for action.

First, I want to thank and commend you for opening the online edition of the Press Enterprise in the days after the flood. It was incredibly important to so many people coast to coast. We all have friends and family who have been impacted by this disaster in so many ways.

With that said, I want to understand your decision to close access to the online edition during the days following the disaster that is unfolding in our communities. I believe you should be providing free and open access to your online edition for as long as it takes for people outside the area to know what is happening -- there is an obvious lack of national attention to this tragedy. I would also urge you to maintain open access to the archives of the digital issues so other news agencies can cite and point to your reporting. Maintaining an open and searchable archive of the paper in an accessible format will be critical for other news agencies, scholars, and historians in the near to long term.

I have been gathering and posting photos online at Flickr to share with people who want to be connected to Bloomsburg and the surrounding areas. For the last two days alone, I have had over 65,000 views of these photos. I've never had more than a 100 views in any given day -- ever. My photos are open, licensed as Creative Commons, and will continue to be available as a set on Flickr.

I have talked to friends in other parts of the country who haven't heard about what has happened and are completely unaware. Who else is going to report this other than our local news? The national news has ignored this event. The Press Enterprise represents our local news and because of that you represent our communities. Please do the right thing and open access to the paper for others to see what has happened and what continues to go on. I seriously doubt it will limit your paid subscriptions in the long haul and sincerely hope your decision can transcend financial issues.

I say this as a Bloomsburg native and as a friend to the Press. Please let me know if I can help or if you'd like to talk about a strategy over the short term. We want you to know that we will support you going forward. Please do the right thing.

I sincerely appreciate your consideration in this matter. Please know that I am posting this widely in hopes that you will consider the imperative.

Cole W. Camplese

I wanted to preserve all the comments that were originally left on this post, so they are pasted inline below.

Kristin Camplese
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 7:16 PM
I second that emotion.

Royce Conner
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 7:20 PM
Agreed,
Royce Conner
Oakland CA

Misty Patcyk
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 7:21 PM
The fact they would close it is terrible. Please open it back up.

James Gates
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 7:22 PM
I agree 100%.

Julie Laubach
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 7:24 PM
I totally agree. The community deserves to be able to have free access during this time of tragedy.

Eric Sorg
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 7:25 PM
Absolutely, I agree.

Michael J. Faris
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 7:28 PM
This is a great letter, Cole. Without your Flickr images and links to the Press Citizen, I wouldn’t really have any idea what was going on in Bloomsburg (and I only live a few hours away). I hope they re-open their website until the disaster is over.

Kim Ray
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 7:35 PM
I agree. I live out of state, with family and friends in Bloomsburg and I greatly appreciated the free access to the Press Enterprise on the days following the flood.

Allison Seely
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 7:31 PM
It would be great if you would open the paper up again, there are many people out of the area that would love to be informed.

Sarah Keys
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 7:38 PM
I subscribe to the Press and appreciated being able to read it when it was not available for delivery due to the flood /road conditions. I prefer to hold the paper in my hands while I drink my cup of tea.I’m sure the displaced flooded residents would appreciate being able to go back and look at the pictures and coverage later when they have time as they are currently scrambling to salvage their lives. Looking for houses to rent or buy etc.

Sarah Ausprich
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 7:38 PM
Agreed. My friends can’t believe the devastation when I show them your pictures, Cole, and I’m only a few hours south of Bloomsburg. The coverage of the damage in the area by the national media has been minimal and the Press Enterprise could be missing a great opportunity.

Sarah Ausprich
Philadelphia, PA

Pat Besong
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 7:39 PM
I as well hope that the online edition is kept open. It is the mirror of the community.

Don Craven
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 7:53 PM
Well said, Cole. Living out of the area, I don’t have many options for seeing the news from my hometown. I really appreciated being able to check in on the Press Enterprise when the flood hit, but the real news is taking place now. The damage is unbelievable and there is simply nobody else covering it.

Derek Gittler
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 8:04 PM
My Comment on Cole’s letter left on the Press-Enterprise Facebook page:

I wish I could express myself to the Press-Enterprise with as much grace as Cole Camplese has with this letter, but all I feel right now is anger and disgust

I never pretended to understand why the original design of your site makes people pay for a PDF version the Press-Enterprise, but your decision to close off even this small source of information at a time when your fellow citizens need information the most is completely reprehensible.

Only a few hours after the flood waters washed over Bloomsburg, Royce Conner started an open Facebook group that has been the source of much desperately needed and timely news. Funds were raised, information and pictures were shared, stories were told. Simply having an open space, I believe, started Bloomsburg PA on the road to recovery early.

The Press-Enterprise should reconsider its approach, re-open its paywall, and let the public see what is going on around them. People need information now and teasing print articles in tweets and Facebook posts that people have to pay for is not responsible on your part. Ladies and Gentlemen, you are not in the newspaper business. You are in the information business and information is what your neighbors need the most.

misty wittig
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 8:06 PM
agreed thank you

Maureen Green
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 8:09 PM
Well said. Thank you, Cole.

Maureen Green
Charleston, SC

Gretchen Kuldau
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 8:14 PM
I have been appalled at the lack of national coverage. I wholeheartedly support your statement.

Gretchen Kuldau
State College

Heather Turnpaugh
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 8:18 PM
Thanks Cole. Great article. I read the paper online while it was available and have missed it since it went private again.

Laurilyn Bailey
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 8:19 PM
Please reconsider your decision to close the online edition of the PE; I have been referring both individuals, and corporations including the International Disaster Corps of Habitat for Humanity to view images of the devastation in the region on your online site. I would hate for them to be unable to have access to the state of affairs in Bloomsburg and surrounding communities, leading them to make the wrong conclusions about the need for assistance in the region. I wholeheartedly agree with Cole: please reconsider. There is virtually no coverage of the NE flooding in the state of Colorado, where I currently reside.

Peter Froehlich
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 8:20 PM
I agree, Cole. Even those of us who live close to the affected areas need access to information so we can understand, empathize, and help.

PSU Hazleton students will be in Bloomsburg to drop off donations and pitch in with cleanup efforts. Open access to the unfolding narrative will sustain such efforts.

Pete Froehlich
Mountain Top, PA

Brad Kozlek
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 8:52 PM
I will also say that I had no idea of the magnitude of the disaster in Bloomsburg until I started seeing reports from citizen journalists like Cole. The flow of information should be open – especially as disaster relief efforts are needed. After that the longer examination of what openness means to the practice of journalism can be undertaken.

Steve Sheldon
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 9:00 PM
The devastating flood has impacted not only residents of Bloomsburg and their extended families, but also the families of BU students from outside the region. The newspaper’s coverage of the days, weeks and months of Bloomsburg’s recovery will serve to reaffirm our faith in the community where our families live. Please reconsider your decision to restrict access to the information the public craves and needs.

Bloomsburg is a wonderful community, and you have the opportunity to publicize how any community can come together as one in the face of inexplicable adversary. Please take this opportunity to be a leader in media.

Thank you,

Steve Sheldon

Lis B.
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 9:25 PM
I am a PA resident and didn’t know what had occurred in Bloomsburg until Cole started posting his photos and updating Facebook. Without open access people will not know there is a need to help the residents of Bloomsburg.

Beth
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 9:29 PM
Well stated, Cole. I believe that the PE should be open online during this time so that the latest information on the recovery and rebuilding of the Bloomsburg community can be shared with the general public.

Beth Bailey

Jennifer Webber
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 9:29 PM
Cole, thank you for your leadership and asking the Press to do the same, be a leader. It’s a daunting job to serve and sometimes comes at a cost. Decision makers of the Press Enterprise, remember who it is you serve, and the value that is derived from this service.
If you choose not to serve your community in a manner your consumers deem valuable: by either eliminating the cost to access information at this time, or redirecting profits from sharing said information to the community, you may find yourself with a diminishing value proposition. People will find other means to get the information they need. That is without a doubt, a statement you can take to the bank.

Stuart Selber
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 9:43 PM
It should be open indeed.

Wendy Lynne Lee
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 10:03 PM
Thank you, Cole. You have performed a really valuable service to your community. I–clearly among many others–appreciate it.

Wendy Lynne Lee

Matt Meyer
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 10:14 PM
At the heart of this request is the sheer need for the PE to consider it’s fundamental role in what will be a monumental effort in the rebuilding of the community it serves. The PE needs to see itself as a conduit to the world for the Bloomsburg community at a time like no other in the town’s history. Opening the PE to the world will provide untold opportunities to acquire the resources that the community needs in it’s effort to recover. This is the time to to provide thought leadership in communication and technology to serve the greater good. From a business perspective, what is more important to the PE than a Bloomsburg that not only recovers but then flourishes?

Devon Neil
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 10:15 PM
I AGREE!!!

Brad Keller
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 10:26 PM
Cole, what you’ve said is so true and I couldn’t agree more. Living outside of the area in NH, the press enterprise is the main source for local news during these tough times when family and friends have been affected by this natural disaster. Thank you for your continued diligence documenting the flood, especially through the photos you’ve taken and the audio documentary of your experience. All greatly appreciated by both residents as well as those outside of the area in an effort to raise awareness and get additional help for the town and its citizens!

Jen Ralston
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 10:37 PM
Press-Enterprise, this is a formative moment for our town and your business. It’s not just Aunt Addie’s Attic, 30 seconds, and the local sports scores at stake now. Rise above your concerns about your bottom line and show yourselves to be a part of this community.

-Jen Ralston, Bloomsburg

Andrea D.Heckman
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 11:06 PM
Yes…… big need for the online edition…especially for out of state natives

Jonathan Kealing
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 11:14 PM
The future of journalism depends on us as journalists being open, integrated and co-dependent with our community. If our community can’t depend on us to be there for them when they need us most, what good are we?

Jonathan Kealing

Matt DeRienzo
OCTOBER 12, 2011 AT 1:17 PM
Amen!

Kaitlyn Black
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 11:17 PM
Cole, you are speaking for so many of us through this well written letter. Thank you. Having an open archive is imperative to keeping the narrative of this event alive. My dad, a Bloomsburg native, is currently stationed in Afghanistan. My words alone could not describe the devastation that occurred here, so I sent him the link to the PE site while it was open. He was thankful to be connected to a story that is so close to home and I’m sure he is disappointed he can no longer access the unfolding story of recovery. I support you in your appeal to the PE and am willing to help in any way I can.

Jenn Faus
SEPTEMBER 14, 2011 AT 11:33 PM
I agree also. I was born and raised in Bloomsburg but now live in OH. Almost all of my family still lives in Bloom. If not for the paper I wouldn’t have any clue what was going on. No one here has even heard anything about what has happened there. Excellent coverage so far and I don’t read any other paper but yours (I better not lol, my husband used to work for the PE). Our paper here has nothing on yours!

Pingback: open news during crisis | D'Arcy Norman dot net

Benjamin E. Johnson
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 AT 1:51 AM
I agree. I don’t see how revenue from current subcriptions would be compromised by providing temporarily open online access. If the concern is over stunted subscription growth, well, I do think the Eyerly brothers and anyone else holding stock in the P.E. will remain financially stable. After today’s editorial rant on how the Bloomsburg Fair should be cancelled this year basically because it’s the right thing to do, how about taking heed the same ideology?

Julie Dunn
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 AT 4:58 AM
Agree as well! Thank you.

Kristin Martin
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 AT 7:49 AM
I admit it: I have used my dad’s info to log into the PE. Sorry, just not going to pay $2.50/week for PDFs for info that should be free.

Kristin Martin
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 AT 11:43 AM
I’m sorry, I think I misunderstood. But I still agree with you and appreciate what you’re doing, Cole.

bartman
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 AT 8:56 AM
But Cole, it’s only 2.50 a week!

*sigh*

Couldn’t agree more. At the minimum, at least open up all content related to the flood, its victims and the rebuilding efforts.

Another concerned Bloomsburg native,
bart pursel

Blair and David Revak
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 AT 10:32 AM
Friends, family and The Press Enterprise,

We left Bloomsburt and NE PA but Bloomsburg never left us. Our memories, our friends and contacts always are with us. We appreciated the PE opportunity to connect and follow but disappointed with the quick disappearance of that connection.
We agree Cole and all, it should have continued.
Love and support to Bloomsburg.
Blair and David

A. L. DeWitt
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 AT 11:28 AM
The internet has been a knife in the heart of traditional journalism, and newspapers with online editions are a little like prostitutes in a college town: they suffer from too much amateur competition with bloggers and others posting information and photos, often pirated from the online editions of newspapers. Hundreds of private listservs contain information taken off press sites by Google News crawlers. Everytime that happens the money that would be available to pay the reporters who track those stories and write them is lost. The only way the newspaper can insure that its online edition is provided to people who are paying to keep that paper in business is to close it and require subscriptions.

If you understood, even generally, what a debacle the internet has been for traditional journalism you would understand that free newspapers don’t pay for themselves. Give the newspaper a break. If you or people outside the area are interested in what’s going on, buy a subscription and keep local journalism alive. To do otherwise and request otherwise is to destroy the foundation for local news.

Anthony L. DeWitt
Jefferson City, MO

Cole Camplese
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 AT 11:47 AM
Hi Anthony. I appreciate your comment and I think I may need to share a more complete view of what I am requesting. I am not asking for the Press Enterprise to become a free online newspaper without some sort of subscription model. I am requesting that the PE provide a model that allows for open dissemination of information related to the flood that is reliable and written from the perspective of a journalist. I am not asking them to become “prostitutes in a college town,” instead I am asking them to act in a way that provides the citizens of our community with a long term record in the digital world.

I am afraid that I do understand the disruptive nature of the Internet on many of the things called, “traditional.” I would say that the Internet has not been the “knife in the heart of traditional journalism,” as you assert. Instead I would counter that journalism, by hanging onto their traditional views has been the problem. No one made the major or local presses make all their content free. That was a choice they made without thinking through new and highly disruptive models. The Internet has disrupted nearly everything — education, commerce, communications, even political systems. Either industries (or governments) deal with the disruption or they die.

What I am urging the press to do is be responsible in the way it collects, sells, and maintains content online. A PDF is not the way to sell news — especially in a world that is now dominated on reposting and remixing content to new embedded audiences and networks. To bring attention to a specific article should I post the whole PDF to Facebook and tell people to navigate to page 12? What about the ability for individuals with disabilities who require screen readers and other assistive technologies to consume news? These are real issues that a responsible news agency needs to deal with.

I also want to make it clear that I am a paid subscriber to the Press Enterprise Online. Personal consumption isn’t the issue I am trying to shed light on. I am concerned with the notion of openness as it relates to long term, accessible content.

Kristin Camplese
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 AT 1:19 PM
The whiteboard was a knife in the heart of the blackboard.
The automobile was a knife in the heart of the horse drawn carriage and passenger rail.
The word processor was a knife in the heart of the typewriter.
Netflix was a knife in the heart of Blockbuster.
iTunes was a knife in the heart of the record store.
MP3 was a knife in the heart of the CD.
MP3 players were a knife in the heart of the Sony Walkman.
GPS is a knife in the heart of atlas producers.
Wikipedia is a knife in the heart of encyclopedia producers.
Online shopping was a knife in the heart of the Sears Catalog.
Amazon was a knife in the heart of Borders.

It’s progress. You either get on board or get left behind.

Derek Gittler
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 AT 1:28 PM
This Will Kill That

“It was a presentiment that human thought, in changing its form, was about to change its mode of expression; that the dominant idea of each generation would no longer be written with the same matter . . .”

— Victor Hugo, “Notre Dame de Paris”

http://www.online-literature.com/victor_hugo/hunchback_notre_dame/24/

Kevin Simons
SEPTEMBER 15, 2011 AT 1:21 PM
A short-term resource of photos and journalism related to the flood is beyond reasonable. As the primary source of local news for Bloomsburg and the surrounding communities, the Press Enterprise should consider their reporting on this emergency as something more than an asset that they can charge a fee for. They should consider it a resource that everyone living in the effected community and beyond could use to keep connected and also to keep some spotlight on the extent of damage and recovery efforts.

The Press-Enterprise has every right to charge subscription and limit access on their day to day news, but this event was very far outside of the ordinary “news events” of a small town newspaper and effects people far beyond their delivery range.

Why wouldn’t they put their resources to good use in this time of need? In the long run, they would provide an invaluable service to the community, including the far-flung friends and family of their local subscribers. Isn’t this just good service for the customers who have bought their paper for years or even decades?

I live in Colorado, but I have many family members who live in Bloomsburg or nearby. There has been NO dependable place to go online and keep up to date. Youtube should NOT have been my primary source of reporting for this event. A local paper should consider an event like this as an opportunity to show their own stewardship and not as source of profit. The 2.50 weekly subscription rate they want to charge outsiders would be better spent as a donation to the Red Cross or some other local charity that will immediately put that money to use.

Pingback: They’ve Had Enough - Cole Camplese: Learning and Innovation

Jamie Oberdick
SEPTEMBER 16, 2011 AT 8:52 AM
A 2-3 week period of open access during a disaster of this magnitude would not sink the paper. In fact, it might encourage people to see the paper’s site and perhaps even sign up.

That’s where a lot of media cuts off their nose to spite their face. Giving a sample actually encourages people to sign up later.

And this is not even addressing Cole’s overarching point – this is a gesture to the community, to raise awareness of just how bad things are.

Pingback: This is How We Roll: ds106 Growlercast with Cole - CogDogBlog

Pingback: local journalism in a networked society | a gross salute to the fantastic possibilities of the internet

Eileen Gaughan Cizewski
SEPTEMBER 27, 2011 AT 9:05 PM
I concur with Cole. Dearest Press, withholding this information at a time of such mass tragedy does more harm than good.

Your pages have recently chided the town for pulling dumpsters too soon. We feel just the same about your choice to end free access so soon.

Another topic preached among your pages is the need for volnteerism, donations, and sacrafice. Please lead by example.

If expenses matter most, consider seeking the difference from your advertisers. WHLM and The Daily Item have been taking care of the consumers near and far via the web. We beg that you do too.

Thank you,

Eileen Cizewski

Pingback: The Press Enterprise | Christopher P. Long

Todd Reeder
JANUARY 10, 2017 AT 12:22 PM
It’s all about money. They used to give free online access to anyone who subscribed to the paper addition for one year. Now they charge if you want the online edition. The PE said that they are a business and that it cost money to produce the online edition. I don’t think it cost a lot of money to produce the online edition. They online edition likely just a copy of how they produce the next days paper. So the online edition is just the information put online. It’s all about money. $$$$$$$$$

Bag of Gold

Bag Of Gold from Tim Owens on Vimeo.

I wrote about my experience seeing Gardner Campbell's talk, "No more digital facelifts" at OpenEd in Vancouver right after the event. It was really a true stand out to me at the time and continues to resonate. Clearly the truly interesting work happening in and around Jim Groom's ds106 course at Mary Washington reinforces the importance of the talk ... especially in light of how the open course and #ds106radio is playing out across the Internet. I tweeted not too long ago that the only disappointing thing about my new job is not having the cycles to participate in what is an amazing demonstration in the notion of the aggregate learning experience of the future -- and then I see the video above and a little part of me dies as I am faced with a troubling thought ...

Am I now the one not understanding the true value of exploring what the bag of gold has to offer and dismissing the opportunity?

I sure hope that isn't a sign of my new life and I seriously doubt it is. My life is about exploring and in the last couple of months I have had far less time for that. I am not trying to be overly reactive in this reflection so I will just leave it well enough alone. I do, however, want to find time to continue to explore and learn about how to take advantage of and support the explosive nature that teaching and learning with technology affords. I am in total agreement with Gardner, "it is what makes me do what I do."

BTW, one of the magical things happening in the ds106 course is the intense amount of talent working in a single direction in a very distributed network of intelligence and creativity. Tom Woodward's remix of Gardner's talk is a perfect example of that.

Open Insight

We don't have a top down open education initiative here at Penn State. At some point in the near future I hope to see that change, but at the end of the day so much is already happening in the open across the PSU web ... quite frankly it is really amazing to see. I try to highlight that incidental openness when I can, but I have been thinking more and more about what our OER might look like here. And when I say that, I'd like to do it in a way that could impact more than just people looking to grab some solid open content to consume ... I'd like to take it a step further, but up until recently I haven't been able to figure out what that means.

After Learning Design Summer Camp, one of our undergraduate writing interns put together a short piece on her reactions from the day in a post called, Learning Design Summer Camp from the student perspective. There was one part that really struck me as interesting and thought provoking ...

The one presentation that I found particularly interesting as a student was Sam Richard’s presentation on teaching Sociology 119. I actually took Sam’s Sociology 119 class during the spring 2010 semester, so hearing him speak about the actual teaching of a class that I had taken just recently was very interesting for me. His presentation at Camp focused heavily on engaging students in a large lecture setting, especially through the use of technology. Sam’s Sociology 119 class was one of the most engaging classes I have taken at Penn State, especially amazing, since it is in such a large lecture setting. Before hearing Sam speak at Camp, I never really thought about all the things he actually did to keep me engaged and interested in a class so large that it would be easy to feel forgotten. Hearing him discuss choosing these technologies and why they work in the classroom helped me to better understand from his perspective how he can make a class of 700 students work so well.

What grabbed about it is that I've never really thought about what classroom practice looks like to students. What I mean is that I never recall thinking about the kinds of things my faculty did to engage me in the classroom ... and I certainly never really thought about the fact that they were doing something deliberate. It makes me wonder if any of the students on our campuses think at all about what goes into making a particular class interesting or engaging?

With this new perspective I have been talking about an idea that would go along with some sort of more structured video based OER project. What I would like to do is to not only produce a video based OER series, much like Yale's, but add shorter vignettes of the featured faculty talking about their designs, motivations, inspirations, and reflections on how and why they teach. I think it would be terrific to hear in short bursts from the faculty about what is going on in their heads as they prepare to stand in front of their students. I could see it being very much like a powerful digital story that can inspire other faculty to think critically about their practice and it may be really interesting and engaging to students to hear their faculty talk more informally about what is going on behind the scenes. It may also help inform design practice in ways we haven't yet thought about.

Locked Doors to Openness

Something I have been struggling with lately is the continuum of open to closed in lots of contexts. So much of the conversation in the tech blogosphere is all about Apple and the App Store/iPad/iPod/iPhone lock in. It is a conversation that if taken on its own I am completely disinterested in. I bought in years ago and that is that. The App eco-system and the perceived heavy hand of Apple in the approval process does not interest me in the least. It is, however, in this conversation that I am trying to pay more attention to where I am in my own career and thinking.

I read a great post that John Gruber pointed to yesterday by Neven Mrgan titled, "The Walled Garden." Again this post dealt with the App Store, but I think it has some serious implications for thought about the field of education technology and the way we are working within our institutions to radically open up education. It sort of caught me off guard how aligned some of my thinking is around this topic ... and in many ways I find myself standing on the other side of a divide I thought I'd crossed.

Aren’t the benefits of a closed, carefully managed garden clearly visible? The experience is controlled, so it tells a story - one which may not emerge from a democratic, anything-goes process (or do you think this sort of slow and deliberate story would emerge in a busy American city in the year 2010?) Charging for admission means that the place can be maintained, improved, and marketed. There are downsides to this, of course — maybe the management makes boneheaded decisions now and then. Maybe you think that vine maple would look better a little to the left — maybe you’re even right.

via mrgan.tumblr.com

Even in my teaching I struggle with open versus closed and I am growing tired of the "versus" in that conversation. Some things are better closed and managed by the few -- not all parts of my open class are democratic and I wouldn't apologize for that, but for some reason I feel like I need to say I am sorry in other contexts for not being totally open. I know there are times my students feel they know better than I ... and many times I know they are right.

In my work, I am being pushed at my institution to take a broader view of the landscape and that is forcing me to see perspectives that I am afraid are not widely held ideals of many of my peers (many of whom I count as mentors and friends) from across higher education. I spent the better part of the last 10 years pressing on the idea that "open wins, period" and lately I am finding that there are times when closed is as much a winner.

via Shirley Buxton

I try to manage my own organization as openly as possible, but things are shifting under my feet. I recently did something I never thought I would do -- I created a private blog space that only my staff can get to. Just the thought of that makes me cringe, but that is exactly what I did. I was finding that I was unable to share things that were in process openly as it was constantly being picked up and shared as gospel. As much as I enjoy seeing our work get recognized by the likes of our own Daily Collegian, Onward State, and the Chronicle of Higher Education the overhead of managing the fallout from it has worn on me. It isn't a coincidence that I have stopped writing as much about my work openly ... my work has changed and so has emerged a greater need to keep it guarded. So a private blog was born so I could once again be open with my own staff -- it sounds crazy ... I needed a closed space so I could be open. There is that gradient thing again.

I am chairing a committee charged with investigating the pedagogical affordances of various course management systems and that as well has me questioning some of my beliefs about it all. I have been a very loud opponent of the CMS in the past and I still don't use our University-wide CMS in my own teaching, but through the work I am doing with a very smart group from across our Institution I am seeing it all in a new light. Why am I so damn embarrassed to admit that I do believe the CMS is an important part of what we do? I think these tools should be in place and more and more I see them as the access point to all of the innovative stuff we do outside the CMS -- why not turn the place that nearly everyone uses into a portal into the Blogs at Penn State, our iTunes U dashboards, and perhaps even google services in the future? If my goal is to drive adoption of these types of (open) platforms I have needed to get beyond the "CMS is evil" stance and embrace it. Again, I need to pass through a closed space to arrive at opportunities for openness.

All of this is is interesting to me and I wonder what it means to where my work fits into the larger landscape of higher education. I have built much of the success of my organizations on being open, honest, and transparent. I want to continue to live in that space, but more and more I see value in some layers of control. I know we will continue to innovate and I know we'll continue to share, but as the ideas of openness continue to spread I am seeing how closed is truly a part of the conversation. At the end of the day I do recognize the need for doors into wide open spaces -- even in that realization I see the ridiculous contradictions. If the doors are locked, how does everyone get in? Maybe the open space on the other side isn't locked? Not all fences enclose a whole area ... what if the door is just the easy way for many of us to walk in and share out? I don't know.

What Does Open Mean?

I've had lots of people ask me about the meaning of "openness" in the context of the work I do since returning from Open Ed 2009 two weeks ago and I am still struggling for an answer. I was working to frame my view of open based on my own experiences here at PSU, but it feels forced and difficult to grab -- there seems to be clarity for a moment and then it just vanishes, slipping through my fingers and out of reach. I mentioned that I have a different perspective on open than many at the conference in my own reflection of the event, but it seems important to me to hash through a few more ideas that are banging around in my head.

I am moving closer to the notion that it can't just be about access to open educational resources. I was exploring this more deeply in a response to my colleague, David DiBiase's comment on my Open Ed reflection post. I had mentioned that there were many at the event who pushed on the idea of a moral imperative ... I wasn't saying I felt that way necessarily and I certainly do not spend my time thinking about distance education and access of those materials by everyone. Instead I was asking the question about what needs to be a part of something to make it an OER? Is a course blog an OER? Are a set of annotated Flickr photos an OER? Is a YouTube mediated conversation an OER?

These are things that I am really curious about exploring. Our team here at PSU spends our time exploring platforms to empower teaching and learning in new ways, we spend time working to impact faculty in positive ways, and we work to bring all of our thinking to the entire community in as a transparent way we can through both physical and virtual activities. How are we pressing openness when we don't really deliver anything that is deemed educational in and of itself. We build the framework that we hope open happens on. I wonder if that makes sense?

A lot of my current thinking is built on a mash up of thoughts I have been working through since I heard Jonathan Zittrain speak at the Berkman at 10 event in Boston last year. My favorite quote from his talk is that, “there is no main menu for the Internet.” Its a mash up of thoughts because it resonates so well with the push button attitude of the web on which too many of us build our identities. In this context I am thinking specifically about the closed room that is Facebook. It is reminding me so much of the old days of AOL that is scary. You remember AOL, don't you. It was essentially a fully top down, closed, main menu driven version of the Internet that eventually died when we all realized there was value in not navigating the path they wanted us to. The new web should be, by nature, empower openness -- just like Zittrain said, the web is an environment that encourages us to party in a “BYOC — Bring your own content” way. Once we started to bring our own content, the proprietary providers couldn't keep up. Will the same happen at Facebook?

Facebook is clearly different than AOL in that we still bring our own content, but instead of managing and sharing it openly, we are hoarding it and only letting our "friends" see it. Is that really any different than a $5.00 a month service? Facebook is free you say, but the content we deposit in it isn't. If open is about global access, how does an Internet built on that vision match up? How can we feel good about watching our students (and faculty, staff, children, friends, parents, etc) drop a great deal of long-term learning opportunities into that box?

How does this rambling mess relate to OER? Well, that is for us to explore together, but if there is one thing I believe passionately in its the ability for all of us to have a platform that we can use to make decisions about how our content is shared. My colleague, Elizabeth Pyatt put it brilliantly when she insightfully told me that closed is a gradient of open. Our open movement here may have more to do with providing the opportunity to make the default decision be an open one. I know over the term of my digital life I'd prefer that I can make decisions about what is left there for others to consume. Open may be about letting people know they have the power to make that decision and giving them free access to BYOC.

Just a thought ... any reactions?

Relationships that don't Suck

This post is a generalization. Now that I have that out of the way, here I go ... I've been in the instructional design/technology/etc business for over a dozen or so years and I've seen lots of models in place to help people get their teaching, training, and learning materials together. In the corporate space it was a very contract driven approach with Subject Matter Experts (SME) being pushed to provide content by a project manager or instructional designer. In higher education the SME is typically a faculty member and they are typically being pushed to provide content by the instructional designers -- a very corporate approach to learning design. It is my thought that this relationship is, in many ways, very unhealthy. I say that only by watching what I see around me in countless course design projects.

Back when I was an instructional designer at the Penn State World Campus I worked with a faculty member to build an online Reliability Engineering course. It was made very clear to me that a big part of my responsibility was to get the faculty member to write and deliver content on some (arbitrary) timeline. I was an Instructional Designer that had been reduced to a content task master. The faculty member on the other hand was an internationally known reliability engineer whom we reduced to the notion of content provider. I can tell you the relationship was contentious at best -- for lots of reasons. One of those reasons was that we didn't find a way to build a professional relationship that centered around us talking about what our areas of focus and expertise was all about. I find it unfortunate looking back on it as I wished I would have taken the time to work to a common ground. I could tell I made him mad and he knew that I loathed his pace in the delivery of the holy grail of eLearning materials -- raw content.

How disturbing is that? Raw content ... it just sounds insulting, that we would categorize what this man had to offer was nothing more than several written pages of raw content. I am sorry for ever reducing the brilliance of this man's work into a term so demeaning as that. It is no wonder he looked at me like I was nothing more than a "computer jockey" slinging his prose into some HTML container. What a crock of shit the whole thing was.

After the conversation that broke out here this week about working to see perspectives when we come together I want so badly to offer an alternative approach to what we do in a typical instructional design process, but rarely feel like we have to time to accomplish -- work to come together, build a relationship, and trust the passion, energy, and expertise we all bring to the table.

On Sunday I spent some time talking with my good friend and colleague Keith Bailey about how nasty the relationship can get between an ID and a faculty member for this very reason. We work so hard to create schedules and then push faculty to just hand over some content (and we'll take it from there) that real anger emerges. The question that emerged centered around how do we push through and learn there are many more powerful ways to go about this task?

One I'll offer is to embrace the notion open content. What I challenged Dr. Bailey with was at the start of the next course his team in the Arts and Architecture eLearning Institute designs is to take the content outline and first go to wikipedia, wikieducator, and other open content spaces and see what exists with the faculty member as a partner. Use that moment to explore what is and isn't there, to start the conversation about what is different and what is similar about what they discover together. It should lead to a real conversation about why it might make more sense for us to skip designing in a closed space and instead actually using what is available and contributed what we make into these open spaces? If an article about a concept doesn't exist, construct it collaboratively and contribute it there. The idea of a Creative Commons licensed article is much more powerful than the existing lock down we place on learning materials from within the academy.

Would the overall process of working together to identify existing content and working to contribute new knowledge into the commons lead to an opportunity unlike what our current approaches provide? I'm not sure, but would like to explore that further. Any thoughts?

Intentionally Closed

To follow up on the unintentional progress we are seeing with academic content being published openly on blogs at Institutions across the country I thought I'd share a story that tells a different tale. Last May I was lucky enough to attend the Berkman@10 conference at the Berkman Center at Harvard Law ... one of the first general sessions was a conversation lead by John Palfrey related to >Politics and the Future of Democracy. This was my first real view into the notion of nations filtering access to content by its citizens and it was a very powerful experience. During his talk he discussed the Farsi (Iranian) blogosphere and how explosive it is in terms of growth and productivity. He spoke of it as the fourth largest blogosphere (measured by language publishing) and the intense censorship that goes on in the country on topics such as politics, love, religion, and art. Those who write do so at great risk -- not the kind of risk we worry about, the kind of risk that ends with people disappearing.

It is not a matter of freedom of speech, it is a matter of freedom after speech.

What struck me at the time was the passion of the bloggers in Iran to get the word out and share ... they want so badly to speak out against the government, to show the world that they love art, that they appreciate culture, and so on. They want real change to come to their lives. Because of the level of Internet filtering that goes on, much of what is written within Iran never gets read within Iran ... in other words they are writing things that their neighbors can never read. It was a moving thought about the power of the written word and the lengths people will go to for real change. I was reminded of this experience when I came across an outstanding video from the Vancouver Film School, Iran: A Nation of Bloggers. This is so worth the watch.

IRAN: A Nation Of Bloggers from ayrakus on Vimeo.

This puts the notion of easy publishing in a perspective many of us do not view all that often. I wonder what your reaction to this is and why we are so tied to a closed architecture when there are people willing to die for the ability to live in the open. Maybe I am comparing things that cannot/should not be compared, but it is sort of ironic is it not? We live in a place where access to knowledge is open, a place where I can publish instantly and (part of) the world can take part in the conversation, and yet we still work to build walls around our knowledge. I'm not too Polly Anna to think there isn't a reason to protect intellectual property (not agreeing with an approach does not make it go away), but for crying out loud its time to cry out loud!