Week 1 – Response to ‘ A domain of one’s own’.
The article “A Domain of One’s Own” (Woolf, 2012) enlightened me on how relatively recent and rapid the integration of the cloud in our lives is. After just a couple of years of its existence, many systems today already cannot function without the cloud. Recognizing the significance of the cloud, I agree with Mr. Campbell that it is crucial to keep up with new technical skills, such as how to use a personal cloud. These kinds of skills are increasingly valuable in today’s world. That is why I appreciate that even though UMW had a low technology budget, they still managed to find a way to help their students create their own domain online. These actions of UMS really show the opportunities that the internet has given us, as on a very limited budget, students can be given their own space on the Web to express their ideas.
Reading ”Why A Domain of One’s Own” (Watters, 2017) made me realize that over the years I have always been told that anything posted on the internet can leave a bad digital footprint. However, now I can see the positive side of a digital footprint. In my opinion, the idea of having your own personal domain as a safe space where we, students, can share our thoughts without any pressure for it to be liked by others and learn to understand digital technologies and how to navigate the Web, is great. On top of that I agree with Audrey Watters it creates well needed transparent way of sharing knowledge and ideas.
Week 2 – Response to the Mark Marino article.
With excellent use of infographics, examples and other visuals, Marino (Marino, 2019) effectively illustrates the developments and modifications in blogging. The text is really engaging and fascinating to read because of its unique style. It gives a good impression of how rapidly blogs are changing and how much blogging has developed in such a short time. The article successfully underscores the changes blogs have undergone since their start. The versatility of blogging has expanded a lot throughout the years, as mentioned in the text, with the incorporation of tools like audio and video. I believe this expansion has made blogging more inclusive for anyone to join in writing and reading blogs, as individuals can now find platforms that align with their specific preferences. As the internet and blogs play such an important role nowadays, I think it is very useful to properly learn how to blog.
Week 3 – Response to ‘The Internet’s Own Boy’
The documentary ‘The Internet’s Own Boy: The story of Aaron Swartz’, (Knappenberger, 2014) was eye-opening to me. Never before had I realized how wrong it is that some information is not openly accessible and I am grateful for Aaron Swartz’s efforts to fight for open access.
In our current world, most things have fallen victim to the system of capitalism, especially knowledge. I understand that research has to be funded in some way. However, as was mentioned in the video, research that was funded by taxpayers is still not free to the public and is behind paywalls. Besides, the profit that is made mostly does not go to the research, but to other companies profiting off the articles. What I think was even more disappointing is that legal documents are not accessible to everyone, as it is a legal right and the basis of democracy. Therefore it is a good thing that Aaron challenged this system of gatekeeping knowledge, by analyzing it, downloading it and making it accessible for the people. It is sad that the government treated him like a criminal, for simply trying to improve things around him that are obviously wrong.
Tim Berners-Lee was shortly mentioned in the video as the founder of the World Wide Web, who thought it was more important to make it accessible than to profit from it. It is sad to see that even though the basics of the internet were good, there are more and more companies trying to find a way to profit, instead of trying to improve it while keeping it accessible, like Tim Berners-Lee did.
The accomplishments of Aaron Swartz and his view on life are very inspirational. With his ability to learn he could have thrived inside the system and lived a comfortable life, but instead he decided to challenge that flawed system. It is a shame that a person with so much potential and so many brilliant ideas was viewed by the government as a threat, instead of a wake-up call, ultimately resulting in his suicide. Hopefully this documentary will raise awareness about the issue of open access to information, ensuring that Swartz’s achievements receive the attention they deserve and inspiring the development of additional solutions in the future.
Week 4: Principles within “a contract for the web.”
Principles 5 and 8 from “A Contract for the Web” (Contract for the Web, 2019) both contain important values to make the internet a better place.
Principle 5 emphasizes the importance of protecting personal data to establish trust among users. Giving users the opportunity to choose how, when and if their data can be collected helps to make them more aware of their digital surroundings. It helps to prevent the ‘filter bubble’ the TedTalk mentioned, as people know and consent to their online activity being used to create such algorithms (and get the chance to prevent such algorithms from working). It is mainly on company level that these principles have to be installed.
Principle 8 focuses on what citizens can do themselves to create a safe online environment. It focuses on making the internet a welcoming space in which users are aware of their actions.
Together these principles work on making websites a safe space for everyone, as their data is protected from being misused and users are being respectful towards each other.
Week 5: Response to ‘should all archives be Open Access?’
The article “Should All Archives Be Open Access?” (Rev, 2020) by Rev was really insightful and intriguing. Until now, most of our discussions have approached the subject from the standpoint that archives should be publicly accessible. I therefore greatly appreciate this article’s more nuanced approach to the issue, as the article also looks at the disadvantages and problems that arise with open access to archives. As also mentioned in the article, the contemporary issues around open access to information are relatively new, as information used to be more difficult to access as it was stored in libraries or other archives. This withheld information from a large part of the population. Nowadays information can be found with just a few clicks, as the internet holds great amounts of data. This completely changes everything.
A primary theme of the article is the relevance of providing free access to “documents with political, historical, or cultural significance for either the relevant community or individual citizen concerned.” One example of this not being met is information being hidden from citizens after a regime has been overthrown. It stands to reason that all facts relevant to the conflict should be made publicly available so that people are able to establish their own views. But regularly, this information is kept secret under the pretext that private information, such as medical data, is contained in such documents. In instances such as this, it is important to strive for better open access.
However, another important point of the article is that there are some cases that information should be kept confidential. There are a lot of grey areas and it can be very difficult to find the right balance. Rev describes this as: ‘Archives are expected to engage in a never-ending balancing act between responsibility to the public, which has the right to know, and to private individuals, who have the right to be protected.’ An example given is the victims of the Srebrenica massacre. Only relatives should be able to consult certain documents, out of respect to the situation.
Aside from the controversy over whether material should be in the public domain and what should be kept private, another issue is the trustworthiness of archives. Although maintaining original documents has never been easy, in the age of digitization, this challenge has only grown. Remaining trustworthy is difficult when material can be effortlessly accessed, copied, and edited several times over the internet. Not only are archives accountable for document preservation, but they also have a duty to handle and safeguard the personal information included in these records.
In general, it’s still challenging to decide what information should be public and private. But the starting point can be that, unless it contains private or sensitive information, it should be publicly accessible to everybody.
(1460 words)
Sources
- Contract for the Web (11/2019) Contract for the Web. Available at: https://contractfortheweb.org/
- Knappenberger, B. (02/07/2014) The Internet’s Own Boy: The Story of Aaron Swarz | full movie. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vz06QO3UkQ
- Marino, M. C. (22/06/2019) Teaching Writing in the Post-Blogging Era. Medium. Available at: https://markcmarino.medium.com/teaching-writing-in-the-post-blogging-era-ab7848247e33
- Rev, I. (20/11/2020) Accessing the Past, or Should Archives Provide Open Access? Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Available at: https://direct.mit.edu/books/oa-edited-volume/4933/chapter/625171/Accessing-the-Past-or-Should-Archives-Provide-Open
- Watters, A. (04/04/2017) Why ‘A Domain of One’s Own’ Matters (For the Future of Knowledge). Hack Education. Available at: https://hackeducation.com/2017/04/04/domains
- Woolf, V. (2012) A domain of one’s own. Wired. Available at: https://www.wired.com/insights/2012/07/a-domain-of-ones-own/