This paper critically examines the integration of online fanfiction practices into an advanced university English language classroom. The fanfiction project, The Blogging Hobbit, was carried out as part of a course in the teacher education program at a Swedish university for students who were specializing in teaching English at the secondary school level. Participants were 122 students who completed the course in 2013 and 2014. In both classes, students were organized into groups of three to six to write collaborative blog-based role-play fanfiction of a missing moment from JRR Tolkien’s fantasy novel The Hobbit. The 31 resulting pieces of collaborative fanfiction, the online formats they were published in, the 122 reflective essays produced by the two classes, and interviews with a focal group of participants were used to explore how technology and learners’ experience with this technology may have mediated the resulting stories. In addition, the classroom fanfiction texts were compared with comparable online writing published in the fanfiction site Archive of Our Own (Ao3) to identify thematic and stylistic differences. The results showed that students’ lack of familiarity with publishing in blogs often posed a challenge that some groups were able to overcome or exploit to facilitate or enhance the readability of their completed stories. Compared to online fanfiction, the classroom fanfiction was less innovative with respect to focal characters yet more collective in its focus, with stories being told from multiple characters’ perspectives.

Introduction: Online medical education resources are widely used in emergency medicine (EM), but strategies to assess quality remain elusive. We previously derived the Medical Education Translational Resources: Impact and Quality (METRIQ) 8 instrument to evaluate quality in medical education blog posts. Methods: As part of a subsequent validation study (The METRIQ Blog Study), a mixed-methods usability analysis was performed to obtain user feedback on the quality assessment instrument in order to improve its clarity and reliability. Participants in the METRIQ Study were first asked to rate five blog posts using the METRIQ-8 Score. They then evaluated the METRIQ-8 instruments ease of use and likelihood of being recommended to others using a 7-point Likert scale and free text comments. Participants were also asked to flag and comment on items within the score that they felt were unclear. Global usability ratings were summarized using median scores or percent rated unclear. We used ANOVA to test associations between ease of use and demographic factors. A thematic analysis was performed on the comments. Results: 309 EM medical students, residents, and attendings completed the survey. Global ratings were generally very favorable (median 2 [IQR 2-3], with 7 being the lowest score) for ease of use and likelihood of recommendation, and did not vary by participants country of origin, frequency of blog use, or learner level. Participants stated that the score was structured, systematic, and straightforward. They found it useful for junior learners and for guiding blog creation. Four questions in the score (questions 2, 4, 5, and 7) were identified by 10% of subjects to be unclear. Thematic analysis of comments identified suggested four main themes for improving the score: adding clearer definitions with marking rubrics; shortening the 7-point scale; adding items evaluating blog post presentation and utility; and, rephrasing the wording of certain questions for clarity. Conclusion: A mixed methods usability analysis of the METRIQ-8 instrument for assessing blog quality was globally well received by EM medical students, residents, and attendings. Qualitative analyses revealed multiple areas to improve the instruments clarity and usability. The METRIQ score is a promising instrument for evaluating the quality of blogs; further development and testing is needed to improve its utility.

Introduction: Podcasts and blog posts are gaining popularity in Free Open Access Medical education (FOAMed). However, there remains a paucity of research comparing the two media for undergraduate medical education. This study aims to investigate if there are differences in medical students’ usage conditions, knowledge retention and preferences in the two types of media (podcasts, blog posts). Methods: Medical students were block-randomized to either the podcast or blog post group according to their year of schooling. They completed an online assessment of their baseline knowledge on the subject matter and preferences within the various types of media. Participants then received access to learning materials and were given four weeks to complete the follow-up assessment. Simple descriptive statistical data were used to detail student preferences. Paired samples t-tests and a Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (RM-ANOVA) were conducted to assess knowledge acquisition. A carry forward analysis was used to impute missing data from students lost to follow-up. Results: A total of 65 medical students participated in our study (podcasts n=33, blog posts n=32). The initial survey suggests that students prefer general topic discussion and “approach-to” themes (68% and 84%, respectively). 55% of students in the podcast group preferred podcasts that were less than 30 minutes. None of the blog post group preferred a shorter text, and each blog post required a mean of 25 minutes to read. Completion of at least one follow-up assessment was comparable (68% podcasts, 70% blog posts). The podcast listeners tended to engage in multiple activities while using the learning material (e.g. at least 2-3 of the following: driving, eating, chores, taking notes, exercising), while the blog readers tended to do fewer activities (e.g. only 1 of the following: taking notes, eating, only reading). Both groups showed significant improvements in their test scores (Asthma: 22% improvement, Toxicology: 29%; p<0.01 for both), with blog posts demonstrating a larger but non-significant difference (RM-ANOVA, Topic*Modality F(1,59)=0.001, p=0.973). Conclusion: This study suggests that podcasts and blog posts significantly improve medical student knowledge retention to a similar degree, but differ in usage conditions.

Time plays an essential role in the diffusion of information, influence, and disease over networks. In many cases we can only observe when a node is activated by a contagion—when a node learns about a piece of information, makes a decision, adopts a new behavior, or becomes infected with a disease. However, the underlying network connectivity and transmission rates between nodes are unknown. Inferring the underlying diffusion dynamics is important because it leads to new insights and enables forecasting, as well as influencing or containing information propagation. In this paper we model diffusion as a continuous temporal process occurring at different rates over a latent, unobserved network that may change over time. Given information diffusion data, we infer the edges and dynamics of the underlying network. Our model naturally imposes sparse solutions and requires no parameter tuning. We develop an efficient inference algorithm that uses stochastic convex optimization to compute online estimates of the edges and transmission rates. We evaluate our method by tracking information diffusion among 3.3 million mainstream media sites and blogs, and experiment with more than 179 million different instances of information spreading over the network in a one-year period. We apply our network inference algorithm to the top 5,000 media sites and blogs and report several interesting observations. First, information pathways for general recurrent topics are more stable across time than for on-going news events. Second, clusters of news media sites and blogs often emerge and vanish in a matter of days for on-going news events. Finally, major events, for example, large scale civil unrest as in the Libyan civil war or Syrian uprising, increase the number of information pathways among blogs, and also increase the network centrality of blogs and social media sites.

While the emergence of “new Movements” characterise the pontificate of John Paul II, Benedict XVI's time is marked by the Catholic Church's use of new media. It began with Catholic websites and has moved on to blogging and tweeting. This is how the Church must communicate with younger people, until these are replaced by newer digital systems. Most blogs are dominated by a conservative version of Catholicism, but this may be what appeals to those young people who are still drawn to the Church. The disposability and built –in obsolescence of devices like tablets can be a problem compared with the comparative longevity of what they are replacing, namely books.

Blog technology is a potential medium for encouraging reflective writing through self-expression and interactive exchange through social networking. This paper reports on a study using blogs as out-of-class assignments for the development of learners’ language competence. The study involved seventeen university students at advanced level who kept personal blogs over a14-week period. Data collected from blog pages, post surveys and final interviews reported affordances and challenges of using blogs for personal expression and collaborative interaction. The results showed that regularly creating blog entries had a positive impact on learners’ writing fluency and increased their motivation to write for a broad audience. Importantly, a four-skill integrated approach to task-based activities afforded opportunities for students to use the target language for blogging. The findings also indicate that peer feedback on the content prompted further discussion, whereas linguistic feedback from the instructor encouraged focus on form for language accuracy. The study concludes that learners’ critical thinking and technological skills are essential for the implementation of blog projects in L2 instruction.

Recent years have seen the emergence of Web2.0, in which users are not only passive recipients of the featured content, but actively engaged in constructing it. Sites such as ‘Facebook’ and ‘Myspace’ are typical examples of this, as are blogs that allow users to present themselves online, to write about their daily lives or even to establish themselves as an authority on a particular subject. Due to the opportunities for self-reflection and interactive learning offered by blogs, they have also become one of the emerging tools in language pedagogy and higher education. At the same time, peer feedback is a technique that is increasingly used by educators instead of, or in addition to, tutor feedback, due to its potential to develop students’ understanding of standards, to initiate peer feedback, and to engage the student in the process of learning and assessment.

This paper is concerned with the question to what extent blogs can facilitate peer feedback and what issues need to be addressed for them to be a valuable tool in this process. After reviewing the recent literature on peer feedback and the specific issues emerging from providing feedback through computer mediated communication (CMC) technologies, the paper presents the results from a pedagogic research project in an advanced German language class in which blogs were used for this purpose. Drawing on students’ blogs as well as the responses given by students in questionnaires and focus groups and responses by experienced tutors in interviews, the paper argues that blogs are potentially valuable tools for peer feedback, but entail the need to address specific issues regarding the choice of CMC tool for feedback tasks, training in the use of interactive online tools and the roles of teachers and students.

Jennifer Vass and James Mullan of the BIALL Blog take a look at the UK law librarian blogging scene, dispelling some of the myths associated with blogging before asking, “Where do you want to go today?”

Andrew Mills, of Freeth Cartwright LLP, gave a paper at the 38th Annual BIALL Study Conference in Sheffield in June 2007 on blogging. He describes how he set up IMPACT(R), his blog, which covers intellectual property and IT issues. He describes the software he used and the potential pitfalls involved when starting out. He emphasises the importance of using RSS feeds and considers whether blogs will present a threat to traditional hard copy publishing because of the speed with which they can communicate information.

Nick Holmes explains the advantages of the new web publishing formats for legal information professionals. He describes what a blog is, how to set one up and publish it. He lists the legal blogs or blawgs, and considers whether blogs are good for business.