Some time ago, the Slideshare service launched, offering users the opportunity to upload and share Powerpoint presentations, as well as publishing them on the web in a small embedded slideshow player.
More recently, Scribd has entered the game, encouraging users to:
Put your docs online.
Scribd is a free online library where anyone can upload. Use our embeddable PDF player to publish and view documents right in your web browser.
Bulk upload now! No need to sign up.
Formats: .pdf, .doc, .ppt, .xls, .txt, etc.
I have to admit to having completely lost the plot now with respect to these "YouTube for arbitraryMedia" services.
But Scribd has got me thinking...
Many universities now run their own research paper repository - Open Research Online in the case of the OU.
But as far as I know, these are all independently hosted - and I don't think there is a federated search across them (?or maybe there is?)
So why don't JISC get it together to provide a Scribd sort of service for the HE community?
Hmm - they do, sort of, don't they, at least for teaching resources: Jorum:
Jorum is a free online repository service for teaching and support staff in UK Further and Higher Education Institutions, helping to build a community for the sharing, reuse and repurposing of learning and teaching materials.
I'm not sure how widely it's used - certainly I've never used it (but maybe I should...).
And I'm pretty sure that OpenLearn, for example, blanks it completely... (and vice versa).
The problem is, there are just soooooooooooo many places to share content now. And I'm not sure what the solution is? Maybe it's that I keep all my stuff where I want it, and then share it into the communities I want to, and let search engines/harvesters pull it into other communities where it's relevant (maybe letting me know when they do, and giving me the option of stopping them).
Anyway, I think I've worked out what PLEs are - they're the set of web services we each use for our own purposes; and they're personal because the combination we use is unique to each of us (oh, you use Google docs do you - I use Zoho; GTalk? I'm on MSN; flickr? no, Photobucket; Typepad? Wordpress...)
PS personally, I've started to experiment with Stringling ad hoc environments together...
Posted by ajh59 at March 26, 2007 02:27 PMQuick note from SlideShare to say that your post really got me thinking about this new era of document sharing and where it is headed to.
Your comment about federated search made me think - you could create a custom Google search engine that searches across different sites. Might be useful for a lot of people.
As a note, we at SlideShare are listening to thoughts about open repositories etc. as we think about future directions.
Do drop me a line if you ever have any thoughts/suggestions for SlideShare.
rashmi
the slideshare team
(rashmi AT slideshare DOT NET)