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Video summarisation is one of the most active fields in content‐based video retrieval research. A new video summarisation scheme is proposed by this paper based on socially generated temporal tags.

To capture users' collaborative tagging activities the proposed scheme maintains video bookmarks, which contain some temporal or positional information about videos, such as relative time codes or byte offsets. For each video all the video bookmarks collected from users are then statistically analysed in order to extract some meaningful key frames (the video equivalent of keywords), which collectively constitute the summary of the video.

Compared with traditional video summarisation methods that use low‐level audio‐visual features, the proposed method is based on users' high‐level collaborative activities, and thus can produce semantically more important summaries than existing methods.

It is assumed that the video frames around the bookmarks inserted by users are informative and representative, and therefore can be used as good sources for summarising videos.

Folksonomy, commonly called collaborative tagging, is a Web 2.0 method for users to freely annotate shared information resources with keywords. It has mostly been used for collaboratively tagging photos (Flickr), web site bookmarks (Del.icio.us), or blog posts (Technorati), but has never been applied to the field of automatic video summarisation. It is believed that this is the first attempt to utilise users' high‐level collaborative tagging activities, instead of low‐level audio‐visual features, for video summarisation.

This chapter focuses on how social media tools can be used to enhance collaboration in higher education and the benefits and challenges that this can bring. We investigate how two social media tools, social bookmarking, and microblogging, can be utilized to foster collaboration and determine why this is important in contemporary higher education. Case studies of social media use at Bournemouth University show how social bookmarking and microblogging have already yielded benefits.The case studies are grounded in the challenges facing higher education in 2010. We explore how social media has been used in the context of a need to enhance academic excellence and drive efficiencies in the face of funding constraints and changing demographics.

The case studies illustrate, first, how social bookmarking has been used to foster group cohesion, reflective practice, and evaluative skills in students, as well as being used at an institutional level to drive professional and administrative efficiencies; and second, how microblogging has made a difference in promoting reflective learning, group cohesion, and professional awareness in students and how this style of social networking has contributed to enhancing academic and professional networks.

Whilst the tools, uses, and stakeholders vary, the case studies show how social media has enabled collaboration between, students, academics, librarians, learning technologists, and even professional groups beyond the institution. We conclude that, when used appropriately, social media can facilitate the collaboration that will be essential to overcome the challenges facing higher education.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a comparative and analytical examination of ten social tagging systems' interfaces and their features and functionalities. The specific objective of the study was to examine the ways in which the user interfaces of social tagging systems encourage and provide users with features to assign, explore, browse and make use of tags during their interaction with social tagging sites.

The user interface features and functionalities of ten social tagging sites (six social bookmarking and four social media sharing sites) are examined. A categorisation of tag‐related features is developed for analysis. The sites are selected based on such criteria as popularity, variety of site type, and inclusion of tagging features and content type.

The findings of this study show that there is an emerging interface design paradigm with respect to social tagging sites that reflects a particular focus on exploratory search and browsing features and services. Some of the key areas discussed are: user tagging features; exploratory and tag browsing features; and interface layout.

The findings of this study of the user interface features of social tagging sites provide a comprehensive picture of the possible and potential features that can be incorporated into new social tagging systems. Based on the evidence found in the examined social tagging interfaces, recommendations are made on the design of tag posting, tag use, tag browsing, tag lists and tag clouds. The design recommendations offer ideas for the development of more sophisticated exploratory and interactive user interfaces for social tagging systems.

This is the first paper that reports on a comparative and exploratory examination of social tagging user interface features and functionalities.

The aim of this study is to provide a theoretical extension to the private‐collective model of information sharing along with an empirical test with users of a social bookmarking website.

The paper includes a survey of 112 users of an actual bookmarking site recruited through an online research panel firm. The survey consisted of scales adapted from the literature as well as scales developed by the authors.

The results indicate that contributions to a social bookmarking site are a combination of intentional and unintentional contributions. A significant predictor of intentional public contributions of bookmarks is an egoistic motivation to see one as competent by contributing valuable information. However, there is also a significant but negative relationship between altruism and public contribution whereby users concerned with the needs of others limit their public contributions.

The sample consists of users of a particular social bookmarking site (Yahoo!'s MyWeb). Therefore, the results may not be generalizable to other social bookmarking websites, different types of social networks, or other contexts lacking the public/private option for contributions. Second, since the data comes from a cross‐sectional survey, as opposed to a longitudinal study, the causal relations posited in the model and substantiated with the statistical analyses can only be inferred based on the authors’ theoretical development. Third, although the size of the sample (112 respondents) is appropriate for PLS analysis it may have been insufficient to detect other significant relationships.

Administrators of social bookmarking sites should incorporate incentive and feedback mechanisms to inform contributors whether they contributions have been used (for example, with times viewed) and/or deemed useful (with numeric or qualitative ratings).

The results suggest that both selfish motivations associated with the need to feel competent (egoism), as well as selfless concerns for the needs of other users (altruism) drive intentional contributions to the public repository in social bookmarking systems. These two counterbalancing forces indicate that a mix of egoism and altruism is crucial for the long‐term sustainability of social web sites based on information sharing.

This study provides theoretical explanations and empirical evidence of egoism and altruism as significant explanations for cooperation in private‐collective models, such as the ones represented by social bookmarking systems.

The purpose of this paper is to describe how researchers from four large Canadian distance education or dual mode institutions conducted a survey aiming to describe the use of and interest in social software and Web 2.0 applications by distance education students and to measure their interest in collaborating with peers.

In order to do this, an online questionnaire was distributed to students from four large Canadian distance education institutions. A systematic sampling procedure led to 3,462 completed questionnaires. The results show that students have diverse views and experiences, but they also show strong and significant age and gender differences in a variety of measures, as well as an important institution effect for interest in collaboration.

Males and younger students score higher on almost all indicators, including cooperative preferences. In this paper the authors review quantitative results from the survey from earlier work (Poellhuber et al.) and present an analysis of the qualitative data gathered from open‐ended questions in the survey. Answers to open‐ended questions regarding the expectation and interest in using social software in their courses, show that students have positive expectations about interactions and course quality, but also concerns about technical, time, and efficiency issues.

The probabilist sampling, as well as the high number of respondents, are forces. The limits of the research are linked to its survey methodology, possible self‐selection bias, history effect and social desirability effect.

The study opens avenues to those who consider the integration of social software or Web 2.0 tools in distance courses.

It also offers guidance to those who consider using social software for learning purposes in general.

While social media and social networking tools offer new educational affordances and avenues for students to interact, that may alleviate the drop‐out rate problem faced by distance education institutions. Little is known about distance students' expertise with social media or their interest in using them to learn individually or to collaborate with peers.

Social media have been a powerful source of social and cultural change in the past few years, reframing the ways in which we communicate, interact with information, and build knowledge. In a higher education context, they have had a significant impact in breaking down the walls of traditional classrooms and closed online environments (LMSs). By combining formal and informal contexts and interactions, and enabling the dialog with wider audiences, they bring affordances such as transparency, real-life communication, meaningful tasks, and conversations, which result in a stronger engagement on the part of the students and a better, more diversified learning experience.

In this chapter, I describe the ways in which social media were used in an online master's degree on e-Learning Pedagogy, at Universidade Aberta, Portugal, in an effort to move toward the networked class. Tools and services used include Twitter, Facebook, Delicious and Diigo, blogs, wikis, and Second Life, among many others that students have been using to perform their tasks and publish their work.

The purpose of this paper was to assess the Web 2.0 competencies’ levels of academic librarians in selected libraries from two library consortia KLISC in Kenya and GAELIC in South Africa and how these competencies can be sources of empowerment for the effective provision of e-services. As service organizations, academic libraries face challenges similar to those in other service sectors. One of the major challenges includes that of providing not only quality print resources but also quality e-services. Globally, academic librarians use various Web 2.0 technologies to engage with their library users and colleagues and for their information work. Academic librarians are now, more than ever, expected to be empowered and build diverse voices, perspectives and arguments into library collections and services. Most of the youths (academic library users) in developing countries like Kenya and South Africa are heavy users of Web 2.0 technologies. This presents a challenge for their academic librarians who must augment their traditional library skills with Web 2.0 technologies for provision of effective e-services. This study explores the interconnections between librarian empowerment, traditional librarian skills and Web 2.0 competencies for effective e-services.

Survey method of research was used to conduct the study. Purposive sampling was used to select a homogeneous sample of academic librarians and libraries that use the Web 2.0 technologies. An online questionnaire with both closed and open-ended questions was used to collect data. The Web 2.0 competency levels were analyzed and presented using descriptive statistics. To achieve more robust findings and to illustrate the implications of Web 2.0 for librarian empowerment, the ATLAS. ti software was used to illustrate interconnections between librarian empowerment, traditional librarian skills and Web 2.0 technologies. The emerging codes and themes are presented in three network views.

The findings from the quantitative data indicate that the majority of the librarians have intermediate competency levels in Web 2.0 technologies. The findings from the qualitative data show that Web 2.0 tools and librarian empowerment can be used to illustrate interconnections in content collaboration tools, bookmarking tools and SNSs. Web 2.0 competencies can transform knowledge-sharing activities, augment existing authoritative information service, foster interaction and market information products and services. This study redefines librarian empowerment through competency in Web 2.0 tools and new roles for effective e-services.

This paper proposes that librarian empowerment through Web 2.0 competencies is essential in augmenting traditional library skills and in providing effective e-services. This manuscript describes original work and is a re-submission EL-08-2015-0143.R1 due to expired deadline in this journal. Both authors approved the manuscript and this submission.

This paper aims to describe librarians’ efforts in reaching out to international students through vernacular language videos at both the University of Colorado Boulder and the University of Oregon. The videos were created to help international students familiarize themselves with the new library environment and to stimulate their interest in the future exploration of library resources and services.

This paper discusses the challenges of providing effective support to international students in the early stages of their academic life in the USA, explains the rationale for using vernacular language videos as a means of outreach to international students, outlines the factors considered in designing the videos that helped achieve the outreach goals and reviews promotion needs and assessment methods for evaluating the effectiveness of the videos.

Using online videos in native languages as a means to extend the reach of the libraries to international students is seen as useful and practical. Feedback from students and library colleagues shows positive reaction to the videos and provides encouragement for further outreach efforts to international students.

The strategies and experiences detailed here are easily adaptable to other institutions of higher education committed to developing outreach programs for international students.

The novelty of this case study is the librarians’ sophisticated thinking in developing vernacular language videos as a means of outreach to international students. The video project presented in the paper can function as an inspiring example for institutions preparing for the expected large influx of international students.

The purpose of this paper is to review the key components of the introduction of a new resource list management system (RLMS) at Nottingham Trent University (NTU) using the Aspire application from Talis Education. It explains the key service goals; the implementation milestones; the main technical challenges which needed to be addressed; and the dynamic relationship between the rollout of the RLMS and existing selection, acquisition and resource delivery processes.

This evidence in this paper is drawn from the experiences of the NTU RLMS project group, which involved colleagues from Libraries and Learning Resources, Information Systems and the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) teams at the university. It draws on both qualitative evaluations and quantitative assessments of adoption and use by academics, students and library staff; and the internal mechanisms of project review.

This paper concludes that the successful technical implementation of a cloud-based mission-critical service for academics and students depends on a successful collaboration between library, VLE and technical teams; and reaffirms that a hosted RLMS service still requires the deployment of local technical expertise. It is essential (although not always straightforward) to try to anticipate the impact that the introduction of a new RLMS will have on existing processes (inside the library and without). Ultimately, however, the successful implementation of an RLMS is dependent on securing its adoption by both academics and students; not least by ensuring that the application meets their needs. Although it is not a technical prerequisite, the prospect of a successful implementation of an RLMS is greatly improved when working with the grain of a supportive institutional policy environment.

Interest in “next-generation” resource list systems which can address the needs of students, academics and library services is likely to increase sharply in the next few years, as library services seek to align both resource spend and resource discovery more closely than ever with the student experience around “directed reading”. The experiences of an “early adopter” implementer of an RLMS highlight some of the key prerequisites and significant operational decisions, and provide a number of insights for those about to embark on a similar implementation process.