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Published online 24 August 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.857
News: Q&A
The science of Google Wave
How an online application could change research communication.
Web-savvy scientists gathered at the Science Online London.
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I signed up to get news about Google Wave as soon as it becomes available. I'd like to use it with young people in school.
If they're at the playing stage, how about Google letting some youngsters jump in on Wave, and inform us all about possibilities that may not have been discovered. We can learn so much that way!
As with all things on the Internet, what about issues of security, privacy, and the potential for data mining without the author(s) knowledge?
Is anyone considering how to adapt this tool for teaching college and pre-college kids?
Collaboration Support and Context: future directions shown by Google Wave and Colayer
_Blog by Barry Hardy, Douglas Connect _
Colayer is collaboration and communication software with concepts similar to google wave.
To try out colayer visit http://colayer.com
To know more about colayer and google wave
Connie, Bill I would imagine there are people thinking about using Wave as an educational tool but I'm not sure who they are. The public release as I understand it will be 30 September so if you signed up early on there is a good chance that you will get an account then. But I think the potential for use as an educational tool is similar to that for science recording – conversation and discussion – also particularly for remote teaching, because all participants are seeing exactly the same thing for instance you can have a common drawing or writing space or really "show" someone what you are talking about.
Douglas, the way that Waves are held on the server means that you've got reasonable control over who can see them. Only participants should be able to access them. In addition it is possible to hold private conversations inside a wave that only a subset of people can see. Once the system moves to a federated system these private conversations could actually be retained on your own server so they would never leave your institution/company, even if the rest of the Wave is held elsewhere.
That said, there is a clear potential for malicious Robots or people to pull data out and spread it around or add other participants outside of your control. Wave is fundamentally designed to enable communication so where things need to be seriously locked down it probably won't be appropriate, unless you have a completely private server. But you do at least know who did what and when so if someone breaches an agreement you have the record that shows that. So where security is a concern there will be some added benefits, but also some new potential problems. Like any technology really.
Connie, Bill I would imagine there are people thinking about using Wave as an educational tool but I'm not sure who they are. The public release as I understand it will be 30 September so if you signed up early on there is a good chance that you will get an account then. But I think the potential for use as an educational tool is similar to that for science recording – conversation and discussion – also particularly for remote teaching, because all participants are seeing exactly the same thing for instance you can have a common drawing or writing space or really "show" someone what you are talking about.
Douglas, the way that Waves are held on the server means that you've got reasonable control over who can see them. Only participants should be able to access them. In addition it is possible to hold private conversations inside a wave that only a subset of people can see. Once the system moves to a federated system these private conversations could actually be retained on your own server so they would never leave your institution/company, even if the rest of the Wave is held elsewhere.
That said, there is a clear potential for malicious Robots or people to pull data out and spread it around or add other participants outside of your control. Wave is fundamentally designed to enable communication so where things need to be seriously locked down it probably won't be appropriate, unless you have a completely private server. But you do at least know who did what and when so if someone breaches an agreement you have the record that shows that. So where security is a concern there will be some added benefits, but also some new potential problems. Like any technology really.
With respect to proprietary information, clearly organizations will have to stand up their own servers for internal collaboration. These servers will be on their intranet or DMZ so will be protected in the same way other web content is protected. As for the safety of your data – check the SLA. I'm guessing Google makes no promises, but they're generally reliable. If you need more than that, then private server with offsite backups and the rest.Someone data mining your stuff? They probably already are if your computer isn't patched and is on the internet!
I think that the important idea to take from Wave (as highlighted by the original post), is the potential for enhanced communication. The possibilities for discussion and opening up information are only getting better, and Wave is the next generation of communication. Only it happens on a much deeper and richer level than email or any other single protocol can deliver.
The concerns about securing information and protecting intellectual property seem absurd in a world where content is opening up and information is almost universally available. Copyright is dead and so is privacy. The days of measuring academic credibility through journal publications are rapidly fading away. The only way to survive as an academic is to put as much of your work out there as possible, and let the world review it.