3rd Post, Week 5

My experience with NINES is an ongoing learning experience-every time something new comes out of. Before I address my learning experience, though, I’d like to retell my initial encounter with NINES, because it was somehow funny, but productive. As we were supposed to, I created an account first, before browsing anything else in the website. Then, I started exploring around. The first thing that caught my eyes was the search bar in the middle of the page. I always like the scholarly websites that place much emphasis on the search option and present it up front in the middle of the page, not as a minor option on the sides or corners. Placing the search option in the middle of the page has always fascinated me since I think it sends the message that we have the information for you, and all you have to do is research it. In addition, through this option, one can go everywhere in the website, depending upon the nature of the search. Other options featured in the home page are also search-based options, which in my opinion has contributed to the grand idea of research importance within scholarly websites . For example, the “Recent Tags,” the “Publications” and the “Community” options, all take you to places that take you to another places and so on.

After going through the featured options on the homepage in less than a minute, I went to “My9s” to see what in there. I really liked the sorting and the organizing of the page. The options on the right side, which includes “My Tags,” “My Discussions” and “My Groups,” provide what I like to call the right way of approaching information as well as archiving it. Yet, there are few things that I did not understand at first, such as “Collect,” “Exhibit,” and “My Objects,” so I kept browsing and exploring.

Before I reflect upon my browsing and exploring of NINES, I should talk about an important detail that I am leaving out, which is “What is NINES?” After I created an account and sat down to study this magnificent website, I decided to look first (as I usually do) at the “About Us” option or “Who We Are?” or in our case, “What is?” option. Simply, I couldn’t find it. I went back to the home page and other pages, such as “Publications” and “Community,” but still could not find it. I started wondering why a huge interesting website such as NINIES does not have such a page, which presumably would make it easier for the reader/user to navigate around with few info or hints in mind. I could not find an answer, so I discarded this question and kept browsing and exploring the main features of NINES, which took me a while, until I started looking at the “NEWS” option. Right there, under the main tag of the page, I saw the “What is NINES?” option. I was so thrilled to see it since it has all the info and the background on what on NINES and how to navigate it. This simply was a great discovery for me, but it came somehow late, because by then, I’ve already learned a lot about the website’s features and options. It was kind of trial and error experience for me with navigating around NINES before actually going over the “What is NINES?” page. So, I started wondering, again, about why in the world they did not place this option somewhere in the home page, or any other pages for that matter. Then I went back and viewed all the pages again, and to my amazement and puzzlement, every single page I’ve already browsed many times has the “What is NINES?” feature on the right top corner of the page!!!!

In my opinion, everything that is described on the “What is NINES?” page is magnificent. The explanation of the software tools that the website takes the credit for programming is really clear and I think it adds a great comfort to the scholarly research. Furthermore, the peer review feature, which NINES emphasizes on a great deal adds to the credibility of the website. However, in terms of the goals that the website sets for itself to achieve, I do not think it succeeded in doing that. The website has really interesting features and pages, especially with regard to “Community” and “Classroom,” but not a lot of people seem to visit those pages. For instance, under “Publication,” there are only three journals, two of which have less than 10 members, which in my opinion contradicts some of the goals that the website sets for itself. The homepage itself features the “Federated Websites,” which have nothing to do with NINES, and which also occupy almost half of the space of the page. I still cannot deny that some of the featured websites are really interesting too.

On the other hand, the “Classroom” feature offers really interesting options. Members of any given class can be virtually linked to one another at all times. Discussing and exchanging scholarly works that usually dominate classrooms will always be present and available for all. NINES in this context functions as a social network that brings scholars and students together with the addition of aggregation, of course. With this last remark I think NINES is remarkable somehow and I expect to see more of it in the future.