The Evolution of Expertise (or, "The reports of authority's death have been g...

Google Tech Talks November, 2 2007 ABSTRACT Does Web 2.0 represent a triumph of the wisdom of crowds, or the tyranny of mediocrity? The truth--as truths often do--may fall somewhere in the middle. New tools have indeed allowed access to new ideas, voices, and expertise. But at the same time, it has become increasingly difficult to sort the wheat from the chaff. In education, the shift from "the sage on the stage" to the "guide on the side" has been underway for quite some time. The same shift is happening on the web. Experts aren't disappearing, but their roles are changing. How can tools and infrastructure best support this shift in the role of expertise and authority? Speaker: Elizabeth Lane Lawley Elizabeth Lane Lawley is the director of the Lab for Social Computing at the Rochester Institute of Technology, where she is also an associate professor of Information Technology. Her current teaching and research interests focus on social computing technologies such as weblogs, wikis, online games, lightweight online presence, and collaborative information retrieval. Before she became a technology professor, Liz was a librarian--with an MLS from the University of Michigan, and a PhD in Library and Information Science from the University of Alabama. She has worked for publishing companies, software companies, and even the Library of Congre...