Documents Contributed by ECAR, Web 2.0, and Research Studies

Adoption and usage data regarding social networking trends by consumers has convinced many business and IT leadership teams that social network sites, and their technological underpinnings, can be viewed as viable usage models to satisfy the communication, information sharing, and collaboration needs of the enterprise. In addition, strategists believe that the technology that supports such sites should be considered a credible technological model to help guide internal deployments. Higher education institutions should be careful, however, that they don't blindly adopt solutions simply because they are popular at the moment. Strategists unfamiliar with the field of social networks beyond its technological aspects should pay attention to issues such as:

• How culture influences awareness of, and engagement in, social networks
• How social networks can be structured in different ways with, or without, technology as a mediation method
• How relationship dynamics influence participation (e.g., politics)

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Web 2.0 applications, especially client-side processing, Extensible Markup Language (XML) syndication, mashups and shared content, and social networking, bring unique vulnerabilities to our institutional environments. This Burton study clarifies the attack objectives and techniques that must be specifically defended against as risks increase, as well as the role of application security in the risk management process.

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