Educause's Matt Pasiewicz has created a great visualisation of text from university home pages, using the popular webapp Wordle. What can we learn from it about the nature of the modern university? For me, one thing stands out: the single word 'Campus'. It's huge! (In descending size, the most visually prominent words in the visualisation appear to be: Students, University, College, Campus). At a time when virtual worlds are widely promoted and discussed within the educational technology community and more widely, I think the persistence of the physical and tangible within social experience is worth acknowledging. Even if we interpret university websites as propagating a particular type of 'marketing-speak' -- as telling a particular (and partial) story about the nature of the university experience, aimed at potential educational 'consumers' -- is it worth asking, what do we understand by the term 'campus', whether physical or virtual, and how does that understanding sit in relation to our concepts of 'community' and 'culture'?
