Using Social Software on Campus

This is the on-line discussion for the article: Social Networking Technologies: A Poke for Campus Services.We want to hear your views on issues such as:

Shifting of old habits to the new way of work. How do you find the time? What works for you? What did you try and it didn't work? Why? Old Habits
Change in the design of services from highly designed to being more collaboratively designed. New useful services popping up all over the internet. How to you decide which ones to pursue.
What about misconduct? How is this isolated in the enterprise? How are you managing risk?
Should administrators use these tools to "police" their students like watching Facebook?
How could these tools be used to work together on hot topics like the RIAA's initiatives?
The students view this as their turf. What happens as we begin to encroach on their space? How do we communicate our activities and interests?
What does privacy mean now?

Thank you taking the time to add to the discussion. This is new activity for some of us and feels like a risky adventure. We hope that the process and the interactions are fruitful. Watch this space for changes and new entries. As this grows, we will make pages for focused discussions.If you are member of EDUCAUSE and you log in, you can add your comments below.

Starting with a base of "if it ain't broke...." I began reading "Social Networking Technologies: A "Poke" for Campus Services, forthcoming in Educause Review, trying to figure out what problem the authors were trying to solve. In the middle of the piece there is a paragraph that begins:

"We found that the offices responsible for these traditionally somewhat disparate functions (registration, course management, academic calendar, FERPA, safety, and advising) have not regularly collaborated to provide a coordinated continuum of services."

Well, that's a problem. We all have it. Does Social Networking fix it? Does having these service providers use Social Networks for communication help or exacerbate the problem?

Lanny ArvanI looked upon Facebook, MySpace and the like with much skepticism over the last few years. I just didn't see them as being that different from other "social" networking technologies like listservs, bulletin boards, etc. However, I kept reading articles written by parents who have kids that used these social networks and, being the father of a nine year old girl myself, I decided to create accounts in these "worlds" and explore them. At first I felt like a voyeur and somewhat embarrassed. But after making some friends (with younger people I already knew) and observing how they interact with one another I sensed that something very different is going on here. Something I think is very powerful. I admit that I am still skeptical, but I think it is very hard to understand this unless you do it. I encourage all who want to know more to simply create a page and make some friends. Jim Rible

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