News and Tips for Higher Ed Pros

I’ve taken some time this afternoon to set up something that is going to simplify your life if you’re actively looking for a new position in higher ed or just want to make sure you won’t miss your dream job one day.

As you might know, I launched in early July a free job board, www.higheredexperts.com/work, just for you (well, thousands of you, my dear readers, but still for you ;-)

This is a free service I wanted to provide to the higher ed community as it has given me so much over the past few years.

Since things have started to pick up with a few ads posted every week or so, I think it’s time to promote it more widely to job seekers, which is why I’ve been doing some tinkering this afternoon to offer several ways for you to receive the new job postings depending on your style and needs:

• Want to know about the latest postings within the hour they are posted on the job board?
  Follow @higheredexperts on Twitter. Thanks to twitterfeed (and Brad Ward’s tip), this is totally automated.
• Want to browse all the job listings in your favorite RSS reader?
  Subscribe to the RSS feed powered by Feedburner and you won’t miss a bit.
• You’re more an email-kind of person?
  No problem. You can subscribe to daily (that is only if something has been posted) updates thanks to Feedburner. The email message is usually sent before 9AM ET.
• You just want to be able to see the latest job ads by checking out your favorite blog?
  Well, in this case, there are 2 possibilities, right?
  • THIS blog is your favorite blog.
    Just check out the sidebar on the blog and you’ll see the 5 latest postings
  

  • You are a blogger yourself (which is the only reason why this one wouldn’t be your favorite, right ;-) and you want to check the latest jobs on YOUR blog.
    Just email me at karine@collegewebeditor.com and I’ll share the HTML/Javascript code of the widget powered by Feedburner (did I mention I love Feedburner?) I used on my sidebar.

I hope you’ll find in all these options something that works for you.

Now, can I ask you a favor to help me make the Higher Ed Experts’ job board a success?

Take 2 minutes today to tell your institution’s hiring managers or HR department about it, share its web address: www.higheredexperts.com/work on your favorite email listservs (well, check first that nobody has already done it) or even blog about it.

It’s free to post jobs, and - as you know now - easy to subscribe to receive updates.

Thanks for your help!

I’ve just (I know, I know, I’m late here but my Web browsing time has been dramatically cut over the past few weeks) found out about David Baker’s really good blog: Big Glorious Mess, and I think I’ve just fallen in love with his blogging.

It’s smart, thoughtful and very well-written, so you should definitely check it out and add it to your regular reads.

BigGloriousMess

David Baker - whom I don’t know, I’ve never met and haven’t probably even exchanged an email with - used to work at the University of Missouri and is now the Director of Web Communications at Oregon State University.

I had to share this blog with you, so go read it now!

That’s what I’ve learned this morning by reading “Emergency Alerts via Facebook and MySpace Are New Ways to Reach Students,” an article written by Jeffrey Young from the Chronicle of Higher Education.

A group of researchers at the [University of Maryland at College Park] is also working to build a prototype of a homemade social network for the university’s Web site designed for use in emergency situations. The project is an outgrowth of work by Ben Shneiderman, a professor of computer science at the university, and Jennifer J. Preece, dean of the university’s College of Information Studies. They published an article in Science last year proposing that local governments develop social networks to supplement 911 emergency hotlines.

Mr. Shneiderman said he got the idea after typing “911″ into Google and getting no useful results. “I said, “Something is wrong here—I think of the Web as my source of communication.”

Now a graduate student at Maryland, Philip Fei Wu, is building a prototype for university use. “We hope to create a platform to allow students to communicate, to exchange ideas, to comment on ideas” in an emergency, Mr. Wu said in an interview.

As I said in the comment I posted on Wired Campus, the Chronicle’s blog, I don’t think a social networking website designed to be used just for emergencies can do the job.

It makes sense to incorporate the features in the daily activities of its potential users, but they won’t probably remember to log in if something happens.

What do YOU think?

That’s a pretty innovative way to deal with the put-me-on-the-homepage syndrome all higher ed web designers have to face when it’s time to redesign a university/college website.

No fighting to find out which links to put there? Just go with what the web users want!
Beautiful, don’t you think so?

The new redesign is available as a preview and will go live on September 15.
OSU web team has invited comments on its redesign blog (as it did back in 2005 - geez, do I sound like the higher ed blogger grand’ma when I say that) from the campus community and some of them are pretty harsh.

The new design requires a lot of scrolling down, which is a different take from what’s out there.

Not sure, if it was the right design decision though, as I didn’t even think about scrolling down and discovered the page was longer only once I took the screen shot.

It’s definitely a big change compared to the current design:

These past few weeks, I’ve seen many questions around branded YouTube channels (via the non-profit or the partner program) as well as the frustration building up in the higher community around the lack of transparency surrounding YouTube’s decision to decline either status to some institutions.

YouTube - Partner Program

I’ve been thinking about writing an upcoming column for University Business about this topic for a couple of months now.

I’ve tried to get in touch with YouTube’s media relations service (following the advice of Morgan Magilligan from Google PR department by emailing — via my Gmail account — press@youtube.com) without avail since last week.

So, when I saw today, on the u-webd listserv, that a member of the community posted the thoughtful and clear reply he received from YouTube, thus providing the most probable reason why so many applications have been declined by YouTube lately, I had to share it with all of you:

Thank you for your interest in the YouTube Partner Program. Our goal is to extend invitations to as many partners as we can. Unfortunately we are unable to accept your application at this time. The current level of viewership of your account has not met our threshold for acceptance.

Applications are reviewed for a variety of criteria, including but not limited to the size of your audience, country of residence, quality of content, and consistency with our Community Guidelines and Terms of Use. Please review the program qualifications (http://www.youtube.com/partners) for a complete list of our criteria.

As explained above, you got to have something pretty strong already going on with your YouTube channel to get upgraded to the branded model.

Here’s why Mike Richwalsky from Allegheny College can help you get closer to that goal (or host and promote your videos without YouTube) with the webinar he will present on September 24:

Beyond YouTube: How to host and promote your online videos on the Web
Don’t know where to host your online videos? Tried to get a branded YouTube channel for your institution without avail? Mike Richwalsky, Assistant Director of Public Affairs at Allegheny College, will provide an overview of the available options including the different types of YouTube channels, affordable and scalable cloud hosting, Facebook, Vimeo, etc. He will also share tips and best practices to promote and track the success of your videos on the Web.

This 1-hour webinar costs only $120, but places are limited.
Registration is open until September 15 at www.higheredexperts.com/beyondyoutube

If you have any questions, just email karine@higheredexperts.com

The University of Bath Web Services team didn’t expressively request any help, but if any higher ed web developer can provide some tips, it looks like it would be more than welcome as Phil Wilson hints in this blog post:

So, two days in, and dealing with FBML, the Facebook API and the low quality of the documentation has felt very much like playing a Grand Master at chess, only he won’t tell you the rules.

None of this is to say that we haven’t made progress of course (because we have!), but it has meant we’ve had to revise our initial plans to take account of what we’re finding possible to do within a week.

Something very interesting is going on this week for the members of this web services team as they are working on building Flat Out, a new Facebook application for the students of this university based in the UK as part of a 5-day-long team building initiative called “Get Creative” under Alison Wildish’s lead:

So last month I announced “Get Creative”. A week long project to work on as a team. A project that we would decide, scope and deliver together.

The aim being to break away from the norm, to establish new ways in which we could work together and to create something cool.

You can follow (as I have been since the beginning of this week) their progress via Twitter. That might be the best way to offer some help, links or tips as well by twittering @getcreativeweek.

I’m officially back from my trip to Europe. I flew back yesterday and can confirm that it can take less time to come back from France than from Atlantic City (haven’t attended the eduweb conference in AC last month or heard about the journey back home for attendees? Check out this blog post to understand).

Anyway, while I’m trying to catch up with everything after almost 4 weeks without quality time at my office, I thought I would point you to a great article about/for blogging university presidents published this month in University Affairs: “Presidents who blog.”

The author of this piece, Daniel McCabe, is the editor of the alum magazine of McGill University: McGill News.

I was interviewed for this piece along with several Canadian university presidents and Bob Johnson.

In his piece, McCabe lists 5 6 tips for university presidents interested in starting a blog:

1) Be strategic: “The first thing you need to do is to sit down and write out the things you want to accomplish with your blog,” advises Ms. Joly. “Think about the kind of audience you hope to attract and write your blog for them.”

2) Be brief: Long-winded expositions and run-on sentences don’t cut it online. “Some blogs could do a better job of being web-friendly,” says Bob Johnson, a marketing consultant who advises universities on how to operate online. “Long blocks of dense text with no subheads or bullet points to scan aren’t going to be read by as many people as blogs that have short paragraphs.”

3) Be punctual: A typical mistake made by bloggers, says Mr. Johnson, is “leaving long gaps between posts.” Readers quickly lose interest if a blog offers no new content for weeks on end. While you don’t need to update it every single day, readers should have a clear sense of how often you will be posting. And once you’ve made that commitment – be it once a week or twice a month – stick to it.

4) Be informal: Adopt a conversational tone, be straightforward and avoid jargon. Steer clear of “CEO-speak” – words like “synergy” – that people rarely use in everyday conversation.

5) Be open to responses: A blog is a two-way communications tool, notes Ms. Joly. Readers should be able to post responses to what you are writing. Comments make for a more vibrant blog and allow the blogger to take the pulse of the community on certain issues: “It can be like a town hall.” But she advises not to allow comments to be posted automatically. Before posting them, make sure the comments relate to topics under discussion and don’t contain libelous statements.

6) Be interesting: Nobody has to read your blog if they don’t want to, so why should they? What is it about your job that you find compelling? Who are the most intriguing people you get to meet? Write about them and not about yesterday’s press conference that you yourself found awfully dull.

Do you think presidents should blog? Have you come across a really good blog written by a university/college president? Tell us by posting a comment!

As promised in one of my latest posts, blogging has been very light lately. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in full mode soon.

In the meantime, you might want to have a look at a feature-long article I wrote for the August issue of University Business about email outsourcing: E-mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and Beyond.

And, if your institution went that road, I’d like to hear from you about the whole “email outsourcing” experience.

Do you think this is as good as it sounds in my UB article?

Tell us by posting a comment!

I know, I know, the Olympics haven’t even officially started yet, so my post title is somehow misleading.

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself ;-)

However, UCLA does stand a good chance of winning the gold medal in blogging.

After 5 days spent offline on a very windy beach (I’m not playing the diva here, the weather was really chilly), I’ve just found a very interesting email from Kevin Roderick, Director of UCLA newsroom in my inbox.

In his note, Kevin introduced the latest initiative of his office (I did blog in the past about one of their YouTube videos): Bruins in Beijing, a group blog written by UCLA providing an insider view about the Olympic Games.

It’s from our athletes and coaches at the Olympics in Beijing (UCLA has 38 there, including alumni.) The bloggers are encouraged to give people at home an inside view of the scene in China; we’ll also use it to report news related to UCLA’s presence in Beijing. We’ll be accepting comments unmoderated.

This blog looks like a great way to add some interesting insights to the worldwide online conversation about the Olympics while engaging the UCLA community at large.

Very smart thinking, don’t you think so?

I’m late to the party for final thoughts about the eduWeb conference, because I’ve just made it back home. Technically, I could have driven back home yesterday, but just chose to meet with family and have some fun after a 2-day long journey from Atlantic City.

For those of you who didn’t follow me on Twitter, after my keynote speech in Atlantic City Wednesday, I had the pleasure to spend 5 hours on the tarmac at Philly (but I guess with the amount of rain and wind shaking up the plane on the ground, it was better than being in the sky), to take 2 cab rides with my new friends Kaitlin and Angela to our far far away hotel, spend more than 8 hours yesterday in a rental car out of those I took the wheel for about 3 hours under some really heavy thunderstorms (think buckets of water thrown at your windshield consistently).

If you didn’t get a chance to watch the live streaming version of my keynote and you don’t mind the low quality video and audio, look at the recorded version (be patient, it takes about 12/13 minutes before it really starts as there was a drawing for prizes).

I’ve also uploaded my slides to Slideshare, so you can get an idea of my presentation.

Mark Greenfield and I will also be recording webinar versions of our talk as well (available early next week) so people who didn’t get to stay (or come) will be able to get most out of the keynotes.

As my fellow higher ed bloggers and twitterers have already said, this conference has been an amazing experience. I feel very lucky to be part of the higher ed community. I have big plans for the future and hope this will help this group thrive even more.

If you want to find a great round up of all the content produced at eduWeb 2008, here are some useful links (many have already shared most of those, but just in case you’re not one of their readers yet)

• “eduWeb 2008 in 140 words” series (17 posts written by speakers who all shared the main take away of their presentation)
• All of eduWeb 2008 (aggregation of most content produced at the conference, courtesy of Matt Herzberger)
• eduWeb 2008 on Twitter

I’m flying to Europe tomorrow for business and pleasure, so there might be some very light blogging in the following weeks. You’re still invited to share your secrets behind your successful community or social initiative by posting a comment or a video reply