3 questions to a higher ed blogger: Robert French from Auburn Media, Infopinions & PR Quest

Robert French teaches Public Relations at Auburn University. He’s the avid blogger behind Auburn Media & Infopinions, and the talented podcaster at PR Quest. In his undergraduate classes, he uses blogs, wikis, podcasts and RSS as academic tools. Despite his busy schedule, Robert has accepted to answer three questions, kicking off the first interview of this new series with higher ed bloggers.

1) How familiar are your students — all members of the so-called “Net Generation” — with these new technologies at the beginning of the semester?

Each semester, I imagine only 10 to 20 percent of my students already have a personal blog. Most of those have LiveJournal, MySpace or Blogger accounts. For the rest, blogs are a new adventure. Wikis, CMS portals, RSS & podcasts are relatively unknown to all.

My students are, however, much more familiar with social networking sites like Thefacebook. They all seem to use Instant Messaging and other holdover technologies they probably began in high school. Primarily, their most frequently used communication tool is their cellphone. Their online activities seem to be (1) email, (2) shopping and (3) surfing.

Blog reading only comes into play once they get into class. Many have reported, post-graduation, that they have continued their blog reading activities. Few (except those already actively blogging) have continued to post regularly in blogs.

For their professional lives, the reality is that portals and wikis are more quickly becoming common in corporate environments and, therefore, of interest to students. I have already had students report back during internships and post-graduation jobs that their class experiences helped them land jobs in corporate communication offices supervising those activities.

2) As a university faculty member, do you think these new technologies have already made an impact on campus life?

They have made an impact, but it is still limited. An occasional blog may find a significant audience such as these blogs: Dartmouth Buzzflood and the various sports blogs like Fanblogs.com which draw their audience from specific stakeholder groups (alumni) or numerous campuses (SEC, Big 10, etc.).

Some universities are also beginning to offer blogs to their students. This will undoubtedly expand their usage. From the University of Saskatchewan in Canada to the Semester at Sea university project using MSN Spaces for their blogs, we see two good implementations. However, the spread throughout academia is slow, but will likely permeate more and more disciplines along the way.

The key is getting technology wary faculty to embrace the platforms and discover ways to fold them into course work. The obvious early adopters are English writing courses. Honestly, K-12 is far ahead of higher education in the use of blogs in the classroom.

3) In your opinion, how should higher ed PR or MarCom offices use these new technologies? Can you share any best practices you’ve observed in some universities/colleges?

There are numerous examples of the blog recruitment strategy underway now. Santa Clara University and Ball State University are already undertaking blogging to share the freshman experience with potential students. Ball State’s is perhaps the most ambitious with podcasts and multimedia heavily integrated into the presentation. University of South Florida is even offering free blogs to students.

Several areas where I see positive opportunities for blogs are in multi-cultural and diversity offices, student activities and admissions/recruiting. The challenge is finding college administrators willing to take the risk of starting online – very public – conversations. The potential for having to field negative questions is still a barrier to entry.