Comments on: How to build your own social networking website for your institution? Follow Elon University’s example

By: Karine Joly

Karine Joly — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 12:02:57 +0000

Thanks for the link, Andy. I read your comment on Andy’s blog and wanted to include the link to this post, but you did it first ;-)

By: Andy Shaindlin

Andy Shaindlin — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 03:52:01 +0000

For people who are interested…Andrew Careaga wrote about Karine’s entry here re: Elon, and I commented today about the percentage of students at Elon with friends inside and outside of the Elon network on Facebook:

http://highered.prblogs.org/2007/06/13/forget-facebook-grow-your-own-social-network/

By: Rob Westervelt

Rob Westervelt — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 22:51:51 +0000

I think the big success here is the job networking opportunities. But I’m curious to know if Elon also has or had a student intranet (with conference folders), and, if they did, was it replaced by the social network? We launched our social network (The Hub) — which wasn’t as well done as Elon’s — last year and had about 1,000 people networked in the first few months, but we also had a student intranet that had been around for 13 years and Facebook to compete with. Plus, we didn’t have job networking capabilities. Membership has wained and we’re looking to migrate them to another network. I definitely think something like E2 is the way to go in lieu of the classic intranet.

By: Damon Duncan

Damon Duncan — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 01:05:12 +0000

I think this is great! I am an Elon undergrad alumni as well as a member of the law school’s charter class. I think that E2 has been a great tool to keep in touch with old friends as well as network with other groups. A page has even been started called “Attorneys” so that the law school can network with alumni and parents of Elon students who are attorneys. I can’t compliment the Elon Tech staff enough!

By: Karine Joly

Karine Joly — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 21:03:18 +0000

Wow, great feedback on this post. I do agree with Andy and Brad about the integration with Facebook to make it even easier for students to use E2 with their Facebook credentials (which is why I asked the question originally ;-) That's the path suggested by Sam Jackson in an interview I did with him about social networking websites for my University Business column about the topic.

By: Krista

Krista — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 19:14:35 +0000

I am a student at Elon and like the alumni feature because I hope it will help with job connections. Even though we have good alumni networking through our career center, this is easier to get e-mails from alumni who may be able to help us with internships/jobs. The most unique thing about E2 is that we can post a resume and portfolio items so alumni can look at our accomplishments and contact us, too.

By: John David Parsons

John David Parsons — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:40:47 +0000

Hi everybody, the import feature is a good suggestion, and I’ve heard Facebook provides the APIs to allow for this kind of import. Brad: you hit the nail on the head when it comes to E2 members being beyond the Facebook generation. The system was initially designed for alumni only, but it just made sense to include as many groups as possible. While it has been a tougher sell to students, we have over 1000 already signed up. Our total student body population is under 5000, so despite the additional login required, the students are still coming in droves.

By: Brad J Ward

Brad J Ward — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:18:54 +0000

I agree with Andy on the importing from other social networks. My initial research with students showed that they want to be able to just log in at one place, not have to go through multiple sites to keep in touch with friends. I can see this being very effective for parents and alumni who are past the ‘facebook age’, however.

By: Andy Shaindlin

Andy Shaindlin — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 01:46:45 +0000

Now that they have a site with many of the same features the giant public sites have (“personal profiles, groups, messaging, events, a community photo gallery, extensive search functions”), it would be interesting for Elon to create a one-way gate that allows its private online community to “import” features from third party platforms.

For example, what if Elon students and alumni on E2 could view profile info and applications installed in members’ Facebook profiles? If they could do this without exposing E2 data to non-Elon Facebook users, they would have had added a really new (and highly valuable) function to their platform.

Lots of potential (although it might require what amounts to a single sign-on scheme between E2 and Facebook, something that would be tricky to design at this time). Nonetheless, cool stuff.

It would be interesting to know if Elon has participation and registration goals over time for membership in its E2 community. How many alumni does Elon feel it needs to make the community “effective”? How will they know if they’ve succeeded?