Archive for November, 2007
Today, Inside Higher Ed has a great well-researched and well-written piece about a trend that will change the face of IT departments on most campuses in a few years: "When emailed is outsourced." (Don't forget to share it with your IT folks!) In his article, Andy Guess, Mr. Technology at IHE, gives a very good overview of this trend and hints what's to come with the help of Adrian Sannier, CTO at ASU: Once colleges get used to the idea of allowing an outside technology firm to handle their e-mail services, there’s no telling what else they’ll be receptive to. Already, “software...
Read MoreTo celebrate Thanksgiving with all this blog readers based in the US, I've prepared a selection of YouTube videos featuring 10 college/university presidents in unusual situations -- i.e. they don't give a speech or read a welcome message. Here are the 10 university/colleges presidents listed by order of appearance: Allegheny College President, Dr. Richard Cook, on a motorcycle Butte College President, Dr. Diana Van Der Ploeg, throwing the first pitch of a baseball game Malone College President, Dr. Gary Streit, featured in a fun spot about the football season Oakwood College President, Dr. Delbert Baker, taking a dive in the swimming pool WITH his business...
Read MoreI've been trying for a while now to get in touch with the person in charge of higher education partnership at YouTube . So, when I saw that Obadiah Greenberg - who used to work at UC Berkeley - was scheduled to give a presentation at a conference in San Diego last week, I ask one of my favorite higher ed bloggers, Deanna Wolf, (who was attending this conference in sunny California) if she could prepare a short report about this talk for all of us. Here's what Deanna emailed me yesterday. On Friday, Nov. 9, Obadiah "Tarzan" Greenberg (Yes, that...
Read MoreThis has been a busy week in the social networking website world. Last Monday, a few days before the launch of the new Facebook features, Yahoo! launched a new social networking website targeted to college students and alums: Kickstart. Scott Gatz, Senior Director of Yahoo's Advanced Products, manages the Kickstart's team. Despite a busy week, Scott has taken the time to answer a few questions about this new website just for you (read the end of the interview for more information about the $25,000). 1) Your team has just launched Kickstart, a new social networking website for college students and...
Read MoreThat's the big question of the day with the launch of Facebook pages, a new feature of the popular social networking website introduced to Facebook users this morning on the company blog: You now have a way to connect with things you are passionate about. We've launched Facebook Pages, which are distinct, customized profiles designed for businesses, bands, celebrities and more to represent themselves on Facebook. And, here is how the new feature was introduced to businesses and other organizations now welcome (profiles have been reserved to individuals since the beginning) to "establish an interactive presence on Facebook:" Every Facebook Page is a...
Read MoreWould you share your crisis 'lite' website homepage with your colleagues in higher education? Since the Virginia Tech Tragedy, we all have been building/updating the web template to be used in case of a crisis or an emergency. By nature, these web templates can't be easily shared among different institutions. You don't want the general public to stumble on these by mistake. So, I got an idea that I shared with the members of Higher Ed Experts this morning. This online community is only open to people working in universities and colleges (not a member yet, sign up at www.higheredexperts.com/register), so it would...
Read MoreI met Jeff Kraus, Assistant Vice Chancellor for Public Relations at the Virginia Community College System, last June at the conference his organization held for Web and PR folks working in VA community colleges. I was invited to present at this conference by Susan Hayden, a regular reader. At that time, I spoke about Web 2.0, blogs and social networking websites (Check out the presentation slides in PDF). Two months ago, Jeff and his team launched a blog of their own, VA Higher Ed (while I did some minor consulting work on another VCCS internal blog, I haven't had any...
Read MoreMy sixth UB column for 2007 is now available in the November issue (it was scheduled for the December issue, but apparently my editor couldn't wait for an extra month -- maybe, it's because it's especially good ;-) as well as online: "10 Steps to Better Blogs" This article is a good summary of the presentation I gave at HighEdWebDev in Rochester a few weeks ago. If you are a University Business reader who has just discovered collegewebeditor.com, welcome! Don’t forget to subscribe to this blog via RSS or email. If you have any questions or feedback about the blog or the column,...
Read MoreBenchmarking is the name of the game in higher education. No matter the type of projects you plan to work on, you (or your boss) will always need to see what's done in others institutions. Website (re)designs are no exception to this rule, and that's why eduStyle, the website that aims to provide inspiration for campus web designers has become such a great resource for anybody involved in higher ed web design. I had the pleasure to meet the man behind eduStyle, Stewart Foss, at HighEdWebDev in Rochester earlier this month. Manager of Web Services at Grant MacEwan College, Stewart...
Read MoreThe University of Missouri-Rolla will change its name in 2 months, on January 1st, 2008. Officially started in January this year and supported by a dedicated blog, the transition to the new name, Missouri S&T, starts a new stage today with the launch of a new website "Hello, My Name is Missouri S&T" as announced in the official press release: The university's "hello" website , which launches on Thursday, Nov. 1, features video clips of UMR students, alumni, faculty and staff introducing themselves on camera. The subjects say "I am Missouri S&T" on camera – or, for videos of groups, "We...
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Lin Larson on 
Julie on 