Archive for February, 2008

I’ve just found out that the newly redesigned website – a design signed Jim Welch, an Admissions Counselor for Missouri State University – of the HighEdWeb conference is now live:

This design was the winning entry of the contest launched to replace the old coffee mug theme.

That’s definitely a BIG change, don’t you think?

So, go check out the new website. You’ll also see that the call for proposal is open.

Just forward this article published yesterday in the eMarketer newsletter (but hurry, these are usually only accessible for a limited-time only): “Student Noses Buried in Facebooks”.

According to Youth Trends’ February 2008 “Top Ten List Report,” Facebook and YouTube are included in the top 3 picks for favorite websites – ahead of Google – named by college students.

Heard recently about Facebook fatigue? Here’s eMarketer analyst’s take on the new buzz word:

“Although some have suggested that consumers are less interested in social networking than they once were, that is clearly not the case for college students,” said Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst at eMarketer. “On campus, social network sites remain a key place for communication, socializing and goofing off.”

Nothing really new for you and me here, but if it never hurts to share some stats to get your point across.

I’ve already mentioned that my summer plans include a trip to Atlantic City, NJ this year as I’m scheduled to give the closing keynote presentation at the eduWeb conference (so, if you plan to attend, make sure you don’t leave early — pretty please ;-)

Conference director Shelley Wetzel asked me to remind you all that the call for proposal is open until March 17.

So, here’s my reminder with 5 reasons for you to submit a proposal – in no particular order:

1. Presenting at conferences can also be a great way to get some of the third-party validation we all need from time to time to navigate campus politics.
2. Don’t know what you could talk about? Shelley has put together a list of suggested topics to get you started.
3. Presenters get a $75 discount off the conference registration fee.
4. Some presentations will hopefully be covered here — with the help of some guest bloggers as it has become a tradition at eduWeb – which means that your presentation might get you some Google love.
5. If you end up presenting as well, I’ll be able to brag that we both presented at the same conference (and I’ll get a chance to meet you :-).

So, what are you waiting for? Don’t be shy and submit a proposal before March 17, 2008!

This morning, I received a few emails asking if it was still possible to register for the March 4-6 webinar series about Facebook applications (the initial registration deadline was yesterday).

As a result, I decided to postpone the registration deadline until this Thursday (Feb 28) at 8PM ET. If you want to learn more on how to engage students via Facebook applications, this 3-webinar series featuring Chris Mocko (KissMe creator & Stanford graduate student), Mike Richwalsky (Allegheny College) and Dr. Tony Hirst (The Open University) should help.

Institutions registered for this series include:

• Tufts University
• RIT/NTID
• Saint Michael’s College
• Alfred University
• Berkeley College
• US Naval Academy Alumni Association
• University at Albany
• Southeast Missouri State University
• DePaul University
• Northern Arizona University

For more information and to register online, just go to www.higheredexperts.com/facebookapp

And, if you have any problems or issues, just send me an email at karine@collegewebeditor.com

The popular social networking website has just announced yesterday a few new features for its Facebook pages on the Facebook page dedicated to Facebook pages (gosh, how many times can I write “Facebook” in a single sentence? ;-) including the following:

• Users will be able to upload photos to Pages. Check the settings on the Photos application on your Page to turn this on or off.
• You can now replace your profile picture on your page with dynamic content, including flash and fbml (a subset of html). Just install one of the apps (links to them are on the Facebook Pages page) and select it when you choose to edit your profile picture.

And, while we are talking about Facebook, I have a quick reminder about “Facebook Apps 101 and Beyond,” the webinar series scheduled March 4-6: registration will close on February 25, 2008 (Monday), so don’t forget to register if you want to learn why and how you can use Facebook applications to reach and engage students.

You can register online at www.higheredexperts.com/facebookapp.

I haven’t picked my dress yet for the walk on the red carpet, but I’m really excited to be part of this great initiative officially launched today by Stewart Foss, the founder of eduStyle – Stewart who also presents today the first webinar of “Website Redesign Boot Camp” about top trends in higher ed redesigns.

So, what are those eduStyle Higher-ed Web Awards all about? Here’s the answer straight from the source:

These awards celebrate the best work in college and university websites of 2007. Thirty-five categories recognize the most innovative and exciting developments in key areas of higher education web development.

Top-level prizes include best overall website, best redesign and most innovative. There are also awards in areas such as information architecture and video; awards for sub-sites (e.g. a faculty website), special projects and writing. Awards on blogging in higher-ed will be presented in partnership with CollegeWebEditor.com.

I don’t know if there will be a red carpet, but the award ceremony will take place on July 22, 2008 at eduWeb in Atlantic City, NJ.

What I really like about these awards is that there are widely open (you don’t need to pay to get your chance) and have a strong community component. As Stewart explains in the FAQ about the Awards, “Anyone can nominate any site for an award. You don’t need to be associated with the site you are nominating.”

You will be able to nominate your favorite websites for different categories starting March 5, 2008.

The voting for the People’s Choice will start on May 1st and close on June 1st.

For every category (categories will be announced later in the process), there will be a winner chosen by the judges and a winner selected by the community.

Obviously, I’ll keep you updated about the eduStyle Higher Ed Web Awards throughout the process. I hope many of you will submit websites (and blogs), so we can have a representative pool of what’s done in higher education.

According to a tip from a reader, I should be able to add a new entry to my higher ed facebook application directory soon.

If this email from US News & World Report (that was forwarded to me this morning) is to be believed, this application will be launched along with a Facebook page for the release of the 2009 edition America’s Best Graduate Schools at the end of March:

[...] Facebook page and application that will be an all‑inclusive resource for information on graduate schools, rankings, and the grad school selection process for users and their friends.

Using data that was collected from our most recent Annual Survey of Graduate Schools, our application will allow Facebook friends to share information about the schools they are considering attending. By saving schools to their list, students will be able to compare their interests with friends, meet other applicants, and discuss their impressions of a school.

If this is true (I haven’t had a chance to verify yet with the US News & World Report folks) that’s a very interesting move on their part.

By now, you’ve heard the news: a gun man shot 22 people yesterday at Northern Illinois University. Seven Six – including the gunman – died.

All my prayers go to the families and friends of the victims as well as to the whole campus community at Northern Illinois University.

There are some blog posts I would rather not write. This is one of them, but as I did at the time of the Virginia Tech Tragedy, I think it’s important for the higher ed web and communication community to keep a record of the way NIU is handling this tragic event.

Higher Ed blogger, Andy Careaga, reported the news with a first screenshot of the graphic-rich homepage yesterday evening before it was replaced by the emergency web page you can see below.

Previous time stamped updates from this page are available via a link on a secondary web page, clearly following a blog format as VT did last year.

The NIU web team has also used another common feature of blogs: strikethroughs to indicate changes in information previously posted.

Update: screenshot taken on Feb 16 (including memorial masthead)

NIU has also set up a memorial website following the approach Virginia Tech took last year.

Students went back to class on February 25. Here’s a screenshot taken on Feb 26:

I’ll try to update this post with more screenshots if/when major changes are applied to the NIU homepage.

Today, I’m celebrating the third “birthday” of this blog launched on February 12, 2005 as well as its 500th post, which means I posted exactly 200 posts since its last birthday – and I didn’t do it on purpose ;-).

Now with 946 readers via RSS feed (according to feedburner), 450 email newsletter subscribers and over 7000 unique visitors per month, this blog has exceeded all my wildest dreams (well, most of them at least ;-).

When I started to blog 3 years ago (geez, don’t I sound like an old lady?), the higher ed marketing and web blogosphere didn’t really exist.

My RSS reader was full of marketing, PR, web design and academic feeds, but it was tough to find another blog written by a higher ed a web marketing professional (Paul Nozicka did start a blog at about the same time, but kept it up for only a few months).

Then, Dan Karleen from Peterson’s launched his blog, Syndication for Higher Ed, in July 2005. The blog is still out there, but let’s say that Dan has been on a blog hiatus for quite a while now.

In November 2005, Andrew Careaga started his blog, Higher Ed Marketing and has kept blogging ever since.

So, why do I give you this higher ed blogosphere history course?

Well, over the past year, something amazing has happened: the higher ed blogosphere has not only gone through an exponential growth but has organized with the help of Matt Herzberger and Brad Ward who launched a week ago BlogHighEd.

This site aggregates some of the best higher ed feeds available (although several very good ones are still missing – so you should probably keep an eye on my Higher Ed Blogger Directory) and aims at nurturing the community of higher ed bloggers.

What a wonderful birthday gift! Don’t you think so?

This morning, I received a few emails asking if it was still possible to register for the February 19-21 webinar series about website redesign (the initial registration deadline was yesterday).

As a result, I decided to postpone the registration deadline until this Thursday (Feb 14) at 8PM ET – hey, the perfect gift for your Valentine ;-). If you want to learn more on how to prepare and survive a website redesign, this 3-webinar series featuring Stewart Foss (eduStyle), Nancy Prater (Ball State University) and Seth Meranda (UNL) should help.

For more information and to register online, just go to www.higheredexperts.com/redesign

And, if you have any problems or issues, just send me an email at karine@collegewebeditor.com