Archive for March, 2008

While I can’t tell by the amount of snow still on the ground outside, it feels like spring in the higher ed blogosphere with the arrival of new blogs authored by 2 seasoned higher ed bloggers.

Mike Richwalsky from Allegheny College has recently launched Higher Ed Web Tech where he plans to share some good technical tips and news useful for techies (or webbies) working in universities and colleges. Mike has helped his institution become an early adopter in a bunch of new/emerging technologies (audio podcasts in April 2005, Facebook applications just a few months after the release of the platform API). He is also a regular presenter for Higher Ed Experts about social networking websites strategies and Facebook applications.

Down Under, Georgina Hibberd used to work at the University of Sydney up until a couple of months ago and launched one of the first Aussie higher blogs, templatedata. Georgina is now flying (and blogging) solo at her new personal blog launched earlier this week.

Now, about the quick favor: I know it’s a bit vain, but it’s not as if I ask you favors everyday… right, my dear readers?

So, here it is. As you can see below, this blog is very, very close to break the 1000-subscribers-via-RSS mark (without including the 494 email subscribers).

We need 8 more subscribers, that’s it.

I know a lot of you have already been spreading the word about this blog within your network – thanks a lot!

But, if you haven’t shared it yet with your coworkers (or maybe the folks from the alum association, the admission office, the marketing and communication team or your web professionals colleagues working at other colleges/universities), I would really appreciate if you can take 2 minutes to do it, so we can break that 1000-mark today.

I’ll report about the results tomorrow (they are always published the day after by FeedBurner).

I’m currently wrapping up the presentation about the state of higher education (audio and video) podcasting in the US I’ve been invited to give at the Podcasting for Education Conference to be held next week at The University of Warwick in the UK (and no, I’m not the lucky gal you think I am as I don’t get to fly to the conference: I will actually present from my desk thanks to the magic of VOip, Web cams and WebEx).

This explains why my posting has been a bit slower than usual, but this also gives me an opportunity (an excuse?) to listen to and watch a bit more higher ed audio and video productions than usual.

I’ve just stumbled upon a great video on the UC Berkeley YouTube Channel that manages to demonstrate the high level research done at the institution in an usual and funny way.

So, how did UC Berkeley achieve this in just one minute and 51 seconds?

By having UC Berkeley professor and Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist George Smoot to reenact the Big Bang (Smoot received the Nobel Prize for his research confirming the “Big Bang”) on camera with the help of… the Cal big Band:

Posted on January 31, 2008, the video has been viewed 22,301 times at the time of this writing.

What’s really amazing about this result is that the video was actually shot and publicized more than a year ago when Smoot received his Nobel Prize.

So, it appears that the recycling of old footage does work on YouTube when you have a compelling video.

I’ve also noticed something very smart done by UC Berkeley to maximize the possible return of this kind of late-night-show-material videos. They just included the name of a media contact at the end of the video description.

Mainstream media outlets (Network/Cable TV channels but also newspapers and magazines) are known to watch for the latest popular YouTube videos.

By making your contact information easily accessible, you will increase your chance to get a call if they likee what they watch.

Today, they even sent “Matthew” an invitation for the 2008 HighEdWeb Conference.

Problem is I don’t have a brother and haven’t planned (or ever thought about it for that matter) any gender-changing surgery.

Lori from the conference committee gave the explanation in a blog post posted yesterday:

Due to a mail merge snafu with our conference mailing lists, some folks received a “Save the Date” postcard this week that appeared to be addressed to an unknown sibling or spouse.

While I saw Lori’s post yesterday, I got “my” invitation in the mail today (yeah, I leave in a far far away corner of the world) just a couple of hours after reading the following excerpt in a very interesting article, ‘Dead-tree Medium’ No Longer: For Many Marketers, Print Outperforms Digital published yesterday in Knowledge @ Wharton:

According to Wharton marketing professor Eric Bradlow, print offers marketers a clear advantage over digital media, such as email. “Many people see email as impersonal and costless to write,” he says. “People want to feel special. In marketing [terms], email is transactional; paper is relational.”

Calling me “Matthew” sure makes me feel… very special.

A month ago in a blog post titled “More Colleges Show Interest in Hooking Up With YouTube,” Chronicle Senior Writer Jeffrey Young wondered why it was so difficult for higher ed professionals to get their answers to their questions about YouTube’s higher ed channels on the Campus Wired blog

Since we wrote about professors on YouTube, officials from three different colleges have asked us, via e-mail, who to call at YouTube to find out more about setting up a YouTube channel. “I am having trouble contacting YouTube about signing up,” said one. Indeed, the site seems to offer no information about how to become an academic partner, and so far officials from the company have not answered follow-up questions from The Chronicle about the project.

At that time, I indicated in a comment on the Campus Wired blog that YouTube seemed to be very careful (or selective, maybe?) in its approach:

Looks like YouTube doesn’t want to be overwhelmed by requests from colleges, even though Mr. Higher Ed at YouTube presented at some selected conferences over the past few months.

Unfortunately, Obadiah Greenberg – i.e. Mr. Higher Ed at YouTube – declined my invitation to present one of Higher Ed Experts’ free 30-minute webinar – about YouTube channels – last December.

Fortunately, the good folks at Vanderbilt University recorded the panel discussion he was part of at the last NCAA convention a couple of months ago along with David Jarmul, Associate Vice President of News and Communications, Duke University (BTW – between you and me, David, I think you look better on camera than I ;-), Dan Mogulof, Executive Director of Public Affairs, University of California, Berkeley and Michael Schoenfeld, Vice Chancellor for Public Affairs, Vanderbilt University.

So, this 50-minute video (38 views at the time of this posting) is your chance to learn a bit (but just a bit) more about YouTube’s plans for Higher Ed – as well as some very good tips from 3 great higher ed executives.

Don’t have the time for 50 minutes, but still want to listen to what Mr. Greenberg told conference attendees?
Just skip to the following time codes: 3:25, 14:33, 17:37, 27:41 and 38:07.

The video cuts off a bit before the end and the sound is somehow metallic, but it does include some great content, don’t you think?

Earlier this week, Reader Kimberly McGrath, Web Content Editor at Wake Forest University, emailed about an interesting blogging experience taking place at her institution:

This week we have seventeen students on a service trip to New Orleans. Thought you might be interested in seeing the blog.

The students are doing an awesome job writing about their experiences.

Well ahead of time, we contacted the student leaders to explain that we wanted prospective students, alumni, parents and other interested folks to see what Wake Forest students are doing —especially since our University motto is Pro Humanitate.

Taking time to meet with the students and prep them about what we hope to do through the blog seems to have helped.

Less than a week after this group blog was launched, the 14 students involved in this service trip have posted a total of 20 posts providing very vivid snapshots of their experience as in the following excerpt from a post written by Jermyn Davis, “City Wide Internet:”

It’s about 9:40 a.m. and we are very lost trying to get to St. Bernard’s Community Center, but thanks to the city-wide internet we are able to blog from the car! The irony that we are blogging with city-wide Internet and driving past boarded-up houses resonates very deeply with the group and reminds us why we came here. We have been told that much progress has been made, but there is clearly still a lot of work to be done.

It’s not the first time that a blog is used this way, but it’s definitely a good example.

Got others to share with all of us? Post a comment (and why not nominate them for the eduStyle and collegewebeditor.com Awards in the student blog category, if they are really good?)

Today’s kids are tomorrow’s prospective college students, right?

That’s why “The Kids’ Social Networking Study,” a study conducted by Grunwald Associates LLC and released earlier this week, could be particularly interesting as higher ed institutions start to work on their next marketing strategy to face the upcoming decrease in the prospective student pool.

The study is comprised of three parallel national surveys with Kids ages 9-17, Parents and School District Decision Makers. Carefully constructed, nationally representative samples of 1,200 teens/children, 1,000 parents and 250 school districts.

Unfortunately, this kind of intelligence comes with a relatively hefty price – for smaller institutions, at least – as data licenses start at $5,000. This is probably why most of licensees listed in the study marketing literature include big corporate names such Disney, Warner Brothers, Scholastic, Nickelodeon, Pearson, Discovery, Apple, Nestle, Leo Burnett, Starcom, AOL, Leapfrog, Facebook, Barnes & Noble.

Fortunately, the good folks at MediaPost Publications managed to share some interesting findings pertaining to TV and Online use in “Study: Kids Are Master Multitaskers On TV, Web, Mobile,” an article written by Tanya Irwin:

About 64% of kids go online while watching television, and nearly half of U.S. teens (49%) report that they do so frequently–anywhere from three times a week to several times a day.

[...]

According to the study:

• 50% of 9- to-17-year-olds visit Web sites they see on TV even as they continue to watch,
• 45% of teens have sent instant messages or e-mail to others they knew were watching the same TV show,
• 33% of 9- to-17-year-olds say they have participated in online polls, entered contests, played online games or other online activities that television programs have directed them to while they are watching.

At the same time, it is clear that online activities are the primary focus of TV-online multitaskers, and an increasing determinant of what they choose to watch:

• 47% of kids say they focus their attention primarily online while multitasking between TV and the Internet,
• 42% of kids say they focus on TV and online activities equally,
• Only 11% of kids say that TV holds their primary attention while multitasking,
• and 17% say they have chosen what to watch on TV based on what they are doing online–up from 10 percent in 2002.

But, what does it mean for your institution?

Don’t even think about launching a TV advertising campaign targeted to prospective students without a strong online component.
With this generation, it could be the difference between a hit and a miss.

So, how do you integrate the Web into your TV campaigns? Tell us by posting a comment.

As announced in my first post about these awards, the nominations for best websites, web projects and blogs are now open and will close on April 30, 2008.

So, here is what you need to do if you want to nominate a website or a blog:

If a site is in the eduStyle gallery

1. Create an eduStyle account if you don’t already have one
2. Log into eduStyle in the log in box in the right hand column of the site
3. Navigate to the site you’d like to nominate by clicking on the Gallery link in the top navigation
4. Click on the “Nominate this site for an award” button

If a site isn’t in the gallery

1. Create an eduStyle account if you don’t already have one
2. Log into eduStyle in the log in box in the right hand column of the site
3. Click on the “Submit a Site” link in the right hand navigation
4. Submit the site to the gallery
5. Once the site is approved for the gallery (typically within 12-24 hours) you will receive an email
6. Click on the link in the email to visit the site’s page
7. Click on the “Nominate this site for an award” button

I hope that you will take the time to submit/nominate some blogs as well for the Collegewebeditor.com Blog Awards. We are looking for 2 types of nominations:

• Student blogs
• Institutional blogs (written by staff or faculty member(s)

The nomination process is the same.