Yes, you’ve read my headline correctly: bloggers editing and fact checking the main media outlet covering higher education in the US.
So, what do I mean exactly?
In the past weeks, two posts from two different higher ed bloggers have questioned some of the facts reported in two different articles published by the Chronicle.
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Andy Shaindlin from Alumni Futures explained in his post “Should Universities Create Facebook-Style Social Networks?” he was interviewed and (mis)quoted for a piece published in the April 25 issue of the Chronicle and titled “Colleges Create Facebook-Style Social Networks to Reach Alumni” (subscription required):
Despite what the article claims, I swear I did not tell the reporter that “social networking is definitely hot.”
What’s kind of funny about it is that I was also contacted by the reporter who wrote this piece. He had found information about Elon University’s DIY social networking website (mentioned in the article) on my blog. Nothing funny here, you’re thinking. Actually, what’s funny about it is that I remember saying what was attributed to Andy a bit before tipping the reporter about what Carleton College (mentioned in the article) was doing.
- Then, Monday, Brian Niles from The Recruiting Revolution pointed out something a bit more troubling in his post “Chronicle Survey Summary Misleading”.
Last Friday, in a post on this blog, I shared with you my surprise and doubts about the fact that podcasts were used 3 more times than email in admissions offices as a recruiting method according to The Chronicle Survey of Undergraduate Admissions Officers (subscription required). Well, Brian went a step further and contacted the Maguire Associates, the firm that conducted the survey on the behalf of the Chronicle and here’s what he found out as explained in his blog post:On May 2nd the Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required) published a summary of research done by the Maguire Associates that gave the impression that only 5% of colleges in the study utilized email as a recruiting and communication tool.
Unfortunately, this information is very misleading – in fact, grossly inaccurate.
In an email exchange with the two researchers who did the study, I was told today that the Chronicle summarized the answers provided in an open-ended “Other†option, in which some participants listed “Email†as an answer. Email was not one of the options to choose from.
I get edited and fact checked all the time by my readers (which is very good as I don’t have an editor to do that job on this blog – wait a minute, it’s because I’m the editor here ;-), and I really appreciate it.
What’s really interesting about these 2 small incidents is that they are indicative of a bigger trend.
Today, nobody (including your college, university or even you president) can expect mishaps, mistakes or even major crises to stay hidden or unnoticed for long, because millions of eye balls (or a dozen of keen observers) are “monitoring” your institution and can share what they uncover with the world on their blogs, via facebook, myspace, twitter, etc.
I definitely feel strongly about these surveys being put out by companies. They always seem to be skewed towards how they want the article to shape, and the sad thing is most of the VP’s and Admins in this world read those things like the holy grail.
So Karine, do you mean that you’re the one who said social networking is “definitely hot”?
As for the surveys, Brad’s point is a good one. Part of the reason that companies are delivering research, I think, is that there is no well-established, productive academic discipline doing research in areas that impact our profession directly. If we had independent faculty in schools of education doing more of this, there would be a less biased source of data. And that data would be useful to us working in advancement.
Well, Andy, yeah… is it THAT bad?
I meant it was a hot topic in alum associations – everybody seems to want to get a social networking website lately.
When asked about why alum associations were willing to spend 10 to 30 K to buy a solution, I also said that there was a tendency to throw money at problems one doesn’t understand – i.e social media in that case (but, I think I asked not to be quoted on this one ;-) and that the solutions currently available on the market were all about tools, but there was little done in terms of strategy.
BTW, I also asked the reporter if he had talked to you Andy(because you’re definitely the *hot* source to interview on that topic;-) — which he had at that point.
Karine – thank you so much for sharing this information. I too was very “surprised” and skeptical on the email stat, since it is such a foundational piece of the recruiting effort. I am very glad one of your readers took the time to dig up the anomaly and bring the gross misrepresentation to light. Thanks so much to you for pushing this information out.