Archive for July, 2008
I'm late to the party for final thoughts about the eduWeb conference, because I've just made it back home. Technically, I could have driven back home yesterday, but just chose to meet with family and have some fun after a 2-day long journey from Atlantic City. For those of you who didn't follow me on Twitter, after my keynote speech in Atlantic City Wednesday, I had the pleasure to spend 5 hours on the tarmac at Philly (but I guess with the amount of rain and wind shaking up the plane on the ground, it was better than being in the...
Read MoreWhen I was asked to present the closing keynote at eduWeb 2008 last October, I said to myself: "this is great! For the first time in my life, I'm 100% sure I will have the last word ;-)" Then, when I picked my topic, "It's the community, Stupid! 7-step plan to raise and nurture any community online," the idea of standing alone talking about the community for 45 minutes or so felt a bit weird. That's the reason why I asked Brad Ward from Butler University, Mike Caulfield from Keene State College and Adam Stahr from UNL to share on camera some...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. Ask most people who've launched a major web project how they did their user testing and you'll likely get a blank stare, followed by a hastily constructed and somewhat "improvised" answer. Why would otherwise bright forward-thinking folks ignore one of the most proven and important processes of a website redesign? fear of what...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. The principal conclusion from our presentation is the importance of undertaking detailed user research at the beginning of redesign projects and crucially, really listening to what the users say. User research gave the Imperial project team an insight into how audiences were using or anticipated using the site and highlighted commonalities in...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. Do you manage multiple school catalogs and have multiple web sites where that content must be published? Using the right Content Management System and database multiple school catalogs can be managed in a single CMS and published to print, PDF and multiple web sites. Advanced searching can be enabled easily for...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. The most important thing Carleton College learned from our site redesign was that user research doesn’t have to have a huge price tag, a usability lab and a cast of thousands. If all you can get is five members of your target audience, make the most of it. I guarantee you’ll get better...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. Viewbooks, brochures and university driven Web sites provide a wealth of information to prospective students, staff, faculty and others. But they can only go so far. To truly convey the personality of our campus communities, we need to hear from the people who make up those communities. University sponsored blogs give campus...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. The most important take away from my presentation on how we built our catalog (and course descriptions) in our web Content Management System (CMS) is that it is easier than you think but requires organization, project management skills and an ability to problem solve. Also, a strong second item to take...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. Variable print technology is revolutionizing the way we recruit and is helping institutions of higher education save valuable resources by leveraging data and technology. With the ability to use variable print technology a college can save time and resources by printing on demand and use elements such as text, graphics and images...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. Ask yourself two questions: Does your email campaign tie in with the rest of your efforts? Are you doing and tracking all the little things - i.e checking open rate, sending them to landing pages, monitoring your list sizes and subscription base, following the ROI if it's a-call-to-action campaign? People tend to hit send...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. The cloud is cheap, easy, distributed and redundant. It alleviates load on your campus network and on you, the web developer. I think it will really be eye-opening to the people that the cloud doesn't have to be expensive or hard to manage. One quick snippet - we're serving 50 GB of data...
Read MoreStephanie Geyer, Associate VP for E-communications and Web Strategy at Noel-Levitz, presented the results of a recent online survey her company conducted just last month with 454 (helicopter) parents. Results were just released last Saturday, so this is fresh from the oven. What she said confirms what most of the people working in admissions have learned to cope with: parents are now very (too?) involved in the college search. Parents actually do most of the homework - researching colleges on the Web - and the work - even filling out online forms for their child. 41% have submitted inquiry forms 32% calculated tuition costs 28%...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. SOLSTICE is a model for 'intelligent deployment of technologies’ involving 'New Academic Teamwork' grounded in multi-professional pedagogic design approaches. The dialogue is characteristically: Between members of New Academic Teams Constructively aligned (Learning-Teaching-Assessment-Evaluation, Research) Bespoke Tailored to enhance learning (through alignment of Purpose (P = Learning) with Audience (A = Learners) to determine the...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. Setting expectations are crucial for a successful CMS implementation. If you have never gone through a CMS implementation, find someone who has and talk to them about how to set expectations correctly among your community. Then, set up a communication plan so everyone knows what the status of the project is at...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. Universities struggle to find all the right solutions for their wide audience base. Everything has to be branded and easy for everyone to use. Products are required to meet accessibility standards that are often not considered by commercial software vendors. There are a multitude of software solutions available and many of have...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. Academic transparency is becoming more important in the shifting tides of higher education. But our most knowledgeable and exciting faculty tend to be among our most technically resistant. How can you market your academics excellence online, if all the evidence is locked in paperbinders or in print journals? There isn’t a one...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. Blogging is a way of extending ourselves in a virtual world. We are virtually being broadcast through the ubiquitous platform of the Internet. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and return to us as results and deeper pathways. Most...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. Here are the main “take-aways” from this session Faculty’s New Role in Marketing Faculty will become more involved in marketing Faculty will be held more accountable for their programs Marketing Shift End to mass media advertising as we know it Today’s consumer is in control of what they look for and when Integrated Marketing Marketing is more than ads Need...
Read MoreNote from Karine: This year, I’ve asked all the eduWeb speakers working in universities/colleges to share in 140 words or less the biggest take-away from their presentation or table talk. If you've attended this session, feel free to weigh in by posting a comment, a question or a suggestion. The biggest take away from our presentation is: communicate with your stakeholders. You need their input on the requirements and you need their buy in on the product selection because they will ultimately be the ones to use the tool. The number one reason people have a "failed" implementation is not because...
Read MoreAfter taking 2 airplanes to get to Philly and a ride with Mike Richwalsky & Josh Tysiachney from Allegheny College and Brad Ward from Butler University (and BlogHighEd) to Atlantic City, I checked in yesterday around 4:30 pm. My room has a gorgeous view, but the $12.50 Internet wireless connection could definitely be better. I'm missing quite a few bars and the best spot to get access is actually not the desk, but the bed (Wayport's - the company providing the service - help desk support if not very helpful was really professional, and I guess the view from the bed...
Read MoreI know, I know, It's been a while since my last post, but I've been thinking about you every single day as I was working hard to prepare something special for this edition of eduWeb 2008. Didn't get the budget to come this year? Don't worry, you'll be able to follow some of the action (if not all the fun) by following me on Twitter and reading this blog. This year, I haven't placed a call for guest bloggers - which is what I did in 2007 and 2006 - because I got a different idea. I've asked all the speakers...
Read MoreThe 2008 eduWeb Conference will take place July 21-23 in Atlantic City, NJ (Geez... in less than 2 weeks, I'd better wrap up my keynote speech soon ;-). Shelley Wetzel, the eduWeb conference founder and director, accepted to answer a few questions about this year’s conference (as she did in 2007, 2006 and 2005 - it's kind of a tradition ;-). 1) Last year was the second edition of EduWeb, so how did it go? It went very well. The conference doubled in attendance and exhibitors in two years; from 150 (2005 at Salisbury University) to 300 and from 12...
Read MoreHappy Independence Day to my readers in the US! If you're looking for independence, a new job (or a new skilled team member) might be the way to go (I know that's kind of a lame transition). It's been a few months since I decided to work on a better solution than the Higher Ed Experts forum to help the community on the job front. Well, today I've just had the time necessary to complete this project (weird what I would do when I procrastinate on my presentation and webinar scheduling duties ;-) and I need your help to get things started...
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Lin Larson on 
Julie on 