Edu Web Conference 07

I had a very interesting experience this morning presenting a session about higher ed podcasting in the US to a room full of people at the University of Warwick in the UK.

No long flight or dreadful jet lag required (but no nice sightseeing in the UK either :-).

I did my presentation using WebEx and my dear webcam. What was really neat about this experience was the fact that Tom Abbott, Web Manager at the University of Warwick — who invited me to present in the first place at the Podcasting for Education conference — took the time to set up a webcam in the room so I could see the audience as well (and they even clapped at the end, really nice people ;-).

Next best thing after being there.

The goal for this presentation was to share an overview of the most interesting higher ed podcasting initiatives, so I can’t say that I presented any earth-shattering concepts. However, I took the time to pull together a good list of web links on delicious that you might find useful.

I also recorded the 35-minute presentation followed by a quick Q&A. Just let me know if any of you would like to get a link to that recording.

I’ve just realized that I haven’t posted this post Melissa Cheater, one of the 6 readers who did some guest blogging this year at EduWeb, sent me Wednesday morning after getting back to the office.

This is what Melissa wrote about his presentation.

I might as well have not spent the Thursday before EduWeb diving into iTunesU and its offerings, because Ken blew the lid off so to speak with his presentation yesterday morning (it definitely woke me up at 8:30AM).

One: there are more than 300 “iTunesU” institutions. The 16 linked directly on the iTunesU homepage are just the lucky few (or “sweet 16”) chosen by apple for a joint program.

Two: all that great public content is literally the tip of the iceberg.

Yes, you CAN post password secured content so that you can post course content for students without giving away intellectual property to students.

While there are pages full of NJIT courses on iTunes for its students, Ken reports that the true value of it is in marketing externally.

Show off your most engaging profs, don’t post duller courses publicly as they will turn off prospective students.

The subscription nature of podcasts mean you are in the playlists of students, prospectives, alumni and parents on a regular basis, creating a sustained connection. And No, iPods and apples are not a requirement of hopping on the bandwagon – faculty can upload media straight from their regular browser.

iTunesU is free, but it does take time, so is it worth it? NJIT had 10,602 downloads in May, after joining the “Sweet 16.” June yielded 20,955 downloads and July promises to bring in more than 40,000. So yeah, I’d say it’s worth it.

Karine’s Note: If you want to learn more about iTunes U, Ken will share information, tips and tricks in a webinar he is scheduled to present for Higher Ed Experts in November. More info about this 3-webinar series about podcasting that will also feature Micah Ovadia and Dennis Miller can be found at www.higheredexperts.com/podcasting.

Webmaster at Mars Hill College, Andy Mrozkowski presented a session titled “Flash video for Your Institution” yesterday in Baltimore. Andy will actually present at ” Lights, Camera, Action – How to Add Online Videos to Your Marketing Mix, ” a 3-webinar series in September I designed for Higher Ed Experts (For more info, go to www.higheredexperts.com/onlinevideos)

Anyway, back to yesterday session. This was Jonathan Steffens’ second and last scheduled post. He had to do it from his BlackBerry as his laptop died at the conference – RIP. Now, that’s what I call dedication!

Andy gave a refreshing presentation on how any institution can start using flash video today with this low-cost setup and deployment with just a camera, editor and a lot of enthusiasm.

Look at the basics to get started.
Equipment: CCD Camera, Tapes, Manual Control Deck
Editor: Final Cut Pro, Vegas, Premiere
Post: Flash CS3 and Sorenson Squeeze

Editing Workflow
- Review each shot, plan captures for import
- Capture desired clips
- Assemble/Refine sequence of clips
- Add transitions, titles, audio mix, export
- Can use flash for video graphics, overlays, and animations.
- Export: Use MP4/FLV formats.

These videos can then be compatible with facebook, myspace, itunes, flv, and DVD.

Leverage your Flash Design team to create custom branded interfaces.

MHC later deployed video segments to dorm TV and was inundated with student submissions that they in turn posted online and on air for a flash based CCTV.

Yesterday in Baltimore, Penny Bouman, Manager of Enrollment Publication and Communications, and Craig Westman, Interim Dean of Enrollment Services, Ferris State University, presented “Do U YouTube? Social Networking and Its Impact on Recruiting and Its Impact on Recruiting and Marketing.”

This is Christian Burk’s third and last scheduled post.

Definition of “brand”

"A brand is not a name or positioning statement . . . a brand is the culmination of all the experiences people have with an organization. A brand is an experience." Bob Sevier

You don’t know where people are getting information when1/3 of all applicants are secret shoppers, as was the case with Ferris State last year.

The traditional four Ps of Marketing are now the 4 Cs of Mass Marketing (creation, cost, categorize, campaign).

Social networks

"Collective intelligence" – the whole is greater than the some. (Reminds me of the “Wisdom of Crowds”). Wikipedia, for instance

Citizen Marketers by Jackie Huba. We have no power to control the message (this is a mantra of this conference). The only thing we can do is post as many good messages as possible. We need to understand citizen marketers, then. “Message control is obsolete. Marketing control is futile. The citizen marketers are here.” Jackie Huba, co-author, Citizen Marketers.

Not just telling the right story but telling the story right. Get marketing speak out of the stories. Tell what is really going on. Tell it straight, as though talking to one person.

• style – language is a window into the story
• truth – just tell the truth. Let them see what the storyteller sees.
• preparation – practice. Wherever it might be out there, someone will see it.
• delivery – graphics are like the body language, conveying the message of the words even stronger.

Examples:

Vince Ferrari and AOL, tries to cancel AOL account. Wanted to cancel account. 21 minutes on the phone cancelling, 6 minutes on hold, rest of it was their trying to make him keep his account. Posted on his blog. National news picked it up. Soon he was on TV with Matt Lauer.

Chevy Tahoe commercial contest. Chevy created the video and the music, gave people the opportunity to add text and edit.
Environmentalists made a parody of the Chevy Tahoe commercial. Chevy kept them on the web. Tahoe sales went up 40%.

YouTube

On YouTube type college video contests, you’ll find some of the ones they are referring to. Universities are starting to include students in the conversation. Students are creative and are willing to help.

• Wash U did one for their career center.
• Appalachian State University. Soooo cheesy. Supposedly used when out on the road and succeeded but on YouTube it is a joke.
  Supposedly, the video hasn’t hurt. Actually, it’s more like a slideshow. It has had over 300k hits.
• UVSC did a spoof of the video HOT HOT HOT. Used their fire protection program as a background for theirs.
• Schreiner Unversity in Kerrville, Texas. Has 3 short videos.
  Funny and pretty well-done.

Check out good and bad examples.

Most of them use humor, which colleges often shy away from.

Blogs

• Ball State has one of the best. Spent on $24k, mostly on promotion. IT, Admissions and Communications all worked together. Very organized and highly successful. Now doing Vodcasts. Not all pretty stories, either.
• U of Chicago, they show how they scan applications.

iPhone (how much can you do?)

• post videos of your institution
• Make a fight song ring tone
• Event calendaring (delivered to cell phone)
• Orientation
• eTickets to campus events
• Text messaging

Games

James Pall Gee, guru of games in education, prof or Reading at U of Wisconsin at Madison. “A game is an intricately designed world that encourages certain sorts of action, values, and interactions.” Isn’t that higher ed?

Games first came out of higher ed. Space Wars first came with mainframes. Nolan Bushnell, student at U of Utah, was inspired by Space Wars, started Atari.

Gamers

“Digital Natives are accustomed to twitch-speed, multitasking, random-access, graphics first, active, connected, fun, fantasy, quick-payoff world of video games, MTV on the internet.”

• Have a LAN Pary. Ferris State had LAN party at their admissions office as a recruitment device. They play online games in teams.
  Interaction without boundaries. They put the video as a recruitment tool on YouTube.
• Search your own website for gamers, lan parties, video games and gamer RSOs. Kids were able to get prizes out of the corporations, Sony and Walmart. Had a lot of female gamers, too. High scores, socially engaged, service oriented. They are talented students and can help recruit.
• Incorporate humor. gotduck.com, William Woods, Duck is guide.
• Use story elements.

LAN Party

• Planning – they figured out what game to play (Call of Duty 2), set up database in meeting room.
• Place – Thurs Evening on ambassador program.
• Prizes – Students at Ferris got some donated prizes and bought some others
• Promotion – used a telephone calling system to send messages
• Process – had to register and have food. Had to set up teams, randomly assigned.
• Picture this! – Had pics/video taken
• Post – Posted them online, YouTube

Have to be able to assess actively, the costs and benefits, getting the ROI. Ferris uses EMT (not sure what that is) for their central database.

If you don’t have buy-in from an administrator, buy them a Nintendo DS and Tetris and Brain Age. They will be addicted.

“I’m certainly not advocating that everyone should spend all their time in the virtual world,” he replied. “What I’m saying is that things in the virtual world are going to become a mirror by which we will see ourselves more clearly.” Edward Castronova, Synthetic Worlds, Ludium II Conference 2007

Earlier today Diane Kubarek, Director of the Office of Web Communications at Cornell University, and Al Gonzalez, Assistant Director of Integrated Web Services at Cornell University presented at EduWeb a sessions titled “Supporting a Central Web Presence with a True Communications / IT Partnership.”

This is Drew’s second and last scheduled blog post.

Diane and Al presented a quick history of Cornell web operations spanning over the past 3 or 4 years. Tasked with a redesign/rebranding of Cornell.edu, they faced challenges resulting from a vendor/client relationship between Communications and IT. Over the course of time, stronger bonds and ultimately a virtual team was formed that enabled Cornell to drastically improve project potential.

Challenges of the initial IT Communications web development relationship.

• Hourly billing – costly, tracking overhead
• “Us vs. them”
• Shortcuts in needs analysis to save time and money
• Loosely defined sub-deliverables
• Fragmented staff
• Issues of ownership over major web projects.
• Lots of rework because of unspecified requirements.

The solution was to setup a virtual team with a dedicated service agreement.

To Arrive at this arrangement, there were initial challenges:

• Buy-in from highest levels
• handling HR and performance issues
• Co-location (or lack thereof)

The advantages of this arrangement:

• Dedicated staff for core functions
• IT Staff embedded in IT environment, while still in touch with campus Web development
• True Collaborative team
• Less Start-up time for projects – shared baseline assumptions
• Common understanding of skills, using strengths in both communications and IT
• Professional development in relevant skills for all
• Expandable expertise per project – eg QA, hosting, Web Apps, Google Search Appliance
• More Ownership

Things you need to implement this model

• High level buy in
• Trust between IT and communications
• Team members committed to working togoether and respecting each other
• Solid project management practices

The path Cornell took in establishing a centralized web team wasn’t an easy one. It took years to develop relationships, convince key stakeholders, and establish funding. But the benefits of the arrangement are very apparent.

I’m going to quote from an article not mentioned in this presentation, but it it gels well with the Cornell approach:

“Business and non-profit decision makers, for your users’ good, consider this request. Stop separating the members of your web team. Cease distributing them among various (often competitive) divisions led by people with limited web expertise. Let the coders, designers, writers, and others charged with creating and maintaining your web presence work together. Put them in a division that recognizes that your site is not a bastard of your brochures, nor a natural outgrowth of your group calendar. Let there be web divisions.”

-Jeffrey Zeldman: Let There be Web Divisions

Earlier today, Alberto Fernandez, Director of Web Strategy at Lynn University presented a session titled “It Can be Done: How to delineate and implement a successful Web strategic plan.”

This is Lacey Updegraff’s third and last scheduled post.

Alberto began by showing a video about how we are living in exponential times. You can get more information on this at shifthappens.wikispaces.com.

What is a strategic plan?
- Strategic planning is the creation of an overall approach to delineate where you want to be in the future
- It is the creation of a vision of what you want to achieve and what you are going to do to achieve it
- It is a way of aligning your short-term decision s with your long-term goals

3 Questions/planning steps
1. Where are we today
- who are we
- what resources do we have
- SWOT Analysis – What are our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats 2. Where do we want to be in the future (be realistic)
2. Strategic planning is not about predicting the future
- It is not where you are
- It is where you want to be
3. What do we have to do today, in order to be where we want to be in the future
- What things have to change for us to achieve where we want to be
Define goals and objectives
organize yourself and set priorities

2 to 3 years activities (no more than 3 years, or technology will pass you by)

Priorities and Goals
1. To develop a set of policies together with the IT department
2. To move to a centralized mode (dual system)
- meet with academic units (deans)
- meet with directors
3. To prioritize strategy: internet, portal, instructional
4. To start building a Web team

Yesterday afternoon, Darren Wacker, consultant at James Tower, presented a session titled “It’s a Blog Eat Blog World – How to Make your Student Recruitment Blogs Stand Out from the Rest.”

This is Jonathan Stephens’ first scheduled post.

A refreshing twist to the vendor-esque presenter, Darren was up front about “not” hocking any service or software and readily encouraging audience participation. Once dispensed with the pleasantries, Mr. Wacker unleashed a myriad of data and step by step efforts to get your instituion blogging.

Why Blog?
Informal first person perspective
“The easiest way and puriest form for web 2.0 communication.”

• Campus Life
• Admissions and Financial Aid
• Academic focus

Who’s Blogging
As Lisa from Cornell aptly put it, tell your administration “Cornell” is doing it and so are these guys!

• Current Students bsu.edu/reallife/
• Admin: oregonstate.edu/admissions/blog
• Fin Aid: mitadmissions.org/Danial.shtml
• Faculty: uchicago.typad.com
• Parents: blogs.oc.ee/?/momdad

Reinforce the Argument with Hard Numbers Technorati Data:

• Over 70 Million blogs in existence
• Over 1.4 million posts per day
• 511 million posts per year

2007 Horizon Report:
User Created content is one of two techs closest to full user adoption

E-Expectations Student Prospects Survey (2006)

• Read Student Blog Now 30%
• Would like to 63%
• Read Faculty Now 17%
• Would like to 83%
• 58% found online blogging valuable
• 46% would find it valuable

Selecting Bloggers

Darren covered a lot of ground on how to vet your bloggers and get qualified candidates. The key here is to ensure you get diverse cross-section of qualified Bloggers. So who’s qualified? The ones already representing your institution, look at student ambassador groups that are eccentric about their programs – that is key as Darren states “Don’t fear conviction” from your bloggers. While it is important to select good writers, the passion and enthusiasm needs to primary quality of your bloggers.

Once you have your team assembled, Dr. Wacker stresses to:

• Determine topics/define a purpose and stick to it.
• Define your approach, and coach your bloggers when they need help.
• Set expectations, review results, & improve on them.

(Paying?!) those Bloggers?

A touchy subject of the day was just how to appropriately compensate bloggers without lending the vision they were on your institution’s payroll and therefore – not authentic. Darren was able to illicit some crowd participation and expressed his own research finding many institutions use.

• Monthly Allowances ($25-50 Gift cards)
• Student Workers Salary (MIT $10/hr)
• Quarterly Gifts (IPods and Digital Cameras)
• Per Post (Ohio Omincan – $20 per post)

What to Blog About

Help your bloggers become a trusted resource by blogging on relevant topics – make sure they stay focused

• Timely Issues – What global/local issues have descended on the campus water cooler?
• Personal Experiences – Prod them anytime they have a 1st experience on campus, no matter how trival. It’s all new info to the reader.
• Admissions Process – How they interact with campus administration
• Niche Programs – Clubs, Organizations, and their day to day program of study
• Events – Encourage them by providing them access to campus events.
• For Faculty – Use class topics, student interactions, and love of teaching.

A good post has context and a topic and can be further enhanced with photos, web links, and video. Avoid “typing to be heard” and general ranting or defamation. The goal of the blog is to provide an “insider perspective” and as long accomplish that Darren encourages you to overlook less than perfect writing.

Blog Management
A hot topic among all the blogging sessions was about moderation, legal, and accountability. Cornell trusts thier bloggers and are uncensored, others moderate before posting, though the key here is trust in your bloggers if you selected the right canidates. Personally, I think your blog can go farther without the net – not to mention it’s easier to manage.

However, depending on your institution they do recommend some form of written contract/release is present between you and your bloggers. Try and stay away from “consequences” in form and keep it brief.

• Make a commitment not a check mark
• Have a vision. Share it and stick to it.
• Understand blogging takes effort
• Share responsibility where possible
• Discipline both for you and your bloggers

Yesterday, Dirk Swart, a project manager at Cornell University, presented a session titled “Sociological Aspects of Web Projects.”

This is Christian Burk’s second scheduled post.

As part of his presentation, which was in the middle of the afternoon, Swart passed around what he called “clickers,” which allowed people to answer in real time questions he had prepared in his presentation. In order to keep people awake, he said.

Swart’s presentation broke down into three parts:
-a preamble
-details
-abstractions

It was by far the most academic presentation I had seen at the conference, with footnotes and sources identified for further exploration by the audience.

The essence of the presentation was this:
many web projects use virtual teams, where one or more members is off-site. Virtual teams acts differently. Understanding the differences will help them work better.

Preamble:
Swart’s presentation was a literature survey, not any primary research that he has conducted. He cautioned against acting on his generalizations from the research, suggesting that the audience members generalize the findings themselves.

Details:

Trust
When teams go virtual both creativity and trust suffer. Trust, however, seems to be recoverable. One of the ways to increase trust is to give virtual teams more time for socializing (“water cooler” talk). Even off-site events, beers and bowling, will create or increase levels of trust as people get to know each other.

Communication
In order to better communicate in a virtual team, keep in mind that people use the tools of communication differently.
-email is good for facts, not complex information or ongoing issues
-phone is better for expressing e-motions and complex information
-reply to
-move up the chain of communication, e-mail-IM-phone-face to face as issues become more difficult or complex

Team member behavior
-Bad apples (audience member called them “well poisoners”) make the team more inefficient, even if they are productive. The literature says to get rid of them.
-Superfluous behavior can be both good and bad, leading to more esprit de corps but less efficiency.

Shared Mental Models
-I don’t really get this. It seems to be about a way to describe how groups cohere or fail to.

Abstractions:

Communications models
-starting in the 1940s, describing communications as transmission (worked really well as a metaphor when in a war, dealing with encryption, etc.)
-today, communication and meaning can be better described as shared creation (think Web 2.0)
-more on shared mental models and the role of the leader
–leader can either do it all (doesn’t scale well)
–leader can try to get others to do it (harder to enforce)
–leader can determine how the technology is used
–groups are better kept small, as it’s easier to know what people are thinking when the group is small

Lorraine Spencer, IT Manager at Johns Hopkins University in the Office of Continuing Medical Education presented today a session titled “A Web Re-Design: Lessons Learned.”

This is Amy Stevens’ second and last scheduled post.

What happens when you simultaneously launch a redesign of both your front end and back end of your institutions’s website?

Ms.Lorraine Spencer walked participants through planning, implementing and then Monday morning quarterbacking for the redesign of Johns Hopkins University’s Office of Continuing Medical Education’s redesign.

Ms. Spencer outlined the standard project management steps that define any project of this scope, with the reminders to get buy-in in advance, to set project goals before finding a development partner, and making sure that your development specs are as detailed as possible because it is easier to drop something in development (while making the project cheaper and faster) than to add something in after the project is underway.

One element she mentioned that was particularly important was that she had the major stakeholders and the individuals responsible for signing off on the project in on every meeting from the get go – the result: a remarkable turnaround in design time. It took just three short weeks to come up with and agree upon the site look & feel.

The project did have a few problems that provided valuable lessons for Ms.Spencer’s audience.

As technology oriented people, we may tend to believe that technology can solve workflow problems – but beware of implementing a broken process online. If your admissions workflow isn’t working off line, it isn’t likely to work online. Fix the workflow first, then find a way to put it online. Also, remain vigilant to internal communications break-down – be aware of anything that is changing even in different departments that could then impact the project. Finally don’t let the graphical design get in the way of the site functionality.

Ms. Spencer closed with advice from her development partners, who advised, “don’t be afraid to scrap everything early in the process and start over, get the wireframes right, even if you have to spend more time than you want on this part of the process and finally, don’t be afraid of changes, You may have to change the spec, or your timeline or both, be agile.”

Today, Jack J. Chielli, Executive Director at Wilkes University presented a session titled “A Majority of One” about an integrated recruiting campaign his institution launched this year.

This is Lacey Lacey Updegraff’s second scheduled post.

Wilkes University, a small school in Pennsylvania, placed a high bet on a large marketing campaign last year. Their main advertising message is about mentoring and one-to-one relationships. Jack did mention that they did use a large marketing firm, 160/90, whose other clients include Sobe and American Eagle.

They first recreated the view book by giving it the feel they wanted to have, mostly with quotations marks, which stood for conversation and inclusion. Afterwards, they redesigned their Web site, hellowilkes.com.
As part of this redesign, they sent out direct mail pieces that gave out individual usernames and passwords for accepted students to use online. Current students monitored the Web site and answered questions on topics from getting into nursing to not gaining weight in college.

The most public part of their campaign is what they did next. They targeted 6 students in small towns near the university and got detailed information from them (with the student and parents permission, obviously) and made billboards on it in their town where students hung out. Here are two examples of these ads (please note, there were no photos on these ads):

“Megan Smith”
As editor of the West Scranton High newspaper, you can spot the the typo on this sign. That attention to detail will serve you well at Wilkes University. Megan, call a Colonel 570-408-6032.

“Liz Wendolowski”
You’re a star on the Meyers debate team. We hope you can settle the ramen noodles vs. mac n’ cheese debate at the Wilkes University dorms next year. Call a Colonel 570-408-6032.

Each “real” phone number on these billboards went to a personalized recording created by that student.

Another thing pretty “out there,” was that they rented planes to fly over each student’s high school during graduation with a banner saying “Welcome to Wilkes University [insert name here]“.

I don’t think I can really do this marketing plan complete justice without being able to show what they actually did. I would definitely check out the Web site and try to talk to Jack. These ideas were amazing.