Higher Ed Vendors

Last July at the eduWeb conference, Stephanie Geyer, Associate VP for E-communications and Web Strategy at Noel-Levitz, presented the results of a recent online survey her company conducted in June 2008 with 454 parents.

At that time in a blog post titled “Live blogging from eduWeb 2008 – Circling Over Enrollment: The E-Expectations of Parents by Stephanie Geyer from Noel-Levitz,” I shared the (incomplete) notes I had been able to take during the presentation.

Even though I interviewed Ms. Geyer a couple of times about her other surveys in the past, this was the first time I met her in person.

However, when she offered to share the complete results of this online survey with you, my dear readers, she demonstrated a pretty good knowledge of what makes the community steward that I am tick – exclusive content.

A white paper will be published soon, but YOU get to see all the raw survey results now.
Neat, isn’t it? I think so, too

I would have linked directly to the online survey results from Survey Monkey, but couldn’t as some survey respondents shared their email address and phone numbers. So, instead I did some very minor layout work and removed the open-ended questions (More than 400 answers are not easy to process).

I hope this raw data offered as a 6-page PDF file will help you come up with a comprehensive electronic communication strategy targeted to parents of prospective and, ultimately, design better web pages or email campaigns.

And, if you have feedback or questions about these survey results, feel free to post your comments. They will be read by Stephanie Geyer who is really interested in your opinion about them.

As promised in one of my latest posts, blogging has been very light lately. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in full mode soon.

In the meantime, you might want to have a look at a feature-long article I wrote for the August issue of University Business about email outsourcing: E-mail, Gmail, Hotmail, and Beyond.

And, if your institution went that road, I’d like to hear from you about the whole “email outsourcing” experience.

Do you think this is as good as it sounds in my UB article?

Tell us by posting a comment!

Sorry for my light blogging, but I have been working on a few projects lately… and something had to give.

One of these projects is a feature-long article for the August issue of University Business (it’s due June 1st – it’s a magazine, not a blog ;-) about email outsourcing in higher education.

If you don’t have a clue about what I’m talking about you can read a previous post, From outsourcing email to outsourcing IT, I wrote after reading a very good piece about the topic written by Andy Guess from Inside Higher Ed last November.

Anyway, I’m going to interview folks from Google Apps and Live@edu (the solution offered by Microsoft) for my article, and thought you might like me to ask a couple of your questions, my dear readers.

So, if you’ve been burning to find out more about these free are-they-too-good-to-be-true email outsourcing solutions, post your questions now in the comment section or email karine@collegewebeditor.com if you prefer.

And, while we are talking about this, if your institution has implemented either (or both) solutions, please share your experience with the rest of us via a comment as well.

A couple of months ago, Elliot Lopez, Project Manager for University Communications at the University of California, Davis created a survey about CMS (as in Content Management System) in higher education.

Elliot just emailed me to let me know that the results including answers from 129 institutions have just been published on his team blog:

Initial highlights include:

• Over 60% of respondents are in institutions currently using a Web CMS
• Institutions were more likely to employ open source or custom-developed solutions over proprietary/commercial systems
• Most instances of Web CMS systems are small, centralized deployments of under 40 sites and 40 or fewer total users
• Individual units or departments are generally not billed for use of the Web CMS
• Over 75% of Web CMS adopters provide formal training to users
• Most Web CMS adopters would choose the same system if they had to do so again

Overall, there were no clear-cut “market leaders” in the broad field of Web CMS solutions identified by the higher ed institutions that responded to the survey. However, Plone and Drupal – both open source solutions – are in relatively heavy use.

You can get the survey report for free as web pages with nice charts.

I’m sure CMS vendors will be checking out these results, so make sure you do too.

I usually don’t cover vendor-related news, but BlackBoard has really done a nice job using YouTube to promote an upcoming conference to a specific audience while surfing on a very popular phenomenon, i.e. the growing popularity of Second Life in academic technology circles.

I came across this video titled “Adventures in First Life Redux” on Educate/Innovate, Blackboard blog.

At 2 minutes 30, it might be a bit long. However, Adrian Alleyne, its creator did capture the gist of what can make the whole SecondLife experience a bit awkward (avatars typing in the air when they exchange instant messages, bumping in each others or pieces of furniture, sitting on tables, etc — would have love to see some avatars flying but the BB team probably didn’t get the budget for it ;-).

This video (301 views at the time of this writing) could go viral – at least in the circles it targets – and generates some buzz (hey, it got a post here). The only catch is that you really need to have tried SecondLife to understand the whole video.

A very interesting example. What do you think?

After my post about a $0 conference for admissions folks, Gettysburg College’s Portal 2007 Conference looks like another option for higher ed professionals – working in web and IT departments, this time – interested in attending an affordable conference to learn a couple of things and network with their peers.

The conference will take place from June 5 to June 8 at Gettysburg College. You can still register online for only $100 (the initial early-bird price that includes the conference fees as well as all meals). Gettysburg College even offers affordable housing options in their residence hall for $45 a night.

Last week, I contacted Mark Albert, Web Programmer/Analyst at Gettysburg College and the driving force behind this event, to ask him a couple of questions.

Who should attend the Portal 2007 Conference at Gettysburg College?

This conference is of interest to anyone with an interest in portals in higher education, from CIO to portal/web programmers and developers in the IT world, to the stakeholders in the administrative and academic areas of institutions.

I understand many vendors will be at the conference. Can you tell me what makes this event more than a trade show?

What makes this conference more than a trade show (actually not a trade show) is that corporate sponsorship was solicited in an effort to keep the registration and operating costs to a minimum and to provide an opportunity for institutions to talk to and get information or answers from the portal providers. While there will be no corporate presentations within the program, the vendors will have visibility and availability to talk and answer questions about their product. The vendor coffeehouse is a low-key affair designed to provide a more casual and relaxed setting for vendors and clients/potential clients to interact without the competitive sales kits like the vendor exhibits are educause. Additionally, the vendors can have a presence at the event they sponsor, but again in a low-key setting.

While we encouraged vendors to get their best practices institutions to submit proposals for presentations, the lead presenters must be members of the institution, not the vendor. Also, the program committee selected the presentations for the program based on value to the attendees and match to the conference theme of portals in higher education – not based on the sponsorship of vendors.

Even the vendor round tables on Friday morning are designed to give the attendees the opportunities to press the vendors for information and statuses on the product instead of providing a sales pitch opportunity for the vendors.

Sorry for the would-be smart post title – couldn’t help myself ;-)

As confirmed in a post titled “Scholar’s in open beta!” by Karen Gage on the company’s blog, Educate/Innovate, Blackboard has quietly launched in public beta a social bookmarking web service for its online learning platform clients:

“What makes Scholar different from other social bookmarking services you may have used or heard of (e.g. del.icio.us) is how it works in an education setting. Scholar has all the typical features you’d expect from a social bookmarking service (tagging, tag clouds, RSS feeds, a bookmarklet for browser integration, etc.), but we wanted to make social bookmarking more relevant for Blackboard-powered courses and academic research.

But we took it even further so that Scholar could be used not just as a personal tool, but as a course tool as well. For starters, from within the course you can search Scholar for resources and import them directly into your course – a great way to discover supplemental learning resources for your course.”

When a major player of the higher education market starts to integrate Web 2.0 services to its regular offering, it’s just another proof that it’s time for colleges and universities to consider these tools in their marketing and web strategies, as well.

And, if you’ve already tested Scholar, let us know if this new service is THAT better than del.icio.us by posting a comment.

Last Wednesday, I was invited to attend the first 1-hour-and-$100 webinar of a series by Brian Niles targeted to the novice eager to learn more about new technologies such as podcasting, instant messaging (IM), RSS, etc.

38 people showed up for this session about podcasting conducted using Macromedia’s Breeze.

Although Brian experienced a couple of technical issues with his slides and the sound cutting out from time to time, he was able to present a rather engaging 101 session about podcasting.

Using Breeze’s screencasting service, Niles gave a 30-minute presentation about the basics of podcasting as well as a demonstration on how to search, select and subscribe to a podcast with iTunes. Once this was done, the rest of the session was used to answer questions asked by the audience through Breeze’s chat service.

During the chat, Brian did go a bit beyond podcasting 101 addressing questions about promotion, strategy and so on.

Despite the fact that none of the information shared during this webinar cannot be found for free on the Web (even on your favorite blog), the format — minus the technical glitches — is interesting to get any technology-challenged team or boss started on Web 2.0.

Three more sessions about IM, blogs and RSS are scheduled this month.

You’ve probably heard or read the news. It hit the wires early last week at the same time Apple’s representatives started to contact universities and colleges to talk about a very enticing offer from the Wonderful Wizard of Podz: iTunes U.

Brown, Duke, and Stanford Universities; the University of Michigan School of Dentistry, at Ann Arbor; the University of Missouri School of Journalism, at Columbia; and the University of Wisconsin at Madison have been testing this service for a while.

As stated on the dedidacted solution page on Apple’s website, “iTunes U is a free, hosted service for colleges and universities that provides easy access to your educational content, including lectures and interviews 24 hours a day, 7 days a week”

Free hosted service for podcasts? Sounds pretty cool, so what’s the catch?

Probably somewhere in these lines from the same solution web page:

“In addition to providing a great conduit for digital academic content, iTunes is also the largest source of legal digital music available online. So students can buy and download music that has both educational and entertainment value, with all copyrights honored and the full support of the music industry.”

Basically, Apple wants higher ed institutions to send their students download the latest podcasts of their courses at iTunes U, so they can stop by the Music Store to buy a song or two.

Note also the mention of copyrights, which should definitely be music to the ears of any higher ed executive concerned by the file sharing occurring on his/her campus.

The fine print of this offer also seems to indicate some strings attached:

“Terms and conditions apply. Universities must enter into an iTunes U Service Agreement before being eligible to use the iTunes U service. Apple reserves the right to determine eligibility.”

Nothing that doesn’t make sense though: Apple is a business and there’s no such thing as a free lunch.

As a higher web professional, I’m sure you’ve already heard and read a lot about podcasting.

Your director, VP and President have not, so it might be a good idea to share this post with them.

The past week has witnessed a lot of media coverage about podcasting in higher education. A few interesting articles targeted to the non-initiated crowd and showcasing the possibilities of podcasting – especially for courses and classes – have been published and resulted in interesting comments from the early adopters and insiders:

Last Friday, “Missed class? Try a podcast” by Jodi Cohen, The Chicago Tribune‘s higher education reporter, offered a good round-up about podcasting as an academic tool.

But, you should also have a look at “Podcasting stirs more higher education debate”. In this post on his personal blog Moving at the Speed of Creativity, Wesley Fryer, Director of Instructional Support Services and Webmaster for the College of Education at Texas Tech University, offers his critical analysis of this article from the viewpoint of an academic podcasting evangelist.

“Lectures on the Go” by Brock Read published in this week’s issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education doesn’t add a lot to the Chicago Tribune’s piece, but – as you know – it can be helpful to read twice the same ideas presented in different ways.

The last piece you should share with your significant stakeholder combines the power of a reputable publication with the insights of the higher ed blogger and podcaster Gardner Campbell, Assistant Vice President for Teaching and Learning Technologies and Professor of English at the University of Mary Washington:

In “There’s Something in the Air: Podcasting in Education,” an essay published in the upcoming issue of the Educause Review and available online as a 347-KB PDF file as well as a 50-minute podcast on his blog, Gardner tells us the tale of Jenny and the magic podcast fields before giving us a complete overview of podcasting and its possibilities in academia.

This media coverage seems to have followed a yellow-brick road of several announcements pertaining to new podcasting initiatives at Drexel and Stanford, the launch of the iPod video as well as the Educause conference held last week in Orlando.

As the wonderful Wizard of Podz, Apple has probably suggested (or should I say “orchestrated?”) a good part of this media interest — from behind the curtain.

The company has actually partnered with Drexel who announced its new iPod Video initiative and with Stanford who launched its new dedicated iTunes Store. It also had an impressive booth at the Educause conference last week – according to Chimone Parris from the Apex School of Theology who attended and blogged the conference – and is the sponsor of the Podcasts produced during the event by the 3 Educause podcasters.

Higher ed is definitely a very interesting (and captive?) market for the company, even though you don’t need an iPod to delve into Podcasting…

As you know, a non-branded mp3 player – or even a simple computer for the people who are less on the go – is all you need to start to listen to Podcasts, as you can even download the free Windows version of iTunes to your PC.