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UD is...
"Salty." (Scott McLemee)
"Unvarnished." (Phi Beta Cons)
"Splendidly splenetic." (Culture Industry)
"Except for University Diaries, most academic blogs are tedious."
(Rate Your Students)
"I think of Soltan as the Maureen Dowd of the blogosphere,
except that Maureen Dowd is kind of a wrecking ball of a writer,
and Soltan isn't. For the life of me, I can't figure out her
politics, but she's pretty fabulous, so who gives a damn?"
(Tenured Radical)

Sunday, November 04, 2007

Blogoscopy

Well-written, thoughtful account of universities and their various uses of blogs here. Excerpts:

'With the popularity of such sites as facebook.com and myspace.com, it's an increasing trend for colleges and universities to relate to students through blogs and social networking Web sites - mediums widely used among them.

"There's always an effort on both administrators and faculty to relate more to students' general experience in order to get specific points or subject matter across to them," said Mark F. Smith, a higher education coordinator for the National Education Association.

Some professors include blogging in their curriculum, and colleges use similar technology to publicize events or get information out across campus, Mr. Smith said.'


One blogging professor comments:

"The blog is actually an excellent way students can get to know their professor and their thoughts outside the subject matter... I'd like to see more professors blog. I think it would be a good idea for students who are taking a class to get a chance to read and get to know what the professor is like."


It's true that UD's thought a bit about the advantages - and disadvantages - of her students who discover University Diaries probably knowing more about her than they do about their other professors... Not that she's sure there are any disadvantages... If UD were a reasonably engaged student of literature, she'd have some degree of interest in, say, what her professor reads in her off hours, what she really thinks about some of the writers she assigns in her classes, and, more broadly, what sort of person she is.

A blog isn't the only avenue here, of course; professors who are public intellectuals, or who write autobiographical novels, poems, and plays, or who are for whatever reason generally well-known, have much more open lives than other professors. There's almost nothing a Manchester University student can't know about Martin Amis or his nemesis, Terry Eagleton, for instance, though neither blogs.


One university incorporates blogs into its annual college-wide reading assignment:

'[The] Common Reading Experience program ... uses a blog to organize its discussions of what book all incoming students should read during the summer. A committee meets to discuss and ultimately choose the book, but the ...community could see what it already has decided against or is considering at the blog and offer input... '


Yet another use:


'At Bluffton University,...[s]everal students and one faculty member blog to give an insight into what campus life is all about, since most students live on campus.

"We want them to be authentic and be real," said Chris Jebsen, director of admissions. "There is no guidance from our office: 'Here's what you need to be writing about this week.'"

The student bloggers are university employees, paid for two hours of work a week to write two blog posts. ... In the changing world of technology, campus visits are becoming less popular and more people are checking out school Web sites, Mr. Jebsen said.

"Sometimes the first time we're learning about them is when they apply online," he said.

The admissions staff likes having the blogs so people who don't visit campus and interact with students still can get a feel for Bluffton.'
Posted at: 11/04/2007 08:37:00 AM