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Social Networking
[Your College Here] Wants to Be Your 'Friend'
9/6/2007
Though still a fairly new profile page (it launched this past spring), the Mars Hill College page is growing, and instant connections to existing oncampus content and resources give the site enhanced credibility and help it to grow virally. "[We figured that] if we couldn't get the attention of our own students, how could we expect anyone else to take notice?" says the webmaster.
GETTING BEHIND SOCIAL COMPUTING (continued)
Resnick says that the drivers behind the program are the rising
popularity of of social networking sites, and the university's desire
to leverage the research expertise of faculty. Moreover, with the
growing demand for online community jobs in the private and public
sectors, positions such as online community managers and eMarketing associates are
on the rise in almost every industry. "On the internal side [within the faculty of the School
of Information], we have some of the world's best researchers in recommender and reputation
systems, network analysis, computer-supported cooperative work, and the social
psychology of participation in online communities," he says. He goes on to add that, "It
made sense to try to integrate that research expertise into our master's degree offerings,
to offer a program where we would have a clear edge over other information schools with
which we compete for students."
Resnick foresees other institutions adopting social computing programs. Some, he says, are already offering one or two related courses on this topic. "I expect that other universities also will expand their offerings in this area, as we have been doing for the past few years, but it will take a few years for most of them to gather enough faculty to support as broad a program as we are able to offer." For more on the Social Computing program at the University of Michigan, go here. The University of Southern California is also offering a similar program. For more, go here.
Mrozkowski and his team also dabbled with Facebook and YouTube. They attempted to launch a Facebook page, which initially took off and the school's network populated quickly. However, Facebook "put an end to the party," says Mrozkowski. "They shut down the page saying that their profiles were only for 'individuals' and not 'institutions.' We pleaded with them to reconsider, but got no response."
Clearly, college administrators seeking to establish a school presence on a social networking site should be warned: What can start off as a campus networking initiative can come to a screeching halt when the community managers at the mainstream social networks put the brakes on what they consider obvious marketing ploys on the part of school recruiters and PR folk.
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