Social Networking Technologies:

A “Poke” for Campus Services

Joanne Berg, Vice Provost and Registrar

Lori Berquam, Dean of Students

Kathy Christoph, Director, Academic Technology

Copyright 2007 University of Wisconsin Board of Regents. This work is the intellectual property of the authors. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the authors.

a poke…

What can we learn from our students?

•How they communicate•How they learn and make decisions•How we can be more effective communicators “friend wheel”

Flickr 7/2007

Social networking software has become a way of life for today's students.

Social Technologies at Work

Collaboration Room. Flickr 4/2007

“If information is the raw material of the workthen there need be no common space at all…”

Charles Handy, 1997

Observations

• It’s a different era. Using social technologies may not be natural for many of us

• We’re talking about social networking (in the technology sense) and social engagement with the technology

Would you have imagined Facebook, wikis,

YouTube, blogs ten years ago?

Do you have a facebook account?

More Observations

• Social technology…does it make communication more efficient or just more fun?

• Social technology provides new levels of interactivity and interconnectedness

• The new levels of interaction make it difficult to determine appropriate boundaries

Feels like chaos…

Learning to deal with the chaos

We are observers of this phenomenon, not experts…

We’re exposing ourselves to social networking, to improve our effectiveness

So, why are we here?

• To learn together – why “social networking” is important– techniques for assessing social networking

• Sharing ideas for how to apply principles of social networking to your work – today into the future– techniques for filtering the information– organizing the chaos

Containing the Chaos

Ask

E-mail

See advisorAnonymous chats

Social networking sites

Web resources

Advisor

Self publishing

RemindersMore and different

Remember when…

Do you remember how you used to go about finding the classes you wanted?

How did you learn about those classes?Who did you interact with?

Would you find those same classes, in the same way, today?

The Past: Student Choosing Classes

Ask friends

Ask friends

Reminders

- Postcards

- emails

Check campus

resources

Check campus

resources

Check with

advisor

Check with

advisor

Eligible to

register

Registered

And now…the hunt for the “right” class

Asking, listening, surfing..

Students may use many sources simultaneously:

•On-line schedule•Course guides•Social software•Advisors •Grade distributions•Faculty evaluations•Friends

Containing the Chaos

Ask fellow studentsE-mail

advisor

See advisorAnonymous chats

Social networking sites

Web resources

Advisor

Self publishing sites

RemindersMore and different

Eligible to

register

Registered

A Model

TRIGGER ACTION

Applicability of social technologies…

Triggers:Write a Research Paper

Select your room and roommate for next year

Desired Actions:Completed Paper and

Get just the right roommate on the right side of campus…

Timeline:Three weeks!!!

Should I

live here?

Research

what?

Using the model

What are all of the possible resources?

What about the validity of these resources?

How is the information being filtered?

How did you feel?

trigger action

Summary

• We’ve heard that students want guidance and

• Some filtering mechanisms so that they do not have to figure it all out by themselves

They want some order to the chaos

Wrapping our arms around the chaos

• Manage our fear factor– Acknowledge discomfort with technologies

• Listen to what students need– Rising expectations– Simplicity– Transparency

• Learn how to work differently

End Point“Today's IT leaders face multiple challenges united by a common thread: determining when to provide custom IT services for students, when to facilitate their use of external IT services, and when to simply get out of students' way.” (Quote from September 19 EDUCAUSE webinar.)`