templatedata

The response to the release of blogs dot usyd has been encouraging and the first blogs on the system (aside from Templatedata and Sydney Life) are now up and running. In total there are 17 blogs, 5 of which are up and running. The new ones are Inside Asia, Life of a Lab Rat and Rocky Road.

UPDATE: As blogs go live they'll be added to the 'Sydney blogs' section in the right-hand column.

Sometimes I think Gerry McGovern is stating the obvious but it's a sad state of affairs when something that seems so obvious is still so alien to some.

Take for example his latest column, Senior managers: you can't keep ignoring the web.

Senior managers have been out of touch with the Web for two main reasons. Firstly, they have no previous experience in managing websites. Secondly, they didn't see the Web as deserving significant management time. Well, the Web has come of age. It is no longer the new kid on the block. The Web has become mainstream. It needs to be professionally managed. Otherwise it becomes a dumping ground.

Those who have been working with websites for a while know that websites require management. They require ONGOING management. What they don't require is an elaborate, expensive and high-profile project every few years with no resourcing in between. Websites aren't projects. They are an ongoing part of your organisation. Much as you wouldn't expect a newspaper to be starved of resources and enthusiasm after an initial, expensive project, a website can not survive and prosper when starved of resources after the initial enthusiasm.

This is one reason that I don't like 'launch parties'. A party to celebrate the launch of something often points to a project mentality. Once the project is over senior managers wash their hands of the website and assume that it's going to run itself on the goodwill of those who actually care about it. They often appear in several years time telling all and sundry that the website is 'rubbish' and that a project will solve the problem. What they fail to see is that if the website had been managed and resourced properly from the beginning there would be no mess.

The thing that suffers most is the content. The very reason that people visit your website. Content has to be maintained, it has to be created. New content strategies have to be developed and funded in an ongoing manner. If an organisation fails to see the ongoing nature of content development they are like a magazine owner who assembles the very best printing technology, hires a project team and prints one issue. After that they fail to hire editors, writers and designers and wonder why the magazine struggles to make it to the presses a second time.

A website isn't a vanity publication. If it is it will surely fail. A website is a communication tool for your students, both current and future. It's a communication tool for staff. It should enable them to perform basic tasks easily. If you fail to see the ongoing nature of developing such a tool your website will fall behind those of other universities. If you fail to resource content development and if you allow senior managers to design websites while ignoring the expertise of those who have years of experience, your website will be in continual need of fixing. It will fail to develop and the web team will always be in damage control mode rather than free to innovate and refine.

Something I stumbled on today: Snipshot, an online imaging editing app.

Performs basic operations like cropping, resizing etc. Could be quite handy.

A very useful new University site has been launched, aimed at helping students with their writing. The Write Site

provides online support to help you develop your academic and professional writing skills.

Each module provides descriptions of common problems in academic and professional writing and strategies for addressing them. You will see samples of good writing and also do some practice activities in error correction.

A joint initiative, it has been developed by the Humanities and Social Sciences staff, The Learning Centre and the Flexible Online Learning Team.

It's only for staff and students of the University, so you'll need a UniKey to log in.

There's an article in today's Australian which looks at the (still small) world of academic blogging. Blogs dot Usyd gets a mention as do other blogs run by various academics though not officially aligned with a particular university, such as Larvatus Prodeo and Club Troppo.

More at Larvatus Prodeo and Andrew Leigh's blog.

When it's lifted, holus bolus, from another blog. I know it's not as serious as plagiarising for your uni essays but there is something quite sad and pathetic about nicking a post from somewhere else and putting it on your own blog with no attribution.

Think it doesn't happen?

It does.

And Sydney Life has just had its first experience of being plagiarised.

Compare this to this.

I did enjoy the fact that the post stolen included a tip for picking up plagiarism in Google...

It's been 3 months since we went live with the first episode of the University podcast and I thought it might be a good time to look at how things are going.

Since March 7 we have produced 13 episodes with at least one more to go live this week. We've used a number of sources for the podcast and this variety has not been without problems. The biggest problem we have had to deal with is the different recording facilities available across venues. Not all venues have recording facilities and those that do are not all the same. If you're thinking of doing a podcast, iron out the recording mechanisms first and you'll avoid a a lot of headaches.

Another hitch: the lack of a microphone is Q & A sessions. To all would-be podcasters, make sure you have a microphone roaming the audience if you are to include a Q & A session. I know this sounds simple but it's one of those things that is forgotten.

Another thing to iron out is the process for producting the podcast. In what format should the recording be made, how will it be transported, who will edit it and with what software? Admittedly we were flying by the seat of our pants for the first couple of podcasts. Not all the process issues have been resolved but we are operating a much more streamlined system now. This process is very important if the podcast is to go through a number of hands before it goes live. We don't have someone who works throughout the entire process so it's critical that all involved communicate and are sure of the role they are to play.

This communication is also vital to ensuring that the person being recorded is happy for their lecture to be podcast. Details such as this sometimes get lost in the excitement of getting the thing up there.

We have received some very positive feedback from outside the university. Some has come from media outlets, some from members of the public. The podcast has also been well received within the University. The stats bear out the podcast's popularity, which has been a pleasant surprise. Interestingly, our first podcast (Robert Fisk) still proves popular well after its first broadcast date. There is much room for expansion and improvement but for a first attempt we are very happy with the result.

So if your university is thinking of diving into the podcast pool:

- Nail down your recording facilities early
- Make sure you've got access to a microphone for questions if they are included in a lecture
- Sort out a process for the production of the podcast early. Always be willing to streamline and refine the process
- Wrap the podcast with a story if possible to add more context to the podcast itself.
- Provide links to further information about the speaker, the topic or lecture series, if relevant.
- Don't assume that people will know what a podcast is or how to use them. Provide easily accessible help with all podcast episodes.

Go forth and podcast.

Karine Jolie of collegewebeditor fame has a piece for the latest University Business: RSS: The Next Big Thing in University Web Communications.

With anyone working, studying, or teaching on campus feeling some level of information overload, presidents, senior officers, and other administrators must ensure their messages don't get lost. Multiple campus locations, a wide array of target audiences, limited attention span, and e-mail spam filters add to the challenge.

If only there were an easy way to deliver an institution's news or announcements in real time to the dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people who really need this information-and only to them-without having to worry about ISPs or spam software blocking your messages.

Consider your wish granted. RSS can do just that for you and your institution.

Well worth a read.

If you haven't seen it, Google Trends allows you to see how often people are searching for a term and where they are located. Another useful application of it is the ability compare different search terms. In doing this you can compare the usage of different terms to describe the same thing. Why is this useful?

Often we sit around trying to think labels for navigational elements or sections of a website. Sometimes we argue about how the users relate to language that is familiar to us but less so for them. Being able to see what people are using to search for our site or how they are combining terms and where they are searching from gives us an insight into how they are using our website.

Of course, this should be done with the logs from the search engine on your own site as a matter of course. Not only in terms of language but also to guage the usefulness of content, getting an idea about when to push some content and when to pull back on other stuff. (Also, to make sure your search engine works). The academic year is a pretty good indicator of what is going to be required when on a university website but the analysis of search logs can help refine content reuqirements.

Using Google Trends allows you to broaden the user base and see what people are using before they get to your site, not just after they have found you.

A very basic example:

The University of Sydney is called several different names, according to who is speaking. Its full and correct title is "The University of Sydney". Often is called "Sydney University" or "Sydney Uni" or even just "Sydney" if the context is clear. Common sense would say that "Sydney University" would be most used within the general public, simply because it's easier to say. Google Trends bears this out. In general search it is far more favoured than the correct title. Surprisingly, "Sydney Uni" was used much less. The city in which it is most popular is Sydney itself, which points to 'local knowledge' playing a part here.

In marketing and communication terms, you can see how different geographical areas use different names for the insitution and are possibly more likely to identify with that which is familiar to them. A case could be made for shortening the name to "Sydney Uni" for some campaigns when the context favoured it.

You can, of course, also check out the opposition...whether it be by the more formal titles or the shortened versions of names.

(To my friends at UTS and UNSW: this was purely an exercise in illustration!)

Admittedly, Google Trends isn't going to give you a spot-on analysis of how people are thinking, but it is another tool to add to the collection.

Now available for your perusal. (I have nothing to add to that as I haven't had a chance to have a look at them yet).