Exploiting The Potential Of Blogs and Social Networks

In November 2006 UKOLN ran a day’s workshop on Exploiting The Potential Of Wikis which was held at Austin Court, Birmingham. The feedback for the event was very positive, with positive comments made not just about the content of the workshop but also the venue.

This year, on 26^th November 2007, we will be running a similar workshop on Exploiting The Potential Of Blogs And Social Networks. The event will have a similar format to last year’s workshop, with four institutional case studies in the morning, following by two  talks which address the challenges which institutions will need to address after lunch.   The talks will inform the group discussion sessions which will aim to identify the various issues which will need to be addressed (technical, legal, social, etc.) and ways in which institutions can exploit the potential of blogs and social networks whilst minimising associated risks.

I’m pleased to say that the institutional cases studies will illustrate the diversity of approaches which are being taken across the higher education sector, ranging from use of blogging services in a managed VLE (WebCT), use of an open source solution (Elgg) and use of social networking services such as Facebook. In addition to the talks giving the views of the institution, I’m pleased to say that we’ll also be hearing about the students’ perspective, with a talk by Tom Milburn, Vice President Education at Bath University Students’ Union.

The online booking form for the event is now available. The workshop fee, which includes workshop materials, lunch and coffee and access to the WiFi network, is £85. The closing date for bookings is Friday 26^th October 2007 – but note that at last year’s event the workshop was fully subscribed two weeks before the closing date, so we would advise early booking.

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