Thurmond's Thoughts

When you travel, take your tools...

2009-09-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

Recent communication concerning the NACADA Annual Conference in San Antonio..."There is not internet access in our meeting rooms in San Antonio -- therefore, if you are a "laptop" person, you will need to download the agendas, reports and materials to your laptop to use or you can purchase a daily pass to the wireless internet for $12.95 if you feel access the link live is important to you. Perhaps one day, convention centers and convention hotels will see wireless access as a service to conferences and less a revenue generation opportunity."

Yes perhaps one day...in the meantime, advisor, take your tools!

You could download, print, or otherwise un-virtual the stuff you need, but how do you keep in touch, share your thoughts, and tweeeet? Too many of our colleagues will be working in their offices instead of working with those of us lucky enough to go to the conference (thanks for the bump last February, AirTran). We must, must, must provide for their learning! I will be bringing my little USB friend instead of paying for an internet day pass...I will even go to "ubiquitous coffee shop" before I pay for the internet day pass.

What about your very SMART phone? Not only will there be various opportunities to use it to find out where the lunch and dinner crowd will gather, but this can be a tool for sharing the conference with your colleagues at home. Use mobile applications to share insights on the go.

If you decide not to bring your tools, I am sure there will be internet cafe options at NACADA09. Bring your waiting shoes just in case others chose not to bring their tools too.

But K, you say. That laptop is heavy. I bet it is...I bet you have to borrow one from your IT "guy" and it is vintage 2006. Are we still stuck on the idea that you don't need a personal, portable device when you leave the office for a while? You need tools that help you do your work despite your location.

Take your tools, advisor. See you at NACADA09.

See Laura Pasquini's excellent post about how to participate in the discussion/conference from your office at:
http://techknowtools.wordpress.com/2009/09/24/nacada-conference-09/

or follow the conference at

http://nacadatech.net/

hashtag for NACADA Annual Conference in San Antonio, TX is #nacada09

HashTag

2009-08-31T10:20:00.001-07:00

Eric Stoller created a Twitter hashtag for NACADA Annual Conference #nacada09 This tag may be used to mark tweets pertinent to the conference. Twitter users will find different ways to use the tag. Non Twitter users may follow the tweets on nacadatech, a website originally created for the NACADA Technology and Advising Seminar 2009. The resources at nacadatech have been repurposed to set the stage for a virtual annual conference.

It seems to me that the conference started the minute that the hashtag was created. Maybe this is the sociologist in me, but when the tweets are tagged, the interactions have begun. Conferences are about many things, but for me the conversations I have with collegues are the most valuable aspect of the event.

Tweet on you twits...the conference is now. Eric's blog has instructions...don't ask me.

Getting back into it...

2009-08-27T11:48:00.000-07:00

While I haven't abandoned technology in academic advising, I have been challenged this summer to maintain all of my interests. I began implementation of AdvisorTrac and DegreeWorks in earnest in May. It's a challenge to come out from under the rock.

I came back to the office each Wednesday (Walk In Wednesday) for an immensely popular option for new and continuing transfer student advising. We are seeing the fruit of this labor only now...our lobby has but a sprinkling of late and last minute transfer students doing what needed to have been done in June and July. Good news for retention at the UofM.

Today's conversations are getting me back into it. #nacada09 has been created as a tag for posts concerning the 2009 Annual Conference of the National Academic Advising Association. When we meet in San Antonion TX beginning Sept 30, tweets will fly from winged twits! I will be armed with my new Verizon USB wireless gizmo and my Dell mini 9.

Back to school, back to learning, and back into it...

quadrant exercise with IAAN

2009-04-27T12:21:00.001-07:00

quadrant exercise with IAAN,
originally uploaded by Karen T2008.

Thanks so much to the advisors who gather for the Indiana Academic Advising Network on April 25. We talked about the future of academic advising. In small groups the folks considered plausible futures for academic advising. As a result four scenarios were proposed given that legislation would be passed that would guarantee all citizens the equivalent of two years of higher education. Several elements of the scenario were a part of the report out...each group was to choose an insitution type, describe advising, students, the use of financial resources, and the teaching and learning models. An outline of each group's scenario is pictured above.

2009-04-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

Higher education changes...big surprise. But what makes it change? What are the "drivers of change?" You can probably find various sources on this, but here's one. The study “The Future of Higher Education: A View From CHEMA” discusses key drivers of change ahead and institutional readiness for change. Respondents from inside higher education were asked to identifry the top three drivers of future changes. More than half of respondents (60.5 percent) see financial constraints as the most significant driver of change. The next two most frequently selected factors were technological change (32.6 percent) and changing student demographics (23.7 percent).

What changes higher education will ultimately change academic advising. I would love your comments on this latest line of thinking...I will do this presentation at the Indiana Academic Advising Network (IAAN) April 25.

spotlet computing...

2009-04-12T02:20:00.000-07:00

Where are we going for Web 3.0? I heard the term a few weeks ago for the first time. There are a few articles, blog posts, and magazine articles so people are starting to think about it. I found a video on YouTube (through a google search on google video beta) with an intriguing demo. Here's the video...

IT stands for more than one thing

2009-03-31T06:28:00.000-07:00

IT...we have been talking about IT a lot. We meant information technology. IT stands for more than one thing. This week I attended the 14th annual conference on Instructional Technology at Middle Tennessee State University. Much buzz about Web 2.0, but just as much about devices for classroom participation (including the cellphone...see texxtthemob.com) and other classroom engagement options. This is a corralary to the work we have been doing with technology in advising...increasing learning with the help of technology. And the mantra still seems to be the same...the technology is a tool, among tools, that you may want to use to engage or otherwise increase learning. The technology is not the point, its the learning. Once again it is clear that rubrics for making the decision about technology are necessary and appropriate.

Instructional Technology Conference...wandering in the field

2009-03-30T13:43:00.000-07:00

March 30...wandered to the Instructional Technology Conference at Middle Tennessee State University. This morning started with Michael Wesch, Kansas State University anthropology professor who has written lately on the impact of new media on culture. Probably a few of you are familiar with Dr. Wesch's work...he has several videos on YouTube that give you hints at the work he is doing with his students.

On to what we would call concurrent sessions...first thing I sat in with a professor in an instructional technology graduate program. His students work in teams to design instructional units for business, education, and healthcare. The course is online, so he showed how he was able to organize the course in BlackBoard.

Next session featured a new learning paradigm called entreprenuerial learning. Review included Kolb and Myers-Briggs, and uses a four quadrant approach to juxtapose Activity and Learning. I did some tweets on this session because there were a lot of details. Presenter was an Instructional Technology professional, but had very different educational background from the first presenter. Heard that before?

After lunch, where iPods were given away as door prizes (one advantage of engaging technology vendors) I attended a session done by presenters who were not physically present at the conference...I went to this specifically because I think it is something that needs to be explored for future NACADA conferences, travel funds being what they are. A couple of things were observed. First, all the presenters were remote, so the conference organizers provided a "moderator" for the session. This person turned on all the machines, made sure all the connections were working, and then stayed seated at a table at the front of the room during the session. This seemed awkward but is probably a good approach. Another observation is that the presenters, who had no way set up to see the audience, kept talking and providing examples. If they had been able to see the room they would have had some cues for how to proceed that would have improved the flow of things. It helps the presenters to be able to see the room, if not the faces of the participants. People left and faded out of the room in a way that they would not have done if the presenters were live. Good information for me as I think about ways to do this in the future. The presentation content was good and you can read more on their website.

I was very interested to go to the next session presented by two librarians who put a library tour for freshmen on iPod touch. This was intersting because they really did film this themselves. Gave me a little courage to use amateur video on video learning objects for advising. I had seen a few more glitzy products and began to wonder if it is still going to be ok to use free tools and do the work yourself.

I am finishing the day with a session on Wikis, Bookmarks, and Blogs (Oh My!...yeah she really called it that...sound familiar?) which is pretty basic but is probably the most specific set of instructional tools that I have seen today. So if I am a faculty member trying to find out HOW to use this stuff in the classroom, this session is finally getting to it. Good way to complete a day's learning even if its a little bit of a review for me. At the end is the bookmarks part..got to listen now!

More tomorrow...I will be adding tags and links to this post as things become available.

Social Camp Memphis

2009-03-07T07:43:00.000-08:00

People Connect-Not Technology

Let's think about it just a minute. We might not think of our students as customers, of academic advising as a service, or of what we do recruit as marketing, BUT IT IS. When we think about using social networking and social media to increase the effectiveness of what we do on all those levels, we have to at least think in terms of marketing. First session at SocialCamp Memphis makes this point.

So instead of jumping in to start a blog about your advising services, what about finding out who is already blogging about your advising services? What are they saying? What kind of marketing already is taking place by your students/clients? And how do you respond?

I challenge you...google your office. Go on facebook and twitter and see who is already talking about you. This is an exercise in search tools really. What can you find that has already been said about you. Let me share an experience...

After nacadatech, I came home to Memphis and settled back into the work that piled up. I imagine that you did the same thing. I did manage to keep working in the wiki that our learning community created. One of my concurrent sessions was about advising management systems. During that session we brainstormed what we needed from an advising management system. I posted the list in the wiki, and tweeted about it just a little. I posted here about the list. I might have called it "the manifesto." Yeah I did. Pretty quick I heard from three vendors who think they already have an advising management system that we can buy from them. How the hec did they know I had posted the list? If you look at the wiki you may see that I mentioned, and other wiki members mentioned, companies by name. Well, they searched for themselves and found our wiki. Its probably someone's job (or part of it) to search the web periodically to find out who is saying what about the company.

I know we are not just loaded with extra time to be searching for ourselves, or advising offices, or our institutions. But try it...see if you are a topic of conversation. If you are, if you learn what is being said, you have choices. Ignore, respond, or counter might be some options. But just try it. Use comments to let me know what you find!

Web 2.0 in the community?

2009-02-28T09:34:00.000-08:00

So I was driving to my favorite cupcake shop yesterday with the radio on...only NPR of course. But despite my best intentions to avoid them, a commercial came on. I was only half listening. But all of a sudden I heard, WEB 2.0! I started listening a little more intently as I passed the McDonald's at Quince and S. Perkins. It seems that an LaunchMemphis is having a camp for me! It sounded so much like nacadatech that I thought they must have gotten the idea from us. SocialCampMemphis is coming up March 7, and I am signed up to go. Perhaps this will be an opportunity to make connections with other higher education professionals with an interest in social networking.

Web 2.0 in the Workplace

2009-02-24T14:09:00.001-08:00

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Web 2.0 in the Workplace

View more presentations from Peter Williams. (tags: deloitte web2.0)

unplugging...

2009-02-22T13:55:00.001-08:00

I talked to a prospective student last night who told me that had decided to unplug. After he talked for a while I began to see that he was explaining the overwhelmed feeling that many of us have when we get involved in including web 2.0 in our relationships and in our day to day activity.

He deleted his facebook account. And he said he felt soooo goood. He reasoned that friends who wanted to include him in social plans see him at work and at school, have his cell phone number, and can contact him via email on his iPod touch. He didn't want to have to go chase down his invitations on facebook...he wanted the invitation to chase him.

He got rid of all of his twitter followers. It just didn't seem important to him to know what everyone is doing right now. "It usually doesn't add anything to my life." The twitter feed got irrelevant when it was purely social and trivial. He had very few organizations and causes in his twitter friends, so it was just random people telling other random people when they were going to the store to buy cinnamon dental floss (for example). It started to feel stupid to him.

What about email...rather gmail to be specific. It comes to the iPod touch and that is sufficient. Wireless network at home is in tact and will provide other options for connectivity. So he's not totally unplugged, but is unplugging from some connections that have not provided usefullness in his definition.

Have we asked our students what is useful to them? There isn't one way that they will respond. But they can certainly tell the way in which they prefer to receive communication. This doesn't take us off the hook; we have to use all means of communication in order to reach a higher percentage of students. That high percentage will not be 100%. One possible preferred way to receive information is not to receive it at all. We will see those students later in the retention statistics reports...

discussion

2009-02-18T18:07:00.001-08:00

discussion,
originally uploaded by Karen T2008.

When you really get right down to it, advising is talking. The content , tone, level, and the participants in the talking can change. Even the medium using to translate the talking can change. Advising 2.0 Seminar participants took seriously the option to translate the talking with technology. So talking face to face, even if your talking partner is not sitting in the same room, is possible. WooHoo! All those advisors in distance and online programs are breathing a sigh of relief. They were worried when so many seminar participants said that you lose the face to face quality if you use technology in advising. Perhaps a few of those opinions were changed by the end of the seminar.

I sure hope we can entertain the notion that quality relationships with our students and our colleagues may be established, nurtured, and maintained online. For so many advisors there is ALREADY no choice. To be able to adapt our practice, and create new practice that facilitates good communication regardless of our location or the location of our student is a challenge. But I don't believe its an optional challenge. As we explored models for communicating, learning, and teaching online at the seminar, some light bulbs came on. That's fantastic!

Home again...but still in Florida

2009-02-17T08:27:00.000-08:00

I am back in the office but I still have a few dozen brain cells that are connected to the conference center at the Hilton Hotel on Clearwater Beach. Seems like the time went so quickly.

Our learning community (go Clearwater Clear Thinkers!) sat in a circle on Friday afternoon and talked about

the first thing we would do when we went home
one big insight from the seminar

As we went around the circle in this very low tech assessment of our time together, it is clear that many of us learned. Many of us had insights (large and small) and the atmosphere had spawned some helpful connections. Isn't this what we hope for in a professional development opportunity?

You Clear Thinkers...I am going to be checking on you. Take one step at a time, but take some steps.

I am ready to learn!

2009-02-12T03:40:00.000-08:00

Its about time to find out how well the faculty of the NACADA seminar Advising 2.0 have prepared to work with their colleagues. Its been so many months that I can hardly believe that it is here. Some things need to be said that have the potential to be lost:

We all could work harder at making sure that what we do in our work is based on evidence, clear intention, and assessed results. Have a plan; work the plan, be ready to junk the plan.

We don't work in a vacuum; collaboration is key in higher education. Advising is not Lone Ranger work. Remember that your decisions impact the system.

Everything we learn has value, even if we don't see its value immediately. We learn in unlikely places and from unlikely people and circumstances. Be ready.

These are not existential principles. They are offered as a hint at what I have experienced in higher education over 20 years. As we go through the next two days, I will have these principles in mind. I am read to learn!

Advisors and Starbucks

2009-02-09T15:13:00.000-08:00

We are pretty spoiled, ya know. We go to work, plop into our seats, and start access the WORLD WIDE WEB. Think about it folks. We have free access to a world of resources at our fingertips every working day. At home we have things set up to be able to access the internet if we want access. We can carry internet with us in a variety of ways.

A couple of years ago I did a little research with students at Africa University in Zimbabwe. I was acquainted with one of their students because he had come to Memphis to study for his undergraduate degree. He went to Africa University for graduate work in Peace Studies. I was intrigued with his experience, and he was kind enough to provide me with access to his friends and colleagues. My questions to them surrounded the nature of their internet use. I was able to learn a lot from them. One of the things I learned is that the rest of the world doesn't have the kind of access to the internet that we have in the US, and in higher education. Even those graduate students studying with my friend had limited access through a computer lab, and they usually waited in a long line to use the few computers available. No endless surfing or all night labs. Off campus the students had access to the internet only through cybercafes.

Today I find myself in solidarity with the students from Africa University...I am sitting in a coffee shop working because I wrecked my computer enough that I can't get the network I usually access with a PC card. The first place I tried had computers but didn't have a wireless network. Then I found a sub shop with wifi, so I worked there for a couple of hours. Then I found this place. If you know me at all you know that I am mortified to be in this chain coffee shop...but we all make choices. Tomorrow I will go back to the sub shop and piggy back on the hotel internet that I was able to get there.

Advisors may find that, if they embrace Web 2.0 with their students, they will be spending more time online. I certainly don't advocate working day and night to keep in step with your student's activity online. But it may be true that when you are out of touch it impacts your effectiveness. Using strategies to stay within reach of the internet is a way to maintain your presence, your effectiveness, and your ability to use the resource to its capacity. This may mean that you will need to learn some new things about accessing that WWW beyond the walls of your institution and your home. Sometimes you get a break, and you open the laptop and there it is. Sometimes you have to work at it a little. In either case, the adventure of moving outside of your comfort zone may make you think, "why am I doing this?" Believe me I have thought that several times in the last couple of days. The answer to that question is pretty important. If you know "why" you are doing it, you will most likely do more and do it more effectively.

I dropped my laptop...wah!

2009-02-08T06:32:00.000-08:00

My poor laptop took a beating on the way to Florida...I opened the car door and the bag fell out. So careless...as far as I can determine the damage is to the slot where my PC card lives...so I am now disconnected from the Verizon Broadband Network...bummer. After a call to Verizon from the road (thanks to Navigator I found the closest vendor store) and a test with my mother's laptop (yes, my 77 year old mother has a laptop and is on facebook), I figured out that there is damage to the computer. Good news is that the rest of the computer works fine, including the wireless, so there is no emergency. But I now I have to get my computer fixed. Maybe I will have to buy a new one. Wouldn't that be a shame?

What were we thinking?

2009-02-05T05:45:00.001-08:00

It's kind of overwhelming to think about what we are about to do...this seminar has been such a break away from NACADA traditions. Our preparations have challenged the way we think about the winter seminar, about schedule, about budget, about just about everything. And now its about here. What will happen? Will we actually be able to realize the vision for this seminar? Will participants embrace the paperless resources? Will the wireless network actually (net) work? Will we able to survive without a copy machine on site? Is two days enough time to learn from the ground up about Web 2.0? Its VERY SCARY! Your fearless faculty stand ready; we have coping mechanisms.

Creating the next advising management system...

2009-01-29T08:33:00.000-08:00

What do you need to be able to do that would make your academic advising/adminstrative work more manageable?

It seems like we run into tasks every day in academic advising that could be done a better way. It's not always about time and money, but lots of times it is. We can see that our work could be more efficient, but we don't have the time, knowledge, or money to pursue it. Assume for a moment that time, knowledge, and resources are not at issue.

What do you do "by hand" that you can envision could be done digitally? What do you wish you could do (digitally or by hand) that you can't do but you think can be done?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this! Use comments to participate.

Today's Students; Tomorrow's Colleagues

2009-01-09T04:37:00.000-08:00

The Educause Center for Applied Research (ECAR) 2008 study of Undergraduate Students and Information Technology included data from over 27000 students from 98 institutions with over 5800 students participating in follow up focus groups. Key findings give us a picture of IT use of last year’s freshmen and seniors, though the researchers to not indicate that the results are generalizable to the whole undergraduate student population.

Key findings

Laptops are owned by 80.5% of respondents

Internet capable phone are owned by 66.1%; 18% use their phone to access the internet daily or weekly

80% of student report that they are very skilled or experts at internet use for research and information

85% report using social networking sites. Of these, 55.8% use SNS 5 hrs or less/week. 26.9 spend 6-10 hrs/week. This is a significant increase from two years ago when SNS use was about 74% with increased daily use moving from 32.8% in 2006 to 58.8% in 2008 (there were 44 institutions which could be compared in the 2006, 2007, and 2008 studies).

The study gives a little more insight into the use of SNS. More than half of those responding only use one SNS and Facebook is the most popular. They belong to 1-5 groups within that site, and spend 5 hours or less per week on the site. The younger the student, the more time spent. Half of students indicate that they use SNS to communicate with other students about courses. Some students think that using SNS for courses could be useful, while other contend that its just for fun and communication and should stay that way. Students are not concerned about stalking, security problems, and state in their reasons that they can place restrictions on their profile.

Our future colleagues will come from these students in just a few years. How will their use of SNS change when they become our colleagues? Will their communication patterns change when they become our colleagues? How can we embrace our new colleagues?

Salway, G., Caruso, J., Nelson, M. Ellison, N. (2008). ECAR Study of Students and Information Technology. Educause Center for Applied Research. Available at
http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ers0808/rs/ers0808w.pdf

What is Academic Analytics?

2009-01-09T03:53:00.000-08:00

I came across an article that has helped me crystallize my thinking about effective collaborations between academic advising and IT. Its really a model for IT collaboration with the rest of higher education, but as newcomers to full membership in the higher education club, academic advising has a lot to gain from advocating with others who seek full membership.

We all respond to internal and external pressures for accountability in higher education, especially in the areas of improved learning outcomes and student success. The benefits of having all of our colleagues on board as we attempt to make this response are numerous. IT leaders may soon become critical partners with academic and student affairs because IT can help answer this call for accountability through what Campbell, DeBlois, and Oblinger call academic analytics, which is emerging as a new tool for making evidence based decisions in higher education.

Three characteristics of successful academic analytics projects are worth highlighting:
1. Leaders who are committed to evidence-based decision-making
2. Administrative staff who are skilled at data analysis
3. A flexible technology platform that is available to collect, mine, and analyze data20

This model is based on data, evidence, and analysis, and the skills to decide what questions to ask, to determine what information is needed to answer the questions, and to crunch the data to find out what has been revealed. This is nothing more than research, folks. IT professionals can help us to make better decisions because they can help us manage the process of research more effectively. Our ability to articulate questions and their ability to manage and deliver data is a perfect match. Several cases are outlined in the article.

At Baylor University, colleagues identified eight factors that predict eventual enrollment of interested students. The project was to find a way to predict which inquirers would most likely become enrolled students. In this way recruitment, admissions, academic, and advising professionals can concentrate their efforts on those most likely to become Baylor students.
n Attendance of a premier event
n Campus visit
n Extracurricular interest
n High school attended
n Mail qualifying score (Baylor level of interest)
n SAT score (for non-Texas residents, this variable was replaced by the number of solicited contacts)
n Number of self-initiated contacts
n Telecounselor score (Baylor level of interest)13

The Student Success Plan (SSP) at Sinclair Community College (SCC) is a Web-based counseling records management, reference, and reporting system that uses an SQL database to integrate demographic and admissions information from a data warehouse; real-time course registration, grades, and financial aid status from the student information system; and counselor risk-assessment notes and faculty-initiated early alerts.
Academic Analytics generates a system alert for advisors to initiate an Individual Learning Plan (ILP) whenever any one of the following four criteria appears in a new student’s profile:

Placement-test referrals into two or more developmental courses
Individual or family income level below the federal poverty level
Full-time work
Undecided major

As the student and the advisor develop an ILP, additional information is captured, including Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Learning and Study Strategies Inventory, personal life challenges, student satisfaction surveys, course enrollment planning, study plan and tutorial referrals, student progress markers, and counselors’ notes.

SSP helps advisors at Sinclair to identify students who are likely to struggle before they struggle. Because Sinclair has gathered information about students over a period of time, they know the factors that cause students to fail, to fail to be retained, and to struggle with their degree plan. Retention in Fall 2006 was 93.3 percent for ILP completers, 76.0 percent for ILP-active students, and 65.7 percent for non-ILP students.

We collaborate with IT best when we find ways to use the data available to us to make decisions that respond to the need for great accountability. What are students learning in academic advising and how do you know that they are learning?

We collaborate with IT best when we find ways to use the data available to us to make decisions that respond to the need for great accountability. What are students learning in academic advising and how do you know that they are learning?

Being out there in the IT world

2009-01-09T03:03:00.000-08:00

A solid environment for privacy and security will be characterized by the following:

Identification: making sure that electronic credentials for access to a system are granted only to the right person
Authentication: checking the validity of these credentials at the time of access
Authorization: determining that the person so identified has been granted the authority to perform the requested actions

The reality of computing is that no one possesses the data, information, knowledge, or wisdom that can be generated. We are stewards all of us of our own information and the information that appears to be protected by the institution. But its not something over which we have ultimate control. And less and less control will exist. This is not a bad or good thing; it’s a fact of life. It’s a part of the new worldview that I mentioned earlier. We work in an environment that is constantly changing, perhaps more than it used to, primarily due to the influence of information technology. So while we are holding tightly to our data, someone else has got it and is doing all kinds of creative things with it to make money, learn new things, find friends, communicate, and collaborate with others. To embrace that creativity is to understand the possibilities of the information and communication technology. It is also the key that unlocks the door to effective collaboration between academic advising and IT.

My IT Guy

2009-01-09T02:59:00.000-08:00

I want to tell you about my IT guy. He is my computer conscience. When I stray too far from safe computing, My IT guy pulls me back. His efforts have paid off many times in the form of computer viruses I didn’t get, files I didn’t lose, and probably a few negative consequences of which I am unaware. My IT guy is very concerned about privacy, confidentiality, and data security. He is like a lot of people who work in the IT field; they know how horrible the consequences of NOT being concerned can be.

My IT guy and I have good conversations about this topic, and have started making podcasts of those conversations. Our first podcast came out after the university instituted a new data security policy. The policy places more responsibility than ever on the user of university technology resources for making sure that they keep university data safe. Seems like a good idea, right? Why didn’t we have a data security policy before though? Why is this coming up now? Think about it. When I started working at my institution, the computer I used had a black screen with green writing. This was not a desktop or personal computer but rather a terminal on which I could see data that was stored on a computer somewhere, probably on campus. This data was hard to get to and hard to manipulate. Over the years the emphasis on getting more and easier access to data has changed the way computing is done on college and university campuses. So has the personal computer. Now, if I want to, I can sit down in my den at home and find out up to the enrollment numbers, broadcast a message to all the students in my class or in some other segment, access student grades, test scores, and a lot more and do stuff with it. I have a lot of power to really compromise the confidentiality and security of personally identifiable information. To this point, I wasn’t obligated to follow any procedure when I did that, and the likelihood of trouble was high. The University has taken measures to make sure that the likelihood of unintentional compromise goes down.

The same types of efforts go on across computing. And the concerns that my institution has about data security and our privacy are broadly understood as important in the IT field. A survey done each year by the EDUCAUSE Current Issues Committee reveals that security is among the top three issues in all aspects of the survey which include:
issues that need to be resolved to ensure the institution’s strategic success
issues that have the potential to become more significant
issues on which IT leaders spend their time
issues that account for the largest expenditure of human and financial resources

Networking, Culture, and the Machine...which came first?

2009-01-07T06:33:00.000-08:00

I can control what people see if they see me on facebook. So if I choose to be there, its on my terms. Students may be looking for the same type of privilege. We protect student’s educational records best when we teach them how to responsibily choose the information that they share. We do this best by modeling behaviors that reflect an informed understanding of privacy and confidentiality.

We might find that something besides information is guiding the behavior we see in social networks. Its not irresponsible; it’s a whole new way of looking at the world. Let me give you an example from recent experience. Charlie heard the faculty talking about twitter. One morning I get an email from Charlie, and he says, “OK, I joined twitter. What does it mean…following?” I replied that If you are following, then you get the tweets (twitts, messages) posted by the person(s) you are following.Charlie wanted to know, “Does it scare u???? :)” So how do I follow someone and is this kinda stalking? I replied, Yeah, its eavesdropping but the person is allowing it. They don't have to let you follow them. They don't have to be on twitter. I never really thought about the following language, but if you are suspicious about the internet at all, it obviously creates a thought bubble. Why would I want people following me, says Charlie? Why would I want to follow someone…that’s creepy.

This is the world view change that has taken place. I haven’t picked apart the psychology/sociology of it but some have.
“The assumption that networks are a dominant causal force is especially puzzling in the sociology of culture. Making beliefs, ideas, and identities the product of networks or other social structures unnecessarily limits the role of culture to an outcome (dependent variable) rather than considering it as a possible independent variable. In a recent exception to the rule, Lizardo (2006) argues that different forms of cultural consumption actually lead to different network structures rather than vice versa” (Vaisey, 2007, p. 3).

Perhaps the machine is using us…but perhaps we are also influencing how the machine works, how we use it, how our culture grows and changes as a result of our networking behavior. The we of which I speak is only limited by one factor…use of social networking online. If you don’t use it, you are not impacting. If you do, you are. You may not be impacting in the same way as your students, but your usage patterns influence the future of the network.

Vaisey, S. , 2007-08-11 "Can Cultural Worldviews Influence Network Formation? A Longitudinal Investigation" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, TBA, New York, New York City Online . 2008-12-11 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p183785_index.html

Lizardo, Omar. 2006. "How Cultural Tastes Shape Personal Networks." American Sociological Review 71 (5):778-807.

I Need My Privacy!

2009-01-07T06:31:00.000-08:00

Its pretty clear that we don’t have a common understanding of confidentiality in higher education, let alone academic advising. The differences in our institutions, our laws (state by state; province by province) make us responsible in different ways. Are there some common understandings of how we keep the confidence with which our students trust us? There may also be some commonality and agreement as we talk about the type of information we want revealed about us online, and in published materials. We might be ok with our name and institution being shared, but might stop at the posting of birthdates. A student might find having their name and address available as “directory information” to be a violation of their privacy. Or they might publish their name, address, class schedule, cell phone number, birthdate, and other personally identifiable information on Facebook. Sometimes we feel like they are saying “come and get me” but they don’t think about the world that way. We don’t all understand privacy and confidentiality and its importance in the same way.

The great thing is that social networking and other technology solutions are often customizable to various levels of privacy and confidentiality. This has been evolving over the few years we have been forming social networks online. As we get more sophisticated the options get more sophisticated. For example, this is the current list of options under “privacy” on my Facebook account.
Privacy

Profile
Control who can see your profile and personal information.

Search
Control who can search for you, and how you can be contacted.

News Feed and Wall
Control what stories about you get published to your profile and to your friends’ News Feeds.

Applications
Control what information is available to applications you use on Facebook.
Block People
If you block someone, they will not be able to find you in a Facebook search, see your profile, or interact with you through Facebook channels (such as Wall posts, Poke, etc.). Any Facebook ties you currently have with a person you block will be broken (for example, friendship connections, Relationship Status, etc.). Note that blocking someone may not prevent all communications and interactions in third-party applications, and does not extend to elsewhere on the Internet.

Next post: networking behavior, culture, and the machine...which came first?