Bates Social
At Bates, we’ve developed a blueprint which approaches the entire bates.edu domain from the perspective of social experience, drawing our constituents from general awareness of the College toward deeper social and personal interaction based on shared interests and common intellectual passions.”
Bates Social is a continuing initiative to help Bates people connect online. We started by registering the Bates College namespaces on social media services starting in 2007.
When the Views 1 prototype launched in 2008, we began populating our social media spaces with updates from across the College. We encouraged public participation in early 2009.
In November 2009, we launched a beta service pulling together social media created and curated by Bates staff, and added pointers to blogs edited by members of the Bates community.
- Now at: bates.edu/news/social/
From The Chronicle of Higher Education
“So many great technology ideas seem totally obvious when you see them in action,” Mr. Alexander said. “It’s a very basic, simple idea, but those are often the ones that change the world.”
Colleges are increasingly sending out announcements on Twitter, Facebook, and other social-media services, hoping to build a positive buzz about the institution and keep people informed. As the list of departments and officials adopting the services grows, some institutions are building Web sites that aggregate college-related social media in one place…
Bates College has gone beyond Twitter by aggregating all of its social-media platforms on a single Web page. Its Bates Social site features links to athletics blogs and those by professors, as well as Facebook and LinkedIn groups for alumni, and lists of Twitter accounts from students and clubs. It also allows members of the college community to subscribe to an RSS feed of various Bates-related blogs and add their own social-media content into the mix.
Designed during a larger restructuring of the college Web site, Bates Social “was developed to provide a tool for both internal use and visitors seeking to connect with Bates people or learn about the college,” said Bates spokesman Doug Hubley in an e-mail.
Bryan Alexander, a senior fellow at the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education, said the Bates site is a simple way for colleges and universities to corral information from social media. “So many great technology ideas seem totally obvious when you see them in action,” Mr. Alexander said. “It’s a very basic, simple idea, but those are often the ones that change the world.”
Bates College ahead of the curve on Web 2.0
The Boston Globe – September 28, 2010
“Bates College has a striking web page that aggregates links to all sorts of web content produced by Bates alumni.
“Facebook groups, blogs by alumni, LinkedIn groups, Flickr photos — the page runs the gamut.”
(Hat tip: Bryan Alexander, via Dan Cohen.)
- Excerpts from The Boston Globe