- Sociology Dept. - http://socioblogsg.wordpress.com/
- Biodiversity research group in the Biological Sciences Dept. - http://nusbiodiversity.wordpress.com/
- Industrial Design Program - http://moduleblog.nus.edu.sg/blogs/id4104/default.aspx
The Sociology blog page is used almost entirely to announce events. Tabs on the blog provide basic static information, like a traditional web 1.0 website.
The Biodiversity research and education group's blog is more diverse than that for Sociology. Blog postings include announcements of an NUS library blog and the promotion of a professor, a job announcement, and several posts linked to news stories about NUS's discovery of a lung-less frog. The "Blogs, et al." link is a substantial list of blogs and online journals associated with research and classes (called "modules" in Singapore) related to the Biological Sciences Dept. More static links go to a list of classes and the student club, which seems to be responsible for this blog.
The Industrial Design program's blog at NUS is called "ID @ NUS" and describes itself as:
This blog serves as a platform to provide design information to industrial design students in the National University of Singapore (NUS). It also serves as a flatform to demonstrate the teaching outcomes in NUS ID programme, in particular, the final year studio and thesis projects.
Most of the current blog posts are about forthcoming design competitions. Unlike the other blogs, there is no static information is provided on the blog site -- at least not yet.
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This relatively random selection of three department/program blogs shows the considerable diversity of ways that department can use blogs to keep their students and the general public up to date on their activities. They range from the more social networked engaged to the more straightforward announcements (almost like an email list), and from the more narrow sites to broader information dissemination.
Blogs offer a very easy way (in my opinion) to keep the different populations served by academic departments informed and up to date on department activities. It can supplements the traditional alumni newsletter that is common in the US (I am not sure how common they are elsewhere) with more timely information updates. They can help build alumni support, as well as engage current students and recruit future students. And they can give department accomplishments more exposure both within the university and to the larger public who pay a good part of the budgets of state/government universities.
Blogs also allow for RSS subscriptions, which are widely appreciated and used by those of us who are more into the social software realm. But more importantly, RSS allows these blogs to be re-purposed in other ways across the Internet, thereby giving each blog the potential to reach well beyond the immediate links above, and thereby exposing them to larger audiences. The blogs can be reposted on other websites and subscribed to in RSS readers, such as Google Reader (which is what I use).
So, when @micamonkey wondered in hwer tweet whether or not departments should blog, I think yes, absolutely -- every department should blog. It is possible to set up a group blog that includes most of the faculty and principal administrative staff in a department. It is possible to install "blog this" utilities on their computers so they can quickly and easily post to the blog without needing to go to Wordpress or Blogger.
Despite my own participatory preferences, we might not want all faculty members to have access -- given the politics that can exist in some departments. And, of course, not everyone would want to blog, either. I am a geek and am often considered a little too far into the future by others in my department. In fact, I could imagine general resistance to this whole idea from some people in my department. Despite that, I still think it is a good idea!
(BTW - you can follow me in Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/alew)
