The dean of Syracuse University’s School of Information Studies, Elizabeth Liddy, hopes the recently launched iSchool blog ‘Information Space’ will increase her knowledge of what students are actually thinking. She says she hopes students will be more honest in their opinions online compared with face-to-face interactions. ‘Information Space’ highlights technology news and anything else iSchool students, faculty, staff and alumni wish to share. The blog is aiming to get a diverse group of frequent bloggers.

Liddy said she hopes the honesty on the blog will improve communication throughout the iSchool and increase knowledge about the school and discipline.

‘Bloggers can write about whatever they want,’ Liddy said. ‘People reported on the iSchool conference, and we have students from each program writing for it. We as a school are very active in social media. It’s important for us to practice what we preach.’

Liddy hopes that students will use their own voice while writing their blogs and get personal with their writing.

Margaret Spillet, director of communications in the iSchool, said some of the bloggers are beginning to develop their own voice or beat.

Liddy and Anthony Rotolo, a social media strategist in the iSchool, have been promoting the blog through a series of presentations across campus that they will host. They also want to promote it through the iSchool’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. They are asking prominent student, faculty and staff bloggers to promote ‘Information Space’ on their own personal blogs Spillet said.

‘The blog enables us to put out what individuals in the iSchool are doing and engaging in,’ Spillet said. ‘There are some funny anecdotal stories. We have one student who started a company, and he gives tips that relate to his company.’

That person is Pete Kistler, a former iSchool student, who started the business brand-yourself.com. So far he has written about personal marketing basics and how to build an effective LinkedIn profile that will increase the user’s chances of being hired. ‘I think it’s really exciting for the school to promote its own students and really give them a voice,’ Kistler said. ‘I’m really glad that the school is letting students give their perspectives and broadcast them to the world using the Internet.’

Shay Colson, a graduate student working to receive a master’s degree in information management, is another writer for the blog. He likes to write about how technology affects people on a human level, he said. ‘Not so much about the latest gadgets, but what that means to college students, people trying to teach a class,’ Colson said. ‘How does it make someone’s life better or different, what does it change for people.’ Colson has recently written about his perspective on the iPad, which he hoped President Obama would discuss in his State of the Union address.

‘I think it’s really nice to have a space where students, faculty and staff can all come together to address the issues that we face in the classroom and do it in a public way,’ Colson said. ‘It’s all relevant to what we do at the iSchool and who we are as people.’

On top of receiving opinions from students, Colson said he hopes people who are not as tech-savvy as those in the iSchool will read his blogs and gain honest and personable information from them.

‘When I write these blogs, I write it so that my mom could understand it. If I can do that, I’ve hit a pretty broad audience,’ he said.

rltoback@syr.edu

Published on February 9, 2010 at 12:00 pm