Whither the TIP Community (Redux)
In mid-June our “group” launched a formal project to redo our web presence. Based on our discussions at our retreat and a couple of follow-up meetings, we identified three broad purposes for our web site(s).
The first phase of the project was launched this week, with over 100 individual questions identified and labeled. Over the next two months, that question/answer pool will be expanded and refined to make it more reflective of the types of questions our faculty members really ask. The TIP Calendar was also launched using the capabilities of the William and Mary web templates.
The project team met yesterday to begin to turn our attention to the third phase–the redesign of the site to sustain the “TIP Community”. We began our discussion by considering if it’s even necessary or desirable to do the third phase at all. One of my “cliches to live by” is:
There is no greater waste of human creativity than to do with great efficiency that which shouldn’t be done in the first place.
After a year’s worth of operation, the value of the site as a place for sharing and refining ideas from within the AIS staff is questionable. We’ve had a total of 106 posts and 93 comments that weren’t comment spam–with 80% of posts and comments being contributed by just four people. (Spam Karma has eaten over 4000 spam comments, however.) We discussed a number of reasons why it might make sense to pull the plug on the community site and invest our time in something else.
- William and Mary is primarily a residential community where faculty and staff have adequate opportunity to learn of new technologies and discuss their impact in face-to-face meetings. We don’t really need to be investing in virtual communities when the interpersonal interactions are sufficient.
- The majority of the AIS staff believe that blogs, wikis and other interactive tools are inappropriate or ineffective and not worth the investment of time and energy. Their time is better invested in other activities.
- Most of our faculty members are very focused on specific teaching and research projects and don’t want to invest in “awareness networks” that have little or no immediate payoff. If they need a technology to accomplish a specific task, they will seek that out through their Academic Technology Specialist, or through an email to TIP or the FDC. This site really isn’t necessary for them.
We also considered several possible arguments for not pulling the plug.
- There may, in fact, be plenty of people in the community who are interested in learning about new technology tools, but we haven’t advertised the availability of the TIP site widely enough or effectively enough to attract them to the site.
- There may, in fact, be plenty of people interested in learning about technology integration, but the content created to this point hasn’t been compelling enough to attract an audience or to engage them in conversation about the site.
If anyone has any comments on the possible direction of this site, feel free to chime in. Anyone? Anyone?