Contributed by: Mark Miester
Tulane Freeman School of Business

Not long after he started the MBA program last year, Joel Yarmon realized the Freeman School — and New Orleans — had an image problem.

“My friends would say, ‘What’s it like down there? Is it still under water?’” Yarmon recalls. “Most people had a very different image in their mind’s eye of what it was like here, so I wanted to show them the real picture.”

Combining his love of technology with a desire to promote Tulane, Yarmon created TulaneMBA.org, a blog dedicated to MBA life at the Freeman School. About three times a week, Yarmon updates the site with pictures, videos, news stories, links and his running commentary on pursuing an MBA in general and pursuing an MBA at the Freeman School in particular.

“I try to keep an open mind when I’m going through school and life,” Yarmon says. “If something strikes me that I think would be important for people outside of New Orleans to know about, I make it a blog posting.”

In a typical week Yarmon might post the text of President Cowen’s Tulane Talk e-mail message, a podcast interview with finance professor Bill Reese, a video showing off the Freeman School’s Trading Room, a list of frequent questions MBAs get during job interviews and his thoughts on Fox’s new New Orleans police drama K-Ville. When a rare tornado touched down in Uptown New Orleans last February, Yarmon posted photos of Tulane’s campus the next morning to show viewers it was untouched.

“Everything moves so quickly today,” Yarmon says. “That’s why blogs are so important. I can put up information that nobody else vets. It doesn’t have to be politically correct. It doesn’t have to portray anybody in their best light. The important thing is that it’s real.”

Since launching the site in October 2006, Yarmon has posted more than 170 entries, and the site is averaging about 4,000 unique visitors per month, many of them prospective MBA students seeking the uncensored, unbiased viewpoint that blogs provide.

“Prospective students are very skeptical of the mainstream media and promotion in general,” says Bill Sandefer, director of graduate admissions at the Freeman School. “The blog has been a great resource. Prospective students get a lot of information from the admissions office, but I hope they use our current students to validate what we are telling them.”

While the blog has thus far been a labor of love on Yarmon’s part, he hopes to involve other students so that after he graduates the site can continue to provide readers with an insider’s perspective on Freeman and New Orleans.

“No matter what, it will remain student driven because I think that’s really what people appreciate about it,” Yarmon says. “Business school is a big commitment. I’m just trying to give prospective students another way to do due diligence on the decision to go to business school and, more importantly, the decision to attend the Freeman School.”

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Many thanks to the Tulane Freeman School of Business for allowing Stein Communications to reprint this article. We encourage you to visit their web site: www.freeman.tulane.edu.

Contributed by: Caitee Bloss
Web Project Assistant, Stein Communications

Previous to this issue of The Scoop, we have discussed podcasting in admissions, academics, alumni, and athletics. The last in our series, this fifth installment explores podcasts as a creative method of increasing and utilizing public relations (PR).

PR is a broad topic, as is podcasting. This article focuses on two main applications of podcasting within public relations: the utilitarian element of broadcasting university news and events, and the more emotional element of conveying the personality of the university while also enhancing reputation and extending the brand.

Broadcasting University News. Like blogs and email newsletters, podcasts enable universities to easily broadcast major news and events to a global audience. They are not subject to many of the boundaries and complications faced by print and email campaigns. Three main advantages of podcasting over more traditional news publication include:

• Cost — Podcasting can be done inexpensively. Podcast production costs, including equipment, can be minimal, and hosting plans are available to accommodate higher bandwidth and storage. You can imagine the savings compared to postage or email campaign fees.
• Archives — Once published, listeners can easily browse previous episodes. Software programs, such as iTunes, make this task especially intuitive.
• Convenience — Podcasts are as portable as music. Users don’t have to be sitting at the computer to catch up on the news — they can listen in their car, while they jog, on an iPod, etc.

Utilizing podcasts as another means of news syndication is becoming increasingly popular among universities. Yale University’s Yale Netcast discusses news, events, and major initiatives with university faculty and administration. Duke has a dedicated Office of News and Communications for keeping the news media and others up-to-date on school happenings. Their News & Communications podcast (iTunes link) is a component of this initiative, and covers everything from March Madness to Durham revitalization.

The University of Florida News podcast supplies listeners with regular updates of university news and events. Rather than focusing on just one campus issue or event, each “Update: Weekly” is structured as a summary of recent news.

As we have mentioned in previous articles in this series, a large advantage that podcasts have over traditional media is universal syndication. Because campus content can reach a global audience, individuals not enrolled in the institution can get a taste of the university’s excellence and expertise. By broadcasting such information as recent research, public speakers, and discussions on popular issues, the university expands its reputation as a credible and competitive institution.

Vanderbilt has many podcasts to promote and feature different facets of the school. Their podcast, That’s Vanderbilt, highlights the newest research at both the university and its medical center. In addition, Stellar Conversations, Medical Center Podcast, and The Sounds of Blair feature specific departmental happenings.

The Georgetown University Forum is another great example of a podcast series highlighting current research and faculty initiatives.

Simply put, podcasting is one of many Web 2.0 tools you can use to increase university exposure and recognition. As we’ve shown through this series, podcasts can help you reach many different audiences, such as prospective students, alumni, and sports fans. In addition to just getting your name out there, you can establish your school’s authority on a topic, project a personality, and extend branding initiatives.

Podcasts as a personal connection. PR podcasts are important on another, non-informative level. Each one reflects the university’s personality and can give the listener more insight into the school atmosphere or attitude. In addition to helping distinguish the university from others around the country, podcasts can contribute to the development of an emotional bond with constituents. Several elements factor in to this personal feel, such as focusing on a specific target audience, welcoming user feedback, and providing frequent episodes. Each element helps listeners better acquaint themselves with your university.

Branding and Exposure through Podcasting Directories. iTunes provides one of the largest podcast directories. Recently, they added a dedicated university division of their iTunes store — iTunes U. iTunes allows schools to create custom sites for their institution to organize and brand their series of podcasts. iTunes U sites are also designed to allow faculty members to contribute their own audio and video content. All schools are eligible to participate on iTunes U, and Apple provides instructions on how to get started.

Three advantages of an iTunes U site include:

• Publicity — With so many individuals already using iTunes for music, video, and other media, your site is exposed to a much larger audience. By enabling users to subscribe to your series (a great feature of iTunes), you are retaining listeners who may never have visited your podcast again. Also, because episodes for subscribed podcasts can be automatically downloaded to the individual’s iTunes, your listeners don’t have to continually check for new releases. Essentially, your iTunes store can help retain first-time visitors and increase the listening rate of existing listeners.
• Personality — Customizing your University iTunes U site allows you to demonstrate your school’s personality, extend your brand, and create a visual and emotional connection with the listener.
• Reputation — Your podcast is listed with some of the best academic podcasts on the web. Having a customized iTunes U site portrays a professional image of your podcast, and being listed in this higher-education-only directory affords you authority and respect.

Although it is the largest, iTunes is not the only academic podcast directory out there. Two other notable web sites are Open Culture and Princeton’s UChannel.

Open Culture organizes podcasts into two categories: General (ordered by university) and University Courses (ordered by subject). A university can appear in both sections, and the University Course list may be very helpful if your podcast is subject-specific. Anyone can recommend a podcast to be indexed.

Princeton’s UChannel emphasizes vodcasts (video podcasts) just as heavily as it does podcasts. Instead of providing links to entire podcast series, the UChannel invites universities to contribute individual episodes. Their goal is to create an online resource for academic media. For this reason, episode contents must be highly academic — lectures, seminars, panels and interviews. While initially focusing on public and international affairs, the channel describes the directory as having “unlimited potential.”

With so many available tools and resources, it is now easier than ever to create university podcasts. Our five-part article series explored podcasting in higher education — a topic covering a myriad of topics and attracting an equally varied audience, all of which are tuning in specifically to your university. Experience the power of this Web 2.0 tool for yourself — with a little time and energy (and a microphone), we think you’ll find that the rewards are worth it.

Contributed by: Caitee Bloss
Web Project Assistant, Stein Communications

November 11 – 17 was American Education Week. Originally created in 1921 by the National Education Association (NEA), this annual event aims to celebrate public education and honor individuals who are making a difference in ensuring that every child receives a quality education. Weeklong events are intended to raise awareness, deepen the involvement of the community at a local level, and urge individuals to do their part in improving public schools. Each day of the week had a different theme, as outlined in the NEA schedule. This year’s theme was Great Public Schools: A Basic Right and Our Responsibility.

Whether your university is public or private, there are several reasons to celebrate American Education Week. We encourage you to plan events throughout the year, in addition to the week itself.

Reach out to your alumni. Take advantage of any opportunity to recognize your graduates who have made a difference in public education — those who majored in education, went on to serve through Teach for America, and other alumni who are leaders in the community.

Educate future leaders. As an institution of higher education, your university is educating and preparing future classroom teachers. Consider hosting events on campus to explain the school’s approach to teaching and improving public schools. Prospective students will benefit from learning about the reality of the public school environment and what their roles might be.

Raise political awareness. The quest to provide every child with a quality education has no doubt sparked many political arguments. Endless possibilities exist for speakers (including your political science professors) and student groups to address this topic.

We encourage you to continue the spirit of American Education Week throughout the year and help raise awareness to improve the climate of both public and private education in the United States. For your convenience, the NEA provides several resources, including an online toolkit, background information, and a weeklong schedule.

News flash: Your site is important. It needs its own staffing.

Contributed by: Terry Hamrick
Director of Interactive Services, Stein Communications

Let me state what you and I already know: The web has become the first choice for researching a wide range of topics, from the best microwave to the best college or university. Word of mouth on the Internet and web users seeking reassurance about their choices and decisions — in social media such as blogs and online communities, among others — are powerful new trends that are reshaping marketing, public relations, and the way institutions, both private and public, interact with their audiences and constituents.

From the growing pile of studies showing the importance of the web in the college search process, let’s take a quick review of results from a recent study released by The Princeton Review.

First choice for researching colleges
The 2006 National Survey of Website Usage in Undergraduate and Graduate School Search (.doc) (6,885 undergraduate surveys; 2,184 graduate) shows that undergraduate school-bound students spend 80.5 percent of their total school search and research time using the web. Graduate school-bound students spend 81.7 percent of their total search and research time on the web.

Furthermore, according to the study, school-bound students rate as their five most valuable search aids/tools (in terms of percentage reporting valuable and very valuable):

Undergraduate school-bound

• Institutional web sites, 82 percent
• Print materials, 77 percent
• The school visit, 66 percent
• Higher education research websites, 65 percent
• Guide books, 60 percent

Graduate school-bound

• Institutional web sites, 76 percent
• Graduate school admissions staff, 57 percent
• Higher education research web sites, 55 percent
• Print materials, 52 percent
• Graduate school rankings, 51 percent

With these kinds of numbers and trends in mind, the issue is no longer if the web should be considered a critical facet of institutional communications and marketing, but when, and by how much, it should be funded and staffed as an essential communications and outreach function of the college or university.

We are beyond the question of traditional channels (viewbooks, ads, PR, news releases, etc.) versus the Internet channel (and all its facets). Today, it has to be both.

Your brand face to the world
Your web site is your brand face to the world. Its visibility can be tens to hundreds of thousands of views a month, available 24/7, and its reach is potentially every computer user on the globe.

Now, you’re not going to be visited by every computer user on the globe, but the actual and potential visibility of your institution’s web site underscores the need for it to be top-of-mind in any strategy planning involving the institution’s branding, messaging, communications, and — not to be overlooked — improved customer service initiatives. Nothing has the potential to telegraph an institution’s organizational discord, inefficient processes, and lack of mission focus more quickly than its web site.

And while the web makes it easy to publish lots of content — and academic institutions certainly have no lack of content — the uncoordinated publishing of that content can be highly counterproductive. It’s important to move beyond the “because we can, we should” publish-it-on-the-web thinking of the last century. We all know how busy and information-overloaded everybody is in this century. Your site visitors are no exception. They are looking to use their time efficiently on your site. After all, they also have to check their MySpace page, answer waiting IMs, and text the gang.

You need to provide key site visitors with content and web services better focused on their specific needs and the tasks they want to accomplish online. This may entail difficult, but necessary, decisions on site audiences, approach, and focus. And it will require dedicated and continuing attention to the details.

Dedicated staff and funding
With that in mind, oversight of this critical communications channel should have dedicated staff and funding. This seems obvious, but I still encounter a surprising number of institutions where site management is unfocused and scattered, with those trying to do the job working in a vacuum of limited support from the top.

As a beginning, an institution should look at adding, or identifying from current staff, at least one full-time staff member whose duties are solely based on the communications, messaging, and content aspects of the web site. I’ll call this person the Web Content Manager — but it could be Web Editor, Web Communications Director, pick your title — with the intention that this position is oriented towards content, user experience, and site management; and is not a webmaster, developer, or other technical position. (You need the techies too.)

I see the Web Content Manager (WCM) as a bridge person who works with both the campus community and the IT side to ensure that an institution’s web experience is of the highest possible quality and on target. For example, the WCM:

• Makes sure marketing, branding, and style standards are applied site-wide.
• Ensures consistency of content and message and cheerleads content contributors across campus.
• Champions the user experience of site visitors and works with IT and administration to ensure that technical decisions and site features are always pro-site visitor.
• Works as an evangelist for web communications and technologies in institutional funding and policy decisions.

Needless to say, depending on the size of your institution and site, the WCM may be just the starting point for a more expansive and dedicated web management staff, perhaps with a mix of additional full-time, part-time/student intern, and external contract/as-needed staffing.

What happens after launch?
When an institution undergoes a web redesign project, an important (and unfortunately often inadequately addressed) question for the college or university becomes: What happens after launch?

It should be remembered that your new, attractively designed and appropriately branded pages are meant first and foremost to be found and read. The launch of a new site without an ongoing maintenance plan or staffing and budgeting in place to manage the content, navigation continuity, and design of the new site going forward will only result, in fairly short order, in a new site with the same old familiar problems.

Lack of post-launch attention is not the way to ensure the best return on your institution’s considerable investment of the time and money involved in a site redesign. Furthermore, for those thinking along the lines of a content management system “magic bullet,” the installation of a CMS will not solve issues of content relevance and maintenance. While the CMS can provide a consistently structured and accessible presentation of your site; there is, as far as I know, no CMS to date that can write, edit copy, recruit content contributors, or take attractive photos.

Plan for your web site to succeed. Dedicate the resources — both staffing and funding — to allow your web site to flourish and serve as a beneficial resource to your key constituents, particularly prospective students. They’ll appreciate your effort, and you’re sure to see positive results.

Contributed by: Meg Gwaltney
Web Content Manager, Stein Communications

Over the past few years, you’ve probably heard those three letters creeping in and out of conversations. Your boss uses it to get the latest news headlines. The English lit teacher uses it in her class to assign homework, receive assignments, and give feedback on student work. Darren uses it to share online articles and other resources with his students. Even young Alex uses it in his blog (a type of online journal) about playing little league baseball.

The big “it” is not email. “It” is RSS — a recent technology that is easy to use (even for non-IT people) and has extraordinary benefits to those in both secondary and higher education. Here, you’ll learn what RSS is and how you can try it out for yourself. We’ll also share helpful resources and some amazing ways the education community is using this widely adaptable technology.

What is RSS?
RSS is an acronym for Really Simple Syndication, RDF Site Summary, and Rich Site Summary. Each label hints at RSS’s ability to easily summarize web site information and distribute it to a select audience. In short, RSS makes it easy to do two things:
1. Administrators can deliver content to a select readership that chooses to opt-in.
2. Users can receive content from frequently-visited web sites, especially news sites and weblogs that utilize RSS technology.

RSS-enabled web sites rely upon XML (Extensible Markup Language), which creates a behind-the-scenes code called a feed. With software programs (as well as some online services) called feed readers or aggregators, you can subscribe to web site feeds you are interested in reading. In fact, Stein’s e-newsletter, the Scoop, is now a blog with RSS capabilities (you can subscribe to the RSS feed at http://www.steincommunications.com/thescoop/?feed=rss2).You’ll find more suggested feed readers and other blogging tools at the end of this article.

There are several ways to find out if your favorite web sites are using RSS technology:

• Look for links to feeds or RSS feeds
• Look for graphics like these somewhere on the site, usually in a sidebar or at the very top or very bottom:
• If you’re using Firefox (version 1.0.7), look for this icon at the bottom right of the status bar:

To help you better understand the feed reader, take a look at the screenshot below (or click on it for a bigger view). Some feed readers, such as NetNewsWire, resemble email clients like Mac Mail and Microsoft Outlook.

Screenshot: NetNewsWire Lite, one of our favorite RSS readers for the Mac.
It allows you to organize your subscriptions into groups, and conveniently shows which subscriptions contain unread posts.

RSS also goes hand-in-hand with blogs. While blogs include personal online journals, it can also encompass any web site with periodic updates, such as news sites for media companies, educational institutions, and corporations, and more. RSS and its behind-the-scenes programming allow users to subscribe to their favorite blogs. When updated, the user’s feed reader software collects updates and makes them instantly available to the user. Currently, almost all blogging software is equipped with the option to automatically incorporate RSS feeds into one’s blog.

How is RSS being used in education?
It’s mind-boggling the many ways RSS can be used, even for the field of education. Here, we will point out a few of our favorites. We encourage you to explore the internet and talk to your peers and colleagues to find out how they’re using it as well.

Higher ed: RSS is highlighting current students and recruiting prospective students.
To give prospective students a sense of what life at a college is really like, many college and university web sites offer brief profiles of their current students. These profiles often include a picture of the student and information such as the student’s hometown, major, graduation date, hobbies and interests, and even a brief interview.

RSS gives institutions the power to take current student profiles to the extreme by giving students their own blogs. These student journals are unedited and uncensored — and they allow prospective students to learn about college life straight from the horse’s mouth. They can read about a current student’s first day in orientation, the argument she had last week with her roommate, and even her excitement over just having passed her first test five minutes ago. Some blogs also allow students to share photos, podcasts (audio blogs), and more.

Most student bloggers are hand-picked by the admissions office. Some colleges also provide incentives for student recruitment bloggers. At Westminster College, for example, students who are photobloggers receive a digital camera; podcasters receive an Apple iPod. Other colleges also provide additional financial aid.

Check out some examples of how colleges and universities are using RSS and blogging to recruit prospective students:
Houghton College
University of Dayton
List of schools using student blogs for recruitment (brought to you by mStonerblog.com)

Secondary schools: RSS is a community-building, interactive tool for students and teachers, for class notes and resources, homework and feedback, quizzes, student questions, and more.

Today’s students spend a lot of time online. They chat with friends, they email, they listen to music and watch videos, they explore the internet, they read online journals — they also do homework and participate in class discussions.

Teachers who recognize the internet’s impact on students’ lives are stepping up to the plate and extending their classroom to the internet, making use of extroardinary tools like RSS and blogging. Better yet, they’re getting phenomenal results from their students and peers.

One Canadian math teacher, Mr. Kuropatwa from Daniel McIntyre Collegiate Institute, uses a blog for each of his high school math classes. He set up his class blogs using Google’s Blogspot service, which comes equipped with automatic RSS feeds. He posts assignments, expands on topics covered in class, and shares online resources with students. Students participate as “scribes” to post summaries of the day’s classroom lecture, complete with math problems, graphs, and other helpful illustrations. The daily scribe also has the honor of choosing the next day’s scribe — this way students must check the blog to see who’s up next.

Classroom blogs have become an excellent way to keep the conversation rolling even after students have left the classroom. Mr. Kuropatwa is enthralled with the success of using RSS and blogging technologies in teaching:

“The kids have really taken control of the process… Each scribe seems to be trying to outdo the previous one. The kids are doing some really amazing work.”

If you visit any of his class blogs, you’ll see what he means: over time the graphs have gotten better, with visual color cues and helpful hints. It’s obvious his students are becoming masters at effective teaching and communication. What’s more, they’re doing so with a creative flair and through an efficient, ethical use of technology.

Will Richardson of Weblogg-ed.com and Supervisor of IT at Hunterdon Central High School in New Jersey, says his life has really been transformed by blogging:

“I have learned more, read more, thought more, debated more, written more and been more passionate about learning through blogging than I ever was in any classroom with any teacher. And I chalk almost all of that up to the ability to pursue topics that truly interest me and the ability to find and to learn from teachers who are living those interests, not just relaying information about them. The fact that I can access those ideas and those people, and my ability to then contribute back to the community of learners that has developed around these interactions have literally transformed my life.”

Secondary schools and higher ed: RSS allows the immediate distribution of news to the people who want it.

Any secondary school or higher-ed institution with news it wants to share easily should welcome RSS as a saving grace. This technology makes information distribution extremely simple. RSS gives your readers an additional venue through which to access the same information that you post on your web site and, in some cases, broadcast through a daily or weekly email.

Instead of checking your web site every five minutes (as well as their other favorite news sites), readers wait for the information to come to them as soon as it’s available. The feed reader accumulates and makes available to your readers all the updates for their favorite RSS-enabled sites, including yours.

Like email, feed updates can be checked at any time. This instant availability is part of the immense appeal of RSS feed readers, or aggregators, mentioned earlier. For your readership — parents, students, administrators and teachers, and the rest of the world — RSS aggregators make getting information even easier than before.

Here are some of our favorite RSS-enabled education sites and their RSS feeds:

What tools will you need?
Now that you’re excited about RSS and can’t wait to try it out for yourself, you will need to know about some helpful tools.

Feed Readers, or Aggregators
To receive information from RSS-enabled web sites, you’ll need a feed reader, or aggregator. There are several types available:

• Stand-alone software programs. Aggregator software is available for both PC and Mac operating systems; some are free and some are available for a small fee (usually around $25). Some stand-alone programs allow you to organize your subscriptions into groups, and offer syncing and integration with other online readers, such as Bloglines.
  • FeedDemon: PC, $29.95
  • NetNewsWire: Mac, $24.95
  • NetNewsWireLite: Mac, free
  • PulpFiction: Mac, $25
• Online aggregator services. If you plan on accessing your subscriptions from multiple computers, an online aggregator service might be more appropriate for you than a stand-alone software program. Note that quite a few stand-alone programs can be integrated with some of the online services. We suggest you visit the product’s web site and read up on their features for specific information.
  • Bloglines: Mac and PC, free
  • Google Reader beta: Mac and PC, free
  • NewsGatorOnline: Mac and PC, free or various paid subscription plans, depending on licensing and features
• RSS-enabled internet browsers. Some of the latest internet browsers come equipped to handle RSS subscriptions.
  • Firefox (version 1.0.7 and the forthcoming 1.5, still in beta): Mac and PC
  • Internet Explorer (forthcoming in version 7.0): PC only
  • Opera: Mac and PC
  • Safari: only for Mac OS X 4.0 (Tiger)

RSS-Blogging Tools
If you’re interested in setting up your own RSS-enabled web site, or your own blog, we suggest you read MacWorld’s review of the following blogging tools, each of which has the ability to automatically integrate RSS feeds with your web site. You’ll be ready to publish and distribute information in no time.

• Google’s Blogspot and Blogger
• MovableType
• TypePad
• WordPress