Stein’s CommunityYou web product is designed to help increase yield among your admitted students and increase retention of your newly enrolled students by providing them with their own online community created specifically for your institution. CommunityYou can be overseen and managed by your admissions staff. It also provides you with an additional forum to communicate important announcements to this critical audience. To learn more about CommunityYou, please contact Jenny Brower at 404.494.4393 or jbrower@steincommunications.com.

Contributed by: Meg Gwaltney
Web Content Manager, Stein Communications

In the last issue of the Scoop, we provided information about podcasting in education. After some great feedback about this article, we decided to extend our discussions about podcasting to include a new five-part series focusing on podcasting in higher education. Each article, beginning with this one, will focus on a specific area of colleges and universities, including admissions, academics, alumni and development, athletics, and public relations.

This series of articles does not provide technical, step-by-step instructions needed to create and publish a podcast; the intent is to highlight ways in which other colleges and universities are using podcasts and to offer a few helpful tips and suggestions as you consider what podcasting venues may be right for your institution.

What is a podcast?
In case you missed it in the preliminary article, you will need a brief definition of our subject matter: Podcasts and vodcasts (video podcasts) are audio or video files distributed over the Internet using either RSS or Atom syndication for distribution on psp themes, mobile game devices, mobile applications and personal computers. Unlike streaming audio and video, podcast and vodcast files are downloaded to the user’s equipment, which allows the files to be played at any time, even when the user is not connected to the Internet.

In addition to being incorporated into Apple’s iTunes software and Music Store, podcasting has become a popular format for two main reasons:

• Podcasts are downloaded and stored directly to the user’s equipment, especially portable MP3 players, such as iPods. Therefore, podcasts can be accessed by busy individuals who are always on-the-go — in the car, at the gym, etc.
• Through RSS feeds, users can subscribe to a podcast feed in the same way that they can subscribe to someone’s blog. Depending on the preferences they set in software such as iTunes, users can download new podcast episodes automatically when they connect to the Internet. The subscription feature saves time because the user does not have to visit each of his or her favorite web sites to check for new podcasts; they are delivered automatically.

Podcasting in Admissions
Some of the most impressive college podcasts I have come across are those geared towards prospective students (and their parents, too, in many cases). The best podcasts, even if they’re not sophisticated with hip intro music or flashy graphics, are those created around their target audience’s preferences. Essentially, a good podcast excells in three areas: content, length, and speaker/source.

Content. Generally, you won’t find a lot of new, unique content in admissions podcasts. Many of the messages have simply been adapted from content already found in current print and web publications. What’s important is the fact that the content is now available in a format that is easier to access, and can be delivered at a very low cost on a regular basis. Many people prefer the podcast format for certain types of content because they can listen to it while participating in other activities, and because they gain a sense of personal intimacy through hearing the spoken word from one or more individuals.

Length. Many admissions podcasts are short in length, making them more convenient for students who are on-the-go and who have many other time constraints in their lives. Delivering short bursts of information on a scheduled basis keeps your institution connected to its prospects in a way that is helpful to them and does not encroach upon their already busy lives.

Speaker/Source. One factor that affects the success of a podcast is the person(s) delivering your message. Your podcast will benefit from a speaker who speaks clearly and whose voice engages audiences easily. Above all, your podcast speaker must be a good representative for your institution.

Current Student Podcasts
The current student podcast is a great example of an admissions podcast that is usually done well, even if it involved very simple production. Podcasts and vodcasts are simply new formats in which to deliver information that illustrates to prospects what it’s like to be a current student on campus. Until now, this information has often been delivered via an interview in a print piece or on the web, a student blog, a collection of student photos, a video on the institution’s web site, etc.

With minimal time, expense, and equipment, students can record and publish a podcast on a weekly or bi-weekly basis to convey to prospects the daily life of a college student, whether it be the class they skipped one morning, their first A+ in biology class, or the commencement address they heard at graduation. By listening to podcasts throughout the year, prospects have a better sense of what it’s like to be a student on campus.

Not only do podcasts share information, they also generate an emotional response, as the listener hears the student’s voice, accent, and attitude.

In many cases, admissions offices do not feel the need to censor current student podcasts, given that the admissions office has selected student podcasters based on quality of character and has conveyed to them the important responsibility of acting as representatives of the university.

For a great example of a current student podcast, listen to Amber’s podcast on the Houghton College web site: http://www.houghton.edu/admission/life/amber/index.htm

Promotional Admissions Podcasts
In addition to current student podcasts, admissions offices are creating podcasts that promote special aspects of the school, such as its location or its diversity on campus — again, many of the same topics you would read about in their print brochures. Because of the audio (and possibly video) element, a podcast or vodcast offers a more intimate way to deliver your message to prospects, especially those who can’t attend a college fair or visit campus before applying to your institution.

Campus tour vodcasts may also benefit your institution. Additional episodes would be helpful supplements to showcase the campus during special campus events, and could even include tours geared toward different audiences, including prospects, parents, alumni, community visitors, etc. Some institutions promote their most popular or most unique academic programs via podcast as well. Interviews with faculty and students, in addition to showing current projects or research, can help bring a program to life in the eyes of a prospective student, or even a potential donor or volunteer.

Examples include:
Emerson College — http://admission.emerson.edu/admission/undergraduate/podcasts/index.cfm
Massachusetts Institute of Technology — http://web.mit.edu/amps/spotlight/podcast.html

Application and Enrollment-Related Podcasts
Other podcasts provide answers for prospective students who have questions about financial aid and the application process. In many cases, a simple frequently asked questions page on the college web site would be sufficient. However, there are other ways that this type of podcast could be very useful — one idea being a brief tutorial that walks prospects through an on-campus interview or provides quick tips about the personal essay.

Find out more about enrollment-related podcasts:
Bowdoin College — http://www.bowdoin.edu/podcasts/
CampusTours Productions — http://www.campustoursproductions.com/press-podcast.html

Along this same vein of thought, Fitchburg State College sent out a podcast to its newly enrolled students. An HTML email contained a link where students could download the podcast from the iTunes Music Store. The message was recorded by the president of the university, who welcomed the new freshman class. This type of podcast is an easy way of introducing key administrators at your institution, while also providing students with helpful information, such as a reminder to send in their housing deposit.

Read more about Fitchburg State College’s experience with podcasting: http://web.fsc.edu/fscnews/index.cfm?detail=259

Until next time…
Until the next installment in this series on podcasting, I would love to hear what your institution is doing in the way of podcasting, whether it is in admissions or another area on campus. Contact me at mgwaltney@steincommunications.com.

Contributed by: Tina Stults
Direct Marketing Manager, Stein Communications

If you have a valid email address, chances are you’ve been spammed. In fact, it’s highly likely that when you sit down at your computer and open your email client, the majority of the messages flooding your inbox originate from email marketers, legitimate or not. You may have even gone to great lengths to protect your email address from spammers by installing a spam blocker service, unsubscribing your address from multiple mailing lists, or changing your email address to restore a moderate (and fleeting) level of anonymity.

But somehow, the spammers always find you.

Of course, there are those companies, institutions, and organizations that are on the up-and-up. Permission-based email marketing is a thriving and rapidly expanding industry, bolstered by its speed, cost efficiency, and ability to reach customers and prospects on a personal level. For most of us, permission-based email marketing is an essential component of our integrated marketing campaigns, supporting other print and interactive media.

Over the past several years, the government and other public and private entities have begun instituting measures with the intent to reign in spammers, whose messages clog our inboxes, and pave the way for legitimate email marketers to communicate more effectively with their target audiences. You’ve heard the words tossed around — CAN-SPAM, spam filters, whitelists — and you’ve likely taken steps to protect your own email address(es) with one or more of these tools. But have you also gotten wind of one of the newest regulatory measures in email marketing — dubbed by some as the “email tax”?

In 2003, a company by the name of Goodmail Systems launched their CertifiedEmail service, “the highest standard in email certification, to provide a safe and reliable class of email for the benefit of consumers, legitimate senders and mailbox providers.” CertifiedEmail essentially requires marketers to provide documentation about their history, credit rating, and commercial email use; companies and organizations that pass the test are charged a fee — approximately $2 per 1,000 messages — to ensure delivery of their email.

AOL and Yahoo! have recently partnered with Goodmail on its CertifiedEmail program, a move that has many email marketers up in arms. Approximately 73.5 million adults — half of the adult population in the U.S. — have registered email addresses with one of the two domains. Under the CertifiedEmail system, approved marketers will pay a premium every time they send a message to a recipient with an AOL or Yahoo! domain name.

So how does the email certification process work in action? Without getting into the weighty details, if you’re trying to send an email and you haven’t been validated by the CertifiedEmail service, your message most likely will be stripped of its images and hyperlinks. Participation in the plan ensures that your recipients will receive the email in its intended form.

Since AOL announced its intent to implement Goodmail’s service, a 50-member coalition — whose roster includes organizations such as MoveOn.org, Civic Action, and Gun Owners of America — has joined forces to fight the initiative, launching a web site at DearAOL.com, where individuals can sign a petition protesting the move, share their opinions through blog posts, and find out how to take further action.

The web site states that “AOL’s ‘email tax’ is the first step down a slippery slope that will harm the Internet itself. The Internet is a revolutionary force for free speech, civic organizing, and economic innovation precisely because it is open and accessible to all Internet users equally.” The site’s open letter to AOL also asserts that the pay-to-send measure won’t prevent spam — “in fact, this plan assumes that spam will continue and that mass mailers will be willing to pay to have their emails bypass spam filters.”

Goodmail, AOL, and Yahoo! stand by their assertion that the certification service is designed to guarantee delivery of emails generated by legitimate organizations while keeping spammers and fraudulent marketers at bay. However, AOL has backpedaled, making the CertifiedEmail service optional and promising to keep the Enhanced Whitelist they’ve used in recent years. They have also stated that “legitimate non-profit and advocacy groups” will not be charged to have emails certified and delivered — good news to many colleges and universities who operate as non-profit institutions.

In the meantime, Yahoo!’s implementation will be limited to “transactional” messages only — bank statements, purchase receipts, etc. The ISP has assured businesses and organizations that they will be able to “send email to Yahoo! email users at no cost in exactly the way they always have.”

There of plenty of people on both side of the fence with opinions about the CertifiedEmail program. Folks on the pro side argue that the Goodmail system will protect legitimate marketers and the integrity of individual email accounts. Opponents cite the tenets of free speech and equal access that are among our most basic rights. Regardless of your position, chances are that for now, your institution is protected by its status as a non-profit. But as our cluttered inboxes have proven, this battle is far from over.

Contributed by: Meg Gwaltney
Web Content Manager, Stein Communications

In case you were wondering, podcasts and vodcasts are audio or video files distributed over the Internet using either RSS or Atom syndication for listening on mobile devices and personal computers. Unlike streaming audio and video, podcast and vodcast files are downloaded to the user’s equipment, which allows the files to be played at any time, even when users are not connected to the Internet.

May and June 2005 was a big time for podcasting and vodcasting, largely because of added features in Apple’s iTunes software: the support of video playback, podcasting and vodcasting subscriptions, and the sale of music videos, short films, and television shows from the iTunes Music Store. As if podcasting weren’t gaining popularity fast enough, iTunes helped boost podcasting and vodcasting even further into the mainstream. The release of software programs such as GarageBand and Audacity has continued to allow users to easily create, edit, and publish these types of digitally rich media and make them readily available to the public.

Education is no exception to this media boom. Podcasting and vodcasting, for some schools and classrooms, have become conventional methods of teaching and learning. We have reviewed many podcasts and vodcasts and are pleased to present some of the ways these technologies are being used in the field of education:

• Teachers use podcasts to review homework and chapter notes. Vodcasting often comes in handy with science experiments and other visually dependent curricula.
• Students create their own podcasts to deliver special presentations and share information they learn in class. Students’ reading skills can also be featured on a podcast.
  • Dearborn Public Schools Student Video Projects
  • Radio WillowWeb
  • Room 208
  • KinderPods
• School boards utilize podcasts and vodcasts to share board meetings with their communities.
  • Board of Education, Dearborn Public Schools
• Colleges give prospective students a real look at higher education through podcasts and vodcasts created by current students.
  • College of Santa Fe
• Education professionals share knowledge and skills with one another through audio and video presentations.
  • PBS Learning Matters: John Merrow Podcast
  • Teachers Improving Learning with Technology (TILT)
• Podcasts and vodcasts are also available that prepare students for standardized tests, allow individuals to learn a foreign language and increase their vocabulary skills, and more…

Visit any of the web sites above for more information on the featured podcasts and vodcasts. You can also search the iTunes Music Store to subscribe for free.

If you haven’t delved into the world of podcasting yet, here are a few things you should know before taking the plunge:

• Whether you are listening to podcasts and vodcasts or creating them yourself, use up-to-date technology. Podcasts and vodcasts require adequate memory and processing power to operate without skipping parts of the audio and video. If you have the option of buying a new computer, you may want to upgrade the memory and processor speed from the standard options, especially if you’ll be creating your own podcasts or vodcasts.
• For those wishing to host their own podcasts or vodcasts online, check your hosting package first to be sure it comes with enough disk space and bandwidth. While your hosting package may not be expensive, incurring overage charges for these types of items is usually quite costly.

With that said, open up iTunes, get out your iPod, and enjoy some podcasts and vodcasts!

By now you may have received a letter from us introducing CommunityYou and now want to know more about how it might help yield your class this summer. Learn about this innovative solution and its benefits to your institution from the comfort of your office with Stein’s hosted webinars each Thursday at 11:00 EST starting April 20, 2006. Sign up today by emailing Tia Lane at tlane@steincommunications.com.

PersonalizationPlus is a streamlined web solution designed to help your admissions team more easily achieve your institution’s recruitment objectives. We’ve bundled a number of exciting web features all into one solution, including: web-based contact management, broadcast email, community building for admitted students, online journaling, and web site personalization. Learn about this comprehensive admission solution during Stein’s hosted webinars on Thursdays at 2:00 EST starting April 20, 2006. Sign up today by emailing Tia Lane at tlane@steincommunications.com.

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