Case Study: JISC-PoWR Blog Marieke Guy, UKOLN Using Blogs Effectively Within Your Library – ILI Workshop 15th October 2008 UKOLN is supported by:

Background to JISC-PoWR JISC Preservation of Web Resources project Focus on digital preservation issues of relevance to UK HE/FE Web management community 5 months (May – September 2008) 2 partners: UKOLN and ULCC + friendly lawyer Aim is to raise awareness amongst the Web manager community of the need to incorporate preservation strategy into key stages of the web management process Identify, share and seek to embed best practices! 3 Workshops: London, Aberdeen, Manchester, Key resources: briefing papers, case studies and handbook Blog - http://jiscpowr.jiscinvolve.org/

The JISC-PoWR blog Launched on April 30th 2008 Used WordPress (hosted) Popular, easy to use Useful widgets, no in-house expertise needed JISC Involve service (http://jiscinvolve.org/) Templates allowed customisation of side bars Used as a dissemination channel for the project activities and forum for discussion

The Launch Initial posts Explained blog’s rationale and scope Ensured there was documented policy e.g. Creative Commons Introduced the team members who would be posting on the blog Invited comments on posts, encouraged discussion Initial posts went through a peer review process Set up team area (Google docs, discussion list, internal documents etc.) Alerted other bloggers to site (to encourage traffic), mentioned it on organisational Web sites, posted to lists

Monitoring the site The Technorati search engine can provide valuable information related to your blog Who has linked to your site? What are they saying about the site? Useful to follow up http://technorati.com/

Ranking and Authority Authority: number of blogs linking to a your blog in the last six months Rank: how far you are from the top (the smaller your rank, the closer you are to the top). What is your ranking and authority? Who has added it as a favourite? Top tags

Statistics Blotter (http://www.dapper.net/dapplications/Blotter) provides an automated graph of your Technorati statistics Useful tool Helps spots unexpected peaks and troughs Such objective statistics may be useful For spotting trends For gaining an understanding of how blogs work For making comparison with one’s peers For getting statistics at little effort for reporting purposes But there are also many limitations (blogs may have focussed audiences, blog aggregation, statistics may be flawed, …)

Thoughts on the Blog #1 Very useful for sounding out ideas starting discussions Sharing ideas and getting feedback alerting people to events and resources Making contacts Creating a community More formal than most blogs, no one personality because many voices (RM vs WM) Important to find an new angle on something rather than just repeat Good to respond to comments

Thoughts on the Blog #2 Use of a conversational writing style makes it easy to write. Open up your comments, get them emailed to you but don’t review - bottleneck Blog comment spam can be a problem, so an automated spam filter is needed. Maximising impact is important, so making information available in many places is valuable Blended blogging: is great – blog on a topic before talk and get suggestions; blog afterwards and get feedback Widgets can enrich the blogging environment

Questions Any questions?