Interested colleagues

These are the folks who expressed interest in the Integrated Knowledge Environment discovery in 2008.

Please welcome Nicole Rhoads of Albion College to the IKE Project. <http://www.albion.edu/>

“I’ve also been planning the conversion and integration of several web- based systems, including blogs (WordPress), CMS (Joomla), LMS (Moodle) etc. So far, I’ve been hoping RSS will do much of the job where an existing bridge application doesn’t work. I’m really excited to hear more about the expected outcomes of the IKE Project.”

Please welcome Andrew Bonamici from the University of Oregon.

“Jay, et al.: I am interested in the IKE project because I am involved in a range of related projects at the University of Oregon. These include responsibility for the library website and ongoing participation in campuswide governance bodies and initiatives, including the Undergraduate Council, Disabilities Issues Adminstrative Council (which deals directly with web accessibility), IT Policy Task Force, and more. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks for your consideration.”

Please welcome Luke Robinson, Web Manager, Calvin College <http://www.calvin.edu>

“As the Web Manager at Calvin College, I’m involved in the process of envisioning, planning, and building a unified Web presence across all divisions of the college. Shalom, Luke Robinson

Please welcome Regina Cain from MSU Billings. <http://www.msubillings.edu/>

“At MSU Billings we currently have two departments in charge of our web. University Relations and Information Technology. I work for IT as a systems analyst.

“We are constantly looking for better ways to simplify our web site while making sure all the information is at the students as well as staff’s fingers. We are currently working with our Learning Management System to provide a portfolio to the staff as well as students, along with that we are looking into how to use technology to help in assessment.

“I would love to share what we have learned as well as pick the brains of the group to help us in our endeavors. Thank you, Regina Cain”

Please welcome Dong Chen from Bowling Green State University <http:// www.bgsu.edu/>

“I believe that social networks, blogs, wikis, collaboration tools should be integrated to share common knowledge among universities.

“I am closely working with our office of marketing and communications to develop a unified online presence to attract perspective students.

“It’s crucial that higher education has a repository of best practices and guidelines for online knowledge sharing. I believe this group starts a very important topic, and that’s why I am interested in join.”

Please welcome L. Burke from the University of St. Thomas <http:// www.stthomas.edu/>

“As the director of web initiatives for the business college at Minnesota’s largest private university (the University of St. Thomas), I am working with faculty and staff on several collaboration and communication projects and the idea of integrating these resources across media and devices is an increasing concern.”

Welcome to Kerry Meyers from Agnes Scott College <http:// www.agnesscott.edu/>

“As director of interactive communications, I’m interested in propagating a cohesive and interactive online presence as part of our overall marketing strategy.”

Please welcome Heather Penner from Oregon Health & Science University

“I work for OHSU, Oregon Health & Science University. We are a major teaching hospital in Portland, OR. I manage a small central services team called ‘Web Strategies.

“We have a huge mission to support all existing websites (a varied and sundry lot) and to gradually migrate those sites over to a shiny-new implementation of our CMS and consistent templates.

“Along the way, upgrading key portions of our infrastructure, and most importantly trying to integrate a multitude of Web 2.0 features to support students, marketing efforts, research collaboration, etc. etc. for a seamless and beautiful user experience. (Right?)”

Please welcome Steve McDonald from Tufts University

“I’m the lead developer on the Spark project. Spark is a a suite of communication and collaboration tools that includes wikis, blogs, podcasting, forums, a media markup system and a mapping tool. Soon, web based conferencing will be integrated. Details are available at https://spark.uit.tufts.edu/”

By the way, I saw a presentation and demo of Tufts Spark at the Campus Technology conference last week.

<http://tinyurl.com/6×9auj> <http://tinyurl.com/5gtogw>

My primary impression of the conference was that academic technologists and campus communicators are looking for easy ways to surface content objects — that were created in a curricular environment — so they can be made public, for lifelong portfolios and to build relationships with future students, alumni, and service learning partners.

Tufts Spark (and the Digital Commons from Georgetown) seem to be out in front on pulling together the many ways knowledge objects are created and shared, and are preparing for a phase 2 which would include public sharing and tagging.

<http://tinyurl.com/6jebgo> <http://tinyurl.com/5nhv4g>

Welcome to you, Steve, and I look forward to seeing how we can share our knowledge.

Please welcome  Aaron Green, Web Developer at the University of Southern Mississippi to the IKE Project.

“We have a problem right now with our web communications being very disjointed.  I’m interested in this group’s findings to apply them in our academic environment.”