…considering that to fight this decision they have set up an online petition, an e-mail exploder, several Web sites, a Wiki, a hand-coded comments system, a phpBB, an IRC channel, several instant-messaging chats, and had information posted to several blogs including high profile ones like Mr. Lessig’s.

Of course, they also got plans up and running on a non-college server within two weeks, paid for out of pocket.

I hope everyone (including administrators and bureaucrats) will soon see the value and utility of online communities like they do.

Ahh..but isn’t that how its usually done?

My Alma Mater consistently promised, in response to student concerns, that budget cuts would not affect the number and variety of “chaplains” (They represented a variety of religions – I don’t remember the correct term). Students even held protests/vigils prior to the budget being decided upon, they were that concerned about this issue.

So…we get back from spring break and guess what was cut from the next years budget. Most of the chaplain’s salaries.

And then there’s the U of Oregon, which finally gave in to not only student pressure, but also the results of a student election and the findings of a University created committee, and agreed to join the Worker’s Rights Coaltion. This was decided late spring.

So…during the summer, when most of the students are gone… the University reverses its decision in response to pressure from Nike and its CEO Bill Knight.

I understand that hard decisions have to be made and you can never make everyone happy, but college administrators should realize that going back on promises and/or making decisions in ways that attempt to deny students any type of voice only creates mistrust and resentment.

I was the head of IT at Cornell Law when Russell Osgood was winding down as Dean (1996-1998), and I reported directly to him for some time. From my experience, I can say that at Cornell his interest in IT was primarily to keep email running and making sure faculty could print as needed. He did not see the value of things like ‘virtual communities’ then. He was a good and fair administrator who was a masterful politician with a well-regarded open door policy that made him popular with staff, faculty, and students. I’m sure that the changes to the IT policies were not made lightly or capriciously, but were timed to occur at a point of least resistance.

Most of the other stuff–dirty deeds done over the summer, universities violating their own procedures, deceptive information given to the student government, obsession with limiting student contacts with non-unversity people–is simply how I’ve seen university administrations operate…

…that is, how they operate when they face opposition. Usually, there isn’t any opposition. Most universities are now more vo-tech schools than anything else, and most students are there to get job certifications, not educations. Why complain about free culture in the hiring hall?

The college probably does have some potential liability when it comes to student educational and employee records and those do need to be handled in a suitably structured way. I don’t track this area of law, but I know it’s a delicate issue with lots of legal considerations.

For official use, the college can keep its own system, business use only. It’ll be a pretty sterile system but still very useful. All of the fun and much of the informal discussion belongs in another place.

There’s a sort of rule of online communities: the faster something happens, the greater the reaction, a bit like stopping a car with a concrete wall rather than braking over 50 yards. Bad idea to use the concrete.:) If the people who shut it down that way were professional moderators, I’d call them incompetent.. but they clearly weren’t. They just didn’t know what any skilled moderator could have told them.

I don’t think that the college understands the true value of online communities and the potential good they can do for it. No community based on the current rules can fully achieve that potental. Certainly not one intended for student use. There’s tremendous potential for increasing the involvement of alumni (along with getting the benefit of their experience, career networking and financial contributions) and facilitating the introduction of future students but it seems most unlikely that this potential will be realised.

My advice: don’t have the system managed by any current student or employee, who might be reachable through college administrative rules. That also insulates the college from liability and lets students speak fairly freely about the college.

The Plans mess infuriated users (whether students, alumni, or staff) for several reasons:
1) The decision was made over summer break, when the Student Government Association could do nothing about it; not even protest.
2) The ITS-proposed replacement had not been developed. Furthermore, the replacement blog initially excluded alumni, who make up a sizeable contingent of plans (it is also used as a way to present and store contact information for those interested.)
3) Plans was and is a student-run community, and shutting it down without consulting the student body appeared to be a violation of the college’s principle of self-governance.

It appears that Grinnell College is greatly lacking in understanding of the way communities of communities moderate themselves and the value of speaking freely.

If this action is typical, it appears that Grinnell College is not a place to send any student if you want to give them a well-rounded education in a thoughtful and modern educational establishment.

Based on their assertion that they would be the publisher, they also appear to need competent legal advice, if only so they discover the wonders of the good portions of the DMCA and the laws and precedents in this area.