From Fred Stutzman, How University Administrators Should Approach the Facebook: Ten Rules offers “some suggestions regarding how administrators should approach and understand the Facebook.”
Excerpted below:
- The Facebook isn’t going away.
- Almost all of your institution’s undergraduates are on the Facebook.
- Students are not being cautious regarding their private information in the Facebook.
- Students may do stupid things on the Facebook. Really stupid things. However, aren’t mistakes something we all make? The critical difference I concede is that anything they say or do can be copied from the Facebook and rebroadcast elsewhere.
- Students are using the Facebook any way they want to.
- Weird, interesting and touching things are happening in the virtual world the Facebook creates on our campuses.
- Your campus IT department doesn’t offer anything like the Facebook.
- Back to privacy and security. Why do the students feel so secure sharing their information publicly on this network? I believe the answer is they feel secure in the fact the Facebook represents a (virtual) walled garden.
- Since you can’t make Facebook go away, and even if you tried to, you couldn’t, you might as well accept it and deal with it.
- Finally, give up on prosecuting your students for the minor violations you find on the Facebook.
One more item to point out:
Additionally, I provide a list of constantly updated news stories on the Facebook at http://del.icio.us/fstutzman/facebook, which may also be subscribed to as an RSS feed.
How is your university handling Facebook?
