Big Blue Network

The Office of Undergraduate Education coordinates an online social network designed exclusively for members of the University of Kentucky's campus family. The goal of the network is to build real connections between students, and between students and the University in a safe and private space to interact. Students will learn from each other and assigned peer mentors how best to make the most of their University of Kentucky experience. UK faculty and staff from the departments and colleges will also participate in communicating about and finetuning expectations about students' majors.

The online community members can share content between Big Blue Network and your existing Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Second Life, Twitter, etc. accounts. Members can update their personal status, send instant messages, post pictures and videos on both their existing social networking sites AND Big Blue Network.

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When UK students are invited to join BBN, they are informed that certain behaviors are not allowed on the network and that members are expected to follow the Student Code of Conduct; i.e., BBN members are expected to follow the same rules as they would in our classrooms, dorms, libraries and dining spaces. The community manager of BBN has a responsibility to monitor the network to ensure that all members follow these rules, and any BBN member can report an abuse of the network by using the "Submit an Abuse Report" form. The community manager's reason for monitoring the site is to maintain The Big Blue Network as a safe and comfortable space for all its members.

The Office of Undergraduate Education collects two types of usage data on The Big Blue Network:

FIRST, we collect anonymous usage statistics, like most websites, using Google Analytics. This helps us to understand how many members are visiting the site, which of our site features are the most popular, and which need to be redesigned or removed. It helps us to know how much time, on average, our members spend on the site, which browsers they use to access it, and over what type of Internet connection they are accessing the site. In other words, it gives us some basic, anonymous statistics that help us to improve the effectiveness of our program.

SECOND, like most other programs on campus, we also collect data that helps to assess the effectiveness of our efforts. We analyze interactions between students and student leaders, faculty and staff in a way that maintains anonymity. This extra effort is taken in order to determine if we are successful in creating the types of informational and community-building conversations and content that will lead to increased student retention and success. We do this not to spy on individual expression of opinion or thought, but to make certain we are making The Big Blue Network the best and most useful experience possible for our students and the broader university community. In other words, we want to know if we are doing a good job in responding to student questions and needs, if we are promoting academic excellence in our engagement on BBN, if our College Ambassadors are adequately conveying what it means to succeed in a certain major, and so on.

What the Community Manager is NOT doing is looking at every conversation or comment on The Big Blue Network and using this information against our students. As long as BBN members follow the network policy, there is no reason for University administration to take an interest in, or interfere with, student expression of thought or activities. Remember: BBN is password-protected and invitation-only precisely because we want our students to feel safe in expressing these aspects of their campus lives.

For more information about Big Blue Network and the University of Kentucky's social media work, please contact:

Dr. Christopher S. Rice
Online Community Manager for the University of Kentucky
christopher.rice@uky.edu or on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ricetopher

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