Welcome


This blog is dedicated to the topics of Course materials, Innovation, and Technology in Education. it is intended as an information source for the college store industry, or anyone interested in how course materials are changing. Suggestions for discussion topics or news stories are welcome.

The site uses Google's cookies to provide services and analyze traffic. Your IP address and user agent are shared with Google, along with performance and security statistics to ensure service quality, generate usage statistics, detect abuse and take action.

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Columbia Basin to Mine Social Media Data

Colleges and universities have many ways to gather information on their students, from course selection to analyzing social media usage. Columbia Basin College (CBC), Pasco, WA, is working on a plan to put such information to use.

The college is proposing to track its students by classes and grades, archived records, and information generated by students on social networks, particularly Facebook since students use it to list preferences on a whole range of issues, according to a report in eCampus News. It’s hoped the information will give the school a clearer understanding about best teaching methods, subjects students are interested in, and the services they need.

CBC’s timing is practically flawless. The University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently released a survey of 456 four-year colleges and universities in the 2010-11 academic year that showed Twitter use has expanded 84% since 2008-09 and 98% of responding schools reported using Facebook.

The problem for CBC is its computer system is outdated and the data it wants to use are scattered across servers, networks, and storage locations that aren’t connected. The college is meeting with a data-management firm about its plans but understands the project will likely take more than a year to complete.