Laying Down the Law: Social Media Policy and Strategy

University
Social Media

Jen Riehle | Ofﬁce of Information Technology, NC State
Leslie Dare | Student Affairs Technology Services, NC State

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

What are you doing?

Does you university have campus-wide
social media guidelines or policy?
Does your department or ofﬁce have
social media guidelines or policy?
What information would you most like to
see included in your campus social
media guidelines/policy?


poll results

Twitter sez...
http://bit.ly/vgxmhi


What are other
universities doing?


61% 2008

www.umassd.edu/cmr/studiesandresearch/socialmediaadoptionsoars
university social media usage

Social media usage in universities

85% 2009
61% 2008



95% 2010
85% 2009
61% 2008



100% 2011
95% 2010
85% 2009
61% 2008




Podcasting (up 19%) and LinkedIn (up 16%) are other big winners
Blogs primarily run by Admissions, marketing or PR offices

facebook
98% 2011
87% 2010



facebook
98% 2011
twitter
87% 2010 84% 2011

59% 2010



facebook
98% 2011
twitter
87% 2010 84% 2011
blogs
66% 2011

59% 2010
51% 2010



JOHNS HOPKINS
SYRACUSE

ITHACA

BUTLER

TUFTS

Syracuse: innovates in social media; one of the ﬁrst to use FourSquare on campus; one of the most universities on
Twitter
Ithaca: own SM tool that lets student meet classmates
JH: Student-run SM; heavy users of iTunesU
Butler: their mascot tweets; strong SM presence during March Madness
Tufts: Moderated discussions on Facebook and popular Dining Twitter feeds

What makes a good
policy?

Short and sweet
Easily accessible and highly visible
Often reviewed
Often updated


Case Study:
The Social Corps

1.6 million Facebook followers
Easy to update: Marines, pg 12. Facebook Places now discontinued at of August: ﬁrst section
already out of date
Short and sweet, easily accessible: on Facebook Info page; now linked off Marines homepage
- points to SM page with links to guidelines, principles, SOP’s.

Considerations
for Campus


Biggest University Issues

Awareness of e-discovery and records retention
Clearly deﬁned rules for social media account
names, icons, colors, voice, etc.
Planned strategies for negative or defamatory
posts and comments
Education for employees using social media
either personally or as a university representative


Additional issues: knowledge of rules for online promotions in different SM tools

Student Conduct
Students accessing "social networking services" such as Facebook, MySpace, Blogger, Twitter, and others
should carefully read the terms and conditions set forth by such services. Students are solely responsible for
the content of their sites. Neither ITS nor Macalester College assume any responsibility for what students
place there. Inappropriate material placed on social networking sites is subject to Macalester College's
Responsible Use policy, the Student Conduct Process and the College's Harassment and Grievance
Procedures.

In addition to violation of College policy, the posting of inappropriate material may
subject students to criminal and civil penalties. As referenced in the terms and
conditions of these networking services, students should refrain from posting
material that is deemed to be criminal; harassing; racially, sexually, ethnically or
religiously objectionable; defamatory; obscene; invasive of another’s privacy; or
infringing of copyright.
- MacAlester College, Saint Paul, MN


This example is from a private school, where you might see more restrictive Codes of Student
Conduct. UNCG mentions social media in the “no contact order” section of their Code. NC
State makes no speciﬁc mention but behaviors through social media are not immune to the
Code. Bottom line -- understand how social media can impact students and their behavior,
and the regulations on campus.

Monitoring Athletes
In June of 2011, the NCAA notiﬁed the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill of allegations against its Division I football team and
staff, including academic fraud and receipt of improper beneﬁts.
Also included in the notice was a citation for failure to “adequately
and consistently monitor the social media activity” of its players.

NCAA requested “copies of materials posted on Twitter by football
student-athletes.”

Up to this point monitoring of student athletes was not required but
“encouraged.”


Two notes:
- makes it clear that records of student SM use may be request and must be available
- changes the burden on the Athletics staff. While not explicit that monitoring is required in
the past this sets a new precedent.

Monitoring Athletes

UDilligence and VarsityMonitor
Monitors Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube
and Bebo (UD)
Offers generic guidelines and training tools (VM)


Schools using it: LSU, Baylor, Texas Tech, Louisville, Old Miss and as of this fall, Maryland;
NCSU is evaluating it
Quotes from athletes that they’re only online because their professors are making them use
social media...

Educating Faculty
Increasing desire to use social media in
the classroom
it’s not going away
excellent way to engage
tools needed after graduation

Many have incorporated it into the
curriculum without consideration of
policy

FERPA - student rights and privacy
Understand best practices: Never require students to Friend you or join groups you’ve
created; Consider multiple accounts – personal and professional; Always check your privacy
settings; Take advantage of opportunities to educate students about appropriate social media
usage.

Educating Faculty
Introduction
When teaching in an on-line environment, it is essential that courses are
delivered in compliance with applicable laws and university policies; in
particular, those laws and policies designed to protect the student's rights to
privacy and accessibility.

4.2.2 In cases where the pedagogical use of an external course component is
such that certain privacy requirements can not be met (e.g., the students are
posting material on a public web site and their identities are exposed) a
limited release form is available to allow students to voluntarily waive certain
privacy rights. Instructors are advised, however, that students cannot be
required to waive their rights, and should be prepared to offer alternative
pedagogical approaches that do not require privacy waivers if necessary.

4.3 Instructors should list electronically hosted course components in the
course syllabus, and should identify any components that may present privacy
or accessibility issues for the student so that these issues can be worked out
during the course drop/add period.

- NC State REG 08.00.11


Student FERPA waiver, including it on Moodle (our CMS) to ensure it gets digitally signed
before moving forward and that it doesn’t get lost

Challenges for
Campus


Too many accounts
Photo
credit
sloanpix

Campus of social media is like a pile of candy hearts.
They all look different and have different messages - similar, but different. And after you’ve
had a few you’re totally sick of them.

Agreeing on guidelines
Photo
credit
stefan

Centralized group responsible for all SM accounts? Sam Houston State University social media
policy: anyone with a campus-related SM account required to give university administrators
editing privilages. Led to protests.
Limitation on using “ncsu” or some variation in account names?

Monitoring and enforcement
Photo
credit
stefan

Training and employee
management
Photo
credit
stefan

Retrofitting

Possible to change your Twitter handle
but requires some management of the old
account
Facebook is notoriously complex and
dynamic
Consolidating company proﬁles:
Facebook and LinkedIn


Facebook vocabulary is problematic. Transitions from “groups” to “pages”
NC State “official” facebook page is only about a year old; very imconplete LinkedIn proﬁle

Student Organizations

Student organizations often have their
own rules
Not required to fall under campus social
media branding or guidelines


Leslie will ad more here soon....

Analytics & Metrics

Useful for justifying investments of time
and money
Often includes archiving of social media
usage
Big costs in terms of time and tools


Social Media at
NC State


Social Media
Subcommittee

Sub-committee of Campus Communicators
Goal is to guide campus faculty, staff and
students to effective, compliant, educated
use of social media


Current Tasks

Survey campus for social media accounts
Secondary survey to establish social media
usage in classrooms
Development of getontheweb.ncsu.edu
Identify campus resources and social media
“experts”



Require use of brand bar and consideration for brand guidelines before you can be added


Everything on the official NC State YouTube channel goes through Communications office.
Been difficult to keep track of and they’re looking for a way to automate that process... LOTS
of unofficial NCSU-related uploads.

Future Tasks

Social Media “registration” system
Publish best-practices and offer campus
tutorials/classes
Add social media to Brand Book
guidelines
Campus software licensing agreement for
analytics tool(s)


Collect info on account names, managers, audience, etc.

Policy

Try to get by with unofﬁcial guidelines
and best practices.
As necessary with time we may add
regulations or policy


Hard to have policy since it changes so rapidly. Broadly-written guidelines and best practices
are the best way to keep folks in-line.
Point people to resources and staff who can answer questions logically or bring odd use-
cases to the larger SM committee


Announcements

A French company was ﬁned
$36,000 after deleting
mentions of their competitors
from Wikipedia.


A major restaurant chain was
forced to issue public
apologies after a YouTube
video is released of an
employee yelling at a
customer.


KFC- 31k hits

A well-known design label had
their Facebook page essentially
hijacked by PETA protestors
with little to no resistance from
corporate staff


DKNY

Thank You!

Jen Riehle | @ncsumarit
Leslie Dare | @lesliedareNCSU

Evaluate us on Joind.in!
http://joind.in/4248

Waiver content: Under the Federal Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 (FERPA) and NC State’s FERPA regulation, a student’s education records are protected from disclosure to third parties.
Because of the public nature of wikis, students must provide written consent for wiki participation in a course setting.
I understand that participation in a wiki is required for [ course name and number ].
I give permissions to [ instructor name ] to include me in the wiki for this course. I understand that the wiki will be open and accessible to the public.
[ signature of student ]

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