Monthly Archives: October 2008

Institutions of Higher Ed are increasingly providing WordPress Multiuser as a blogging service to faculty and students. The most-developed examples are University of Mary Washington, Georgetown, and Harvard. But what other colleges and universities are using WordPress MU? What institutional groups are supporting these platforms? Are these campus-wide, or department-wide? After some serious searching, here’s my list of 69 institutions of Higher Ed currently using WordPress MU:

1. University of Mary Washington (http://umwblogs.org/)
2. Georgetown University (https://digitalcommons.georgetown.edu/)
3. Harvard (http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/)
4. Stockton College (http://titania.stockton.edu/)
5. University of Virginia (http://clove.edschool.virginia.edu/wordpressmu/)
6. Middlebury (http://blogs.middlebury.edu/middblogs/)
7. SUNY Purchase (http://blogs.purchase.edu/)
8. Cornell (http://blogs.cce.cornell.edu/)
9. Capella University (http://blogs.capella.edu/)
10. Rutgers (http://blogs.camden.rutgers.edu/wpmu/)
11. NYU (http://itp.nyu.edu/blogs/)
12. Wooster (http://blogs.wooster.edu/)
13. University of Texas at Arlington (http://blog.uta.edu/)
14. Wesleyan (http://blogs.wesleyan.edu/)
15. Spring Hill College (http://departments.shc.edu/)
16. Savannah College of Art and Design (http://blog.scad.edu/)
17. University of Florida (http://blogs.uflib.ufl.edu/)
18. New Jersey Institute of Technology (https://blogs.njit.edu/)
19. Berkeley (http://blogs.ischool.berkeley.edu/)
20. Elmhurst (http://blog2.elmhurst.edu/)
21. Albion (http://blogs.albion.edu/)
22. Valpo (http://blogs.valpo.edu/)
23. MIT (http://dune.mit.edu/wordpress/)
24. Baruch (http://blsciblogs.baruch.cuny.edu/)
25. Plymouth State University (http://blogs.plymouth.edu/)
26. (http://cesd.eng.uci.edu/)
27. Loyola University Chicago (http://blogs.luc.edu/)
28. Boston University (http://blogs.bu.edu/)
29. Texas A&M (http://blogs.tamu.edu/)
30. Bowling Green State University (https://blogs.bgsu.edu/)
31. Lake Superior College (http://blog.lsc.edu/)
32. Weber State University (http://weblog.weber.edu/)
33. CUNY Graduate School of Journalism ()
34. College of Charleston Blogs (http://blogs.cofc.edu/)
35. University of Wisconsin (http://blogs.cofc.edu/)
36. UCLA Library (http://blogs.library.ucla.edu/)
37. Concordia University, St. Paul (http://blogs.csp.edu/)
38. University of Maryland (http://blog.umd.edu/)
39. Lupton Library (http://blog.lib.utc.edu/)
40. Aquinas Institute (http://ai.edu/blogs/)
41. Ogden-Weber Applied Technology College (http://owatc.edu/blogs/)
42. Wayne State University Library (http://cgi.lib.wayne.edu/blog/)
43. Vanderbilt Medical Center (http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/blogs/)
44. University of Rio Grande (http://mu.rio.edu/)
45. UC San Diego (http://blog.ucsd.edu/)
46. University of Iowa Libraries (http://blog.lib.uiowa.edu/)
47. Eastern Mennonite University (https://emu.edu/blog/)
48. Cape Fear Community College (http://cfcc.edu/blogs/)
49. Boston College (http://idesweb.bc.edu/wordpress/)
50. Illinois Institute of Technology (http://idesweb.bc.edu/wordpress/)
51. Concordia University, Portland (http://blog.cu-portland.edu/)
52. University of Akron Graduate School (http://blogs.uakron.edu/)
53. St. Lawrence University (http://blogs.stlawu.edu/)
54. Ivy Tech (http://wwwb.bloomington.ivytech.edu/blogs/)
55. Columbia Law School (http://blogs.law.columbia.edu/)
56. Valparaiso University (http://blogs.valpo.edu/)
57. Ohio State (http://people.ehe.ohio-state.edu/)
58. Wheaton (http://fred.wheatonma.edu/wordpressmu/)
59. Saint Louis University (http://www.slu.edu/blogs/)
60. Georgia Tech Savannah (http://blogs.gtsav.gatech.edu/)
61. Albion College (http://blogs.albion.edu/)
62. Surabaya Indonesia (http://blog.perbanas.edu/)
63. Purdue (http://webs.calumet.purdue.edu/)
64. Bryn Mawr (http://blogs.brynmawr.edu/)
65. UMass Amherst (http://blogs.umass.edu/)
66. University of Missouri-Columbia (http://comp.missouri.edu/blogs/)
67. Macaulay Honors College (http://macaulay.cuny.edu/)
68. Northwest College (http://commons.nwc.hccs.edu/)
69. Kutztown University (http://blog.kutztown.edu/)

Blogs are being used in a variety ways, varying from building faculty and staff bios like at Ohio State, to allowing students to blog their college experiences like Saint Louis University.  Many of these installations look as if they’re experiments as well — many underdeveloped.  It’ll be interesting to see where this all goes in the next year.  Please leave comments with additional colleges using MU to help build this resource.

Last Spring, the Center for History and New Media ran a Digital Humanities unconference called THATCamp: The Humanities and Technology Camp. The two-day event brought together 75 scholars from around the world to work collaboratively and discuss concerns and solutions relating to digital scholarship. I’m happy to announce that we’re organizing a new THATCamp, to be held June 27-28, 2009 following the DH09 conference being held at nearby University of Maryland. Save the date!

As noted by CogDog and Dan Cohen, I’ve organized a WordCamp event to be held at GMU:

WordCamp conferences are taking the blogging community by storm as one-day events to meet fellow WordPress users in regional communities. WordCamp Ed has been organized to specifically focus on WordPress and Education. The day-long event to take place November 22, 2008, and will bring together a wide-range of institutions of higher-ed, professors, high school teachers, and students.

The event has been scheduled as a morning of preplanned speakers that will cover a cross-section of educational uses of WordPress, and an afternoon unconference in the vein of THATCamp: The Humanities and Technology Camp. Food and t-shirts will be provided. If you’re using WordPress for teaching in your class, publishing scholarship, or you’re just interested — please consider registering for the event. Over that past year there has been emerging interest in WordPress MU as a blogging solution for institutions of higher ed, and we’ll have WordCampers in attendance who are responsible for the Georgetown University Digital Commons and University of Mary Washington Blogs at WordCamp Ed.

You’d like to attend, but can’t make it? I’m working closely with Randall Rode to make WordCamp Ed not just a one-time event, but a larger series of regional WordCamps for Educators. Randy is organizing a WordCamp Ed that will be hosted under the Nercomp SIG format, and I’m optimistic this could catch on. These events are done with minimal costs, and go a long way in building a professional community. Let me know if you’re interested in starting your own regional WordCamp Ed.