[wp-edu] Introduction

[Joss Winn]

Hello,

Just an introduction... I set up WPMU at the university where I work in May
and have been slowly accumulating users through word-of-mouth.

http://learninglab.lincoln.ac.uk/blogs/

I've just started the first round of formal advocacy to Snr. Management,
trying to get it accepted on a wider, institutional level and the response
so far has been supportive but understandably cautious. I am optimistic
though. 

Ideally, I'd like to set up http://community.lincoln.ac.uk (dead link) and
have BuddyPress layered over the blogs. I think that would appeal to a wider
audience and also allow us to brand the BuddyPress Social Networking layer
while still offering completely customisable blogs to individual users. I'm
less optimistic about this being accepted, but we'll see. Everyone here
recognises the potential of using WordPress for staff profile web sites,
collaborative web publishing, marketing, teaching and learning.

What complicates it slightly for us is that historically the ITC dept. are
very much a Microsoft shop and it's questionable whether we can
realistically support a large (potentially. 10,000 blog) installation of
WPMU. My plan is to look for reliable pool of freelance support. Our current
installation is on a Linux server which I run and as long as I don't hassle
anyone too often, I am king of that domain. There are obviously pros and
cons to this approach.

Also, we've only just switched to Blackboard for our VLE and some people are
concerned that WPMU would distract from the roll out of the new VLE and
confuse people about the appropriate use of each system.

Anyway, that's my short story. I'm interested in hearing about any other
stories relating to advocacy and roll out of WordPress in education.

Cheers
Joss 

-- 
Technology Officer
Centre for Educational Research and Development
University of Lincoln
Brayford Pool
Lincoln
LN67TS
UK

T: +44-1522-886759
http://learninglab.lincoln.ac.uk/blogs/joss