Mistaken Goal: Where Higher Education & Technology Meet

A few weeks ago, a colleague (Chris Medrano) and I submitted a paper to the 2010 ASHE conference. The paper is a content analysis of Wikipedia articles covering American colleges and universities.  Chris and I believe that we – higher education scholars, administrators, and policy makers – can learn a lot about what the general public believes is important and interesting in higher education by analyzing Wikipedia articles about individual colleges and universities.

I hope this paper is accepted (otherwise I wouldn’t have submitted it!) but I know it’s a bit “out there.”  Despite my apprehension, I firmly believe that we must be mindful of how the public perceives higher education and the explosion of information available on the Internet provides an incredibly rich source of information if we can figure out how to harness it (In this vein, I am extraordinarily happy and grateful to have had the opportunity to study web content analysis and computer-mediated discourse analysis, giving me some of the necessary background and tools to study these data!).  And given that (almost?) every significant college and university in the United States has a Wikipedia article that (theoretically) lies largely outside the control of the institutions, these articles are a rich source of public opinion.

I know what some of you are thinking: Wikipedia editors don’t represent the general public!  I’m not entirely convinced that is true – especially without data – but I’ll concede the point anyway.  Even if those editing the articles are not representative of the general public, surely we can agree that the information placed in these articles clearly indicates what the general public is learning about these institutions from Wikipedia.  So it’s still important to know what’s going on in these articles.

Since we submitted our paper, Wikipedia articles have gotten another boost in visibility and importance: Facebook is making heavy use of Wikipedia articles in Community pages.  This has already raised a discussion within Wikipedia (full disclosure: I’m one of the participants in the discussion) about the role (or lack thereof) Wikipedia should play given that articles are being displayed in Facebook.  More specifically, at least one institution has objected to the graphic that is being displayed in Facebook.  The topmost graphic in nearly all of these Wikipedia articles is the official seal or crest of the institution.  But most institutions have graphic identity standards that mandate the use of another set of graphics (their “wordmark”) and limit the use of the official seal or crest.  Of course, Wikipedia is not required to honor those standards and it’s pretty clear that fair use allows Wikipedia to use official seals and crests without the permission of the institutions.  This is the kind of interesting complexity about which higher education administrators and scholars should know and in which they should appropriately participate.

Love it or hate it, Wikipedia is an immense force in today’s information societies.  We don’t yet know exactly what role it plays in the college choice process but we can be certain that many people are learning about our institutions via Wikipedia.  We can not and should not control the information in Wikipedia but we should be aware of it and the communities that create, edit, and even vandalize that information.  And we should be eager to use that information to develop a better understanding of how the public views higher education and our institutions.

[August update: The proposal has been accepted.  I look forward to sharing the final paper here and at ASHE this fall.]

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If the issue of ACPA/NASPA consolidation is put to a vote by the membership of the two organizations this fall, Student Affiliate members will not be able to vote.  As a Student Affiliate and dedicated member of NASPA, I believe this is wrong and I am working to change this.  In early June, I will submit to the NASPA Board of Directors a proposal that requests that Student Affiliates be allowed to vote on the issue of consolidation. I urge you to review the draft of this proposal and share your thoughts and support.

In brief, the proposal argues that Student Affiliates:

• Are the future of NASPA and have a significant stake in the future of NASPA and the broader student affairs profession
• Include in their ranks members who are experienced student affairs professionals dedicated to NASPA and those who have proven their dedication to NASPA deserve a voice in its future
• Likely represent the most diverse group of NASPA members and are not proportionately represented by Voting Delegates or Professional Affiliates

If you are a Student Affiliate of NASPA, please:

1. Add your name to the proposal by editing it directly, leaving a comment below, or sending me an e-mail at krguidry@gmail.com.  Please include your name, current institution, degree status (i.e. Master’s student, Doctoral student, or Doctoral candidate), and any current or former leadership positions you’ve held in NASPA.
2. Spread the word to your colleagues and fellow students by sending them a link to this blog post (http://mistakengoal.com/blog/2010/05/24/naspa-will-not-allow-student-members-to-vote-on-acpanaspa-consolidation/ or http://tinyurl.com/29oqh9h).

If you are not a Student Affiliate of NASPA, please share this with students by sending them a link to this blog post (http://mistakengoal.com/blog/2010/05/24/naspa-will-not-allow-student-members-to-vote-on-acpanaspa-consolidation/ or http://tinyurl.com/29oqh9h).

If you have any questions or suggestions about this topic, the proposal, or how we should proceed from here, please share them by leaving a comment or e-mailing me directly.

We are the future of NASPA and student affairs.  Let’s ensure we have a voice in that future.

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I sent the invitations to participate to the first group of institutions (I hope to invite more as more institutions register for BCSSE) about thirty minutes ago. And I’ve already received three “yes” responses!

Additionally, it occurred to me that I may end up with three groups of participating institutions:

• Web-only participant in NSSE
• Paper or mixed-mode participant in NSSE
• Non-participant in NSSE

The first group is my primary target group as they will allow me to easily calculate non-response as it relates to Internet access and use. But if I end up with institutions in the second or third group (and I won’t know for quite a while since NSSE registration isn’t open yet and won’t close until mid-late Fall) then I might be able to use them to do interesting “troubleshooting” since they will provide additional data. For example, institutions that participate in the paper mode of NSSE would offer me the chance to see what happens when respondents have the choice between paper and Web modes and how Internet access and use influences that choice.

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Last week, I ceased piloting my survey instrument and finalized it.  I submitted it to IRB as an amendment to BCSSE at the same time as sending it to my colleagues in IU’s Center for Survey Research who are formatting it for their scanners.  IRB approved the amendment and I will immediately begin soliciting institutions to participate.

The pilot did not go nearly as well as planned.  I was hoping to conduct 5 cognitive interviews and a pilot administration with about 50 students.  I feel far short of both of those goals.  I think that the biggest factor that contributed to this failure is the timing: I was so late in soliciting participants that we were nearly in finals and that is a bad time to get students to do anything.  I also limited my recruiting to one (large) residence hall in the belief that my requests were so simple and easy that I wouldn’t have to recruit in other places.  Finally, I think the advertisements were too plain and too prominently focused on the Internet, perhaps causing students to believe that I was recruiting only computer experts or geeks.

Despite the dismal participation in my interviews and pilot, I am pressing ahead.  First, my timeline does not have any slack time.  Second, the data I was able to collect was all very, very positive in terms of the construction of my survey instrument.  Finally, even if this stage in designing this new survey instrument did not go as well as hoped, all of the preceding stages went very well and were performed very thoroughly.  I take some reassurance from the idea that all of the stages that were within my control were done well and thoroughly (I hear my dad’s voice echoing in my head: “Control the controllables”), in part because there are some stages that I can not control.  I will, however, conduct more cognitive interviews this summer even as my instrument is in the field; it would be too late to make changes if I were to discover any problems but (a) I do not expect to discover any problems and (b) if there are remaining problems then I need to be aware of them.

So now my focus turns to recruiting institutions to participate.  Ideally, all participating institutions would meet several criteria:

1. Registered for the paper version of BCSSE
2. Administering BCSSE in on-campus events (orientation sessions, FYE classes, etc.)
3. Intending to participate in NSSE next spring
4. Possessing a diverse student body

The first criteria is non-negotiable as it is critical to my research design.  More than any other criteria, this one immediately and dramatically narrows the pool of potential participating institutions.  The second criteria is desirable as those institutions meeting it should be those institutions that have the highest response rates.  The third criteria is also non-negotiable as it is critical to my research design.  The fourth criteria is important because if I have a homogeneous sample – especially an affluent one – then I may not have enough variation to perform some of the statistical tests I would like to perform (in statistical terms I would not have enough “power” for operations such as logistic regression).

Getting all of these criteria to align – including the unlisted logistical one of “we haven’t mailed their BCSSE surveys yet” – is challenging.  In fact, I worry about the fourth one considerably.  I can’t change the BCSSE registrants to make them meet my criteria but I am placing a small safeguard in my study regarding the fourth criteria: I will be recruiting a few institutions who have diverse student bodies even though they may not be participating in NSSE next spring.  I will not be able to analyze NSSE non-response data from those institutions but by collecting demographic and Internet access information I will at least be able to compare their incoming student bodies with those of the other institutions in my sample.  If there are no important differences then I know that I’ll have nothing to worry about with respect to diverse student populations.  If there are important differences then either I will be able to explore it in my study or note it for future studies.

Since I am pursuing an opt-in strategy in recruiting institutions (i.e. I am asking if they want to participate and they must say “yes”), there is still potential for this study to fall apart if institutions ignore my requests or say “no.”  I was hoping to use an opt-out strategy (i.e. telling institutions that they will be participating unless they say “no”) but some of my colleagues are uncomfortable with that strategy.  In any case, this recruitment is another critical link in the chain that is this study.  From my viewpoint, in the middle of this mess and uncertain how or if it will all turn out, it seems like yet another fragile link in a long chain of fragile links.

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