Column by Christopher Rice

In recent articles published by the Lexington Herald-Leader and the Kentucky Kernel, some unfortunate misunderstandings about the purpose of The Big Blue Network, or BBN, and how the university monitors activity on the network, have come about. I would like to put those to rest. The Big Blue Network is part of UK’s efforts to use the community-building and network-forming power of social media tools to enhance our retention and success efforts in the Provost’s War on Attrition. The purpose of these efforts is to increase our first-year retention numbers and increase our time-to-graduation numbers, i.e., keep more students around and help them graduate on time.

We are engaging with students using social media and networking tools like The Big Blue Network, Twitter, Facebook and Second Life in order to better connect them with the university and with each other. If students are better connected to the academic and extracurricular life of the university, the thinking goes, they will be more likely to stick around and increase their performance as a student in multiple aspects.

There are many ways to do this on BBN. Members may join groups around campus organizations or issues of interest, form online study groups, create or participate in discussion threads, connect with other students in the live chat room, share their thoughts on blogs, and, of course, post videos and photos. In my PS 101 course, for example, we will use discussion threads and live chat as a form of class participation and feedback during and after lectures.

When our incoming freshmen were invited to join BBN, they were informed that certain behaviors were not allowed on the network and that members were expected to follow the Student Code of Conduct; BBN members are expected to follow the same rules as they would in our classrooms, dorms, libraries and dining spaces. As community manager of BBN, it is my responsibility to monitor the network to ensure all members follow these rules. For example, I’ve removed several pictures depicting prohibited activities, including underage drinking, semi-nudity and even public urination. Student leaders also help me monitor the network for these activities. We aren’t spying on anyone – we are helping to maintain The Big Blue Network as a safe and comfortable space for all our members.

Like most other programs on campus, we also collect data that helps us to assess the effectiveness of our efforts. As an instructor, I routinely evaluate exams and exam responses, student papers and classroom activities to help me make the next iteration of my courses even better. It’s the same for The Big Blue Network. Throughout the year, I will be looking at BBN to find examples of interactions between freshmen and the student leaders, staff, faculty, advisers and administrators on the network for the sole purpose of evaluating the quality and effectiveness of those interactions as regards to our retention and success efforts. In other words, we want to know if we are doing a good job in responding to student questions and needs, if we are promoting academic excellence in our engagement on BBN, if our College Ambassadors are adequately conveying what it means to succeed in a certain major, and so on.

What we are NOT doing is looking at every conversation or comment on The Big Blue Network and using this information against our students. As long as BBN members follow the network policy, there is no reason for us to take an interest in, or interfere with, student expression of thought or activities. Remember: BBN is password-protected and invitation-only precisely because we want our students to feel safe in expressing these aspects of their campus lives. We do not check in to see if you are going to class, doing your homework, taking regular showers or feeding your cat. But please – feed your cat.

When I agreed to take on this role in the university’s retention efforts, it was with the explicit understanding that I would not create and maintain an online space that would be used for surveillance purposes. Ethically and ideologically, I am opposed to such surveillance. In the spring, when I was going around holding meetings and workshops with faculty, staff and student leaders in the build-up to launching BBN, one of the things I made clear was that this type of program would require adjustment from all of us in terms of the tendency of Generation Y to live their lives more openly than other generations. As long as students weren’t violating university policy, we were going to have to learn to accept, even embrace, this openness.

We have always had a privacy and confidentiality statement available on the main page of The Big Blue Network, and I encourage our members to look it over. I hope it will reassure our student community as to our true intentions and activities. If you have any questions or need further clarification of this work, please contact me by E-mail, Twitter or on The Big Blue Network.