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Community Engagement at NUS: New media shows promise |
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By Florence Tang
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Nov. 2 2011 |
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Page 1 of 2 Professor Tan Eng Chye is a busy man. As provost and vice president of academic affairs at the National University of Singapore, his week is packed with a plethora of engagements – mostly meetings – with the administrative staff, faculty or students to plan for academic policies or gather feedback on existing programmes.
While these engagements rarely stretch beyond office hours, a new initiative now sees him spending even evenings and Saturdays connecting with students – not over a cup of tea in his office, but on his new blog.
The blog, entitled “The NUS Provost Contemplates”, was announced via email Oct. 4. The first blog set up by a top management figure in NUS, it marks a key milestone in efforts by the school administration to connect with the student population using new media.
New media in NUS
While new media outlets – like blogs – have been in existence for over ten years, they remained largely the playground of the student population.
In 2007, some faculty departments, such as the Department of Biological Sciences at the Faculty of Science, caught on, setting up official blogs to update students of activities and achievements by the department.
The trend continued on the upswing as blog.nus was introduced in 2008, replacing the older blogging system with the current Wordpress-driven publishing system. Many NUS faculties, departments and professors now maintain official faculty or class blogs.
“Many people have signed up, but I can’t give you an exact figure. We know how many people sign up, but we cannot tell how many people actively use the account,” Kenneth Pinto, assistant manager at the Centre for Instructional Technology said.
It was only in the last two years, however, that official Facebook, Twitter and YouTube accounts were developed for NUS. These developments mark important changes in the way the administration interacts with the student population.
Students really engaged by new media?
Despite the hive of online activity, some questioned the actual engagement carried out over these new media networks.
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