Court: Facebook posts about student’s lab cadaver justified punishment

Tatro said her free speech rights were violated.

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled June 20 that the University of Minnesota did not violate a mortuary student’s free speech rights by punishing her for Facebook posts about the school cadaver she was working on, which included “satirical commentary and violent fantasy.”

But the court, in what might be the nation’s first state high court decision addressing college students’ online free speech rights, said the sanctions imposed by the university on Amanda Tatro were justified by “narrowly tailored” rules directly related to “established professional conduct standards.”

Although Tatro lost her case, some free speech advocates said they were relieved by the ruling’s limits, which they said applied only to the online conduct of a student in a professional program.…Read More

Facebook addiction and ‘disconnect anxiety’ among college students

Rampant Facebook use has led to privacy desensitization.

We rarely put ourselves in the position, but if and when we are not able to connect online, 68 percent of us experience disconnect anxiety, and college students are particularly at risk.

Staying connected on Facebook seems to be of particular import, as that’s the first thing 48 percent of us do upon waking each morning.

Most of us never see the extent to which disconnect anxiety can go, but we are seeing it more and more at The Center for Counseling and Health Resources.…Read More

For colleges, social media ‘Klout’ isn’t everything

Some colleges are turning away from Klout.

A blitz of retweets and Facebook likes can be a nice boost for a college’s social media presence, but measuring success with the popular Klout score could give schools a false read of their Twitter and Facebook influence.

Research published this week by Inigral, creator of private social networks for colleges and universities, urges campus social media decision makers to look beyond the school’s Klout score, an analytical measurement of a person, company, or campus’s influence across the most popular social sites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Google+.

The Klout scale ranges from 1 to 100, with media superstars like Lady Gaga and Justin Beiber reaching the upper echelons of the Klout rankings.…Read More

Facebook launches App Center, makes app discovery a social experience

Today Facebook started rolling out the App Center: A mobile app portal within the social networking site. With 600 titles available at launch, App Center collects the apps that can post to Facebook as well as the ones that use the site for login authentication, Tecca reports. The list of titles includes many familiar hits like Draw Something, Instagram, Foursquare, and Words with Friends. Facebook App Center will recommend you not only apps your friends use, but also those that have exceptionally high ratings. And if you click on a title that you have to download on your phone or tablet (some titles are Facebook web apps), you’ll be redirected to the Apple App Store or Google Play where you can get it. We reached out to Facebook to ask if the new app hub is intended to be a competitor to existing app ecosystems like Apple’s App Store or to Google Play. According to a spokesperson from the company, “Actually, it’s quite the opposite. The App Center will drive growth for social apps whether they’re built on iOS, Android, mobile web, or on Facebook.” In May alone, Facebook sent people to Apple’s own App Store 83 million times…

Click here for the full story

…Read More

What are college students talking about on Facebook?

87 percent of comments were recorded in Facebook groups, not pages.

General confusion might be the key ingredient to an engaged crop of incoming freshmen on a college or university’s Facebook page.

An analysis published May 16 on the blog .eduGuru breaks down what college students are discussing on their school’s official Facebook pages and third-party groups, and the most consistently engaged posts were written by “confused students trying to find more information about orientation, registration, and housing.”

An “engaged post” was a comment or question that received five or more responses, according to the analysis of how college freshmen were using their Class of 2016 Facebook pages.…Read More

Professor’s Facebook comments about Muslims brings campus outcry, lawsuit

A national free-speech organization critcized PUC's response to faculty complaints.

A Purdue University Calumet (PUC) professor who was reprimanded for a series of Facebook comments critical of Muslims, drawing harsh criticism from students and faculty members, has filed a free-speech lawsuit against the university.

Maurice Eisenstein, an associate professor of political science at PUC, posted a picture of Facebook last November of “Christians killed by a radical Muslim group.” Eisenstein criticized “moderate Muslims” for failing to condemn the alleged attack.

He added that Muslims are “still looking at the earth as flat according to the idiot Mohammad [sic], may his name be cursed.” Eisenstein was accused of engaging in a heated exchange with a PUC student on Facebook.…Read More

Facebook to launch its own app store in the coming weeks

Facebook on Wednesday announced it will be launching a new App Center in the coming weeks on the web, iOS and Android, BGR reports. The company hopes the center will give developers a way to more effectively distribute apps and create new opportunities for more types of apps to be successful. “The App Center is designed to grow mobile apps that use Facebook–whether they’re on iOS, Android or the mobile web,” the company said. “From the mobile App Center, users can browse apps that are compatible with their device, and if a mobile app requires installation, they will be sent to download the app from the App Store or Google Play.”

Click here for the full story

 …Read More

Experts unlike ruling in Facebook speech case

The “like” button on Facebook seems like a relatively clear way to express your support for something, but a federal judge says that doesn’t mean clicking it is constitutionally protected speech, the Associated Press reports. Exactly what a “like” means—if anything—played a part in a case in Virginia involving six people who say Hampton Sheriff B.J. Roberts fired them for supporting an opponent in his 2009 re-election bid, which he won. The workers sued, saying their First Amendment rights were violated. Roberts said some of the workers were let go because he wanted to replace them with sworn deputies while others were fired because of poor performance or his belief that their actions “hindered the harmony and efficiency of the office.”

Click here for the full story

 …Read More

Kentucky uses sports success to engage students in social media

UK social media pros have used Facebook to help prospective students “see blue.”

Dean Tsouvalas, editor-in-chief of StudentAdvisor.com, recently interviewed Whitney Hale, senior public relations specialist in public relations and marketing at the University of Kentucky, ranked  No. 7 on the just released Top 100 Social Media Colleges rankings from StudentAdvisor.com for spring 2012.

The University of Kentucky is a public, land-grant university dedicated to improving people’s lives through excellence in education, research, service, and health care. As Kentucky’s flagship institution, the university plays a critical leadership role by promoting diversity, inclusion, economic development, and human well-being. The university is ranked nationally in more than 70 academic programs.

DT: Fresh off your win in the NCAA Final Four, how did the University of Kentucky’s social media play a part before, during, and after March Madness?…Read More

Skepticism of Facebook Student Groups grows on college campuses

Half of Oberlin's Student Groups had less than five members.

To understand why Facebook’s unveiling of Student Groups didn’t send higher-education technologists into a tizzy, it might be helpful to examine the case of Oberlin College in Ohio, where 95 percent of its Student Groups have seen no student activity since they were made live in a pilot program that started in early March.

Facebook’s April 11 announcement, making Student Groups public after pilot programs on college campuses across the country, harkens back to the social network’s younger days, when members had to have “.edu” eMail addresses to create a Facebook account.

Student Groups will allow students and faculty members on hundreds of campuses to make private group pages that will be off limits to Facebook members outside the campus community. Students can share files–homework or class projects, perhaps–and interact with fellow students even if they’re not friends of the social network.…Read More

Oops! We could not locate your form.