Back in the spring I wrote about my school’s work trying to add a line about responsible use of social networking in our AUP. We had some great conversations with our faculty, students, and administrative team and ended up with the following statement:
I will maintain common, face-to-face social conventions and boundaries to avoid circumstances which are or could be perceived as inappropriate while using social networking, blogs, or any other interactive websites.
In this statement, we didn’t ban Social Network sites but warned against their inappropriate use. In our student and faculty/staff handbooks we define the social norms we expect from community members.
So not perfect, but a good start. Thanks to all that commented on my original post. I am always amazed at how quickly the experts in this field find and comment on posts like this one.
Let’s keep this conversation going. What does your AUP state about social networking?
Learning Blog 
That statement covers use while at school, but I’m worried that they think they have a right to dictate what happens outside of school.
I’d like to see a guideline like this: “Employees are free to express themselves any way they would like outside of work, as long as that expression is not associated with the school/district.”
Alex, very cool that your statement is about modeling real-world values. I think these types of statements comment on the school culture. Hopefully yours feels like your school.
Ours, which we came up with this past year, is:
“Faculty and staff members are only to interact online with students in school-sponsored “spaces.” Interactions on CourseWeb, Hewitt e-mail, and other Hewitt-sponsored online spaces are appropriate, while interactions via commercial sites such as Facebook, MySpace, etc, are not. If a faculty or staff member is contacted by a student via non-Hewitt channels, the corresponding division head should be notified.”
Nothing yet that I know of so far…But we should get on it!
Please check out my new Blog, I’m pretty green to this whole “online community” thing and I could use some feedback…
Thanks.
Send me your your address and I will send your students a post card. You may be interested to know that Detroit has the only boat with a ZIP code. It delivers mail to the freighters on the Great Lakes. The boat is named the Westcott. You can read about it here: http://www.boatnerd.com/westcott/.
Jim
PS I follow on Twitter, but couldn’t find you in my direct email list.