Course Blogging Guidelines

Below are a set of guidelines created by Dr. Carl for our class blog. These guidelines are based on resources provided at the end of this post. Comments are invited!

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CMNU531 Course Blogging Guidelines

1. This blog is a space to carry on conversations regarding our course and course-related concepts. Thus, all posts and comments should be related to students’ experiences with the course and its content. One exception: exam questions should not be posted on the blog. And just like in-class discussions, and unlike some other blogs, it’s not just a place to “express yourself” for the sake of expressing yourself (of course, feel free to have your own blog where you do this).

2. Think before you write and say something interesting and relevant. Your posts will be publicly accessible for a long time, so your contributions to the blog should be well-thought out and relevant to those interested in learning more about organizational communication.

3. Provide links to other interesting web-based materials. This is one of the benefits of web logs so take advantage of it.

4. Posts and commentary should be respectful of other’s views and you should not attempt to defame, discriminate, or embarrass others. You are personally responsible for the contents of your posts.

5. All blogging activity should be in accord with Northeastern University’s Appropriate Use policy (http://www.help.neu.edu/aupContent.html). This comes down to not doing anything that is criminal, causes harm to others, or anything else that you should have learned you weren’t supposed to do in kindergarten.

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Sun Microsystem’s corporate policy on blogging

Yahoo’s corporate policy on blogging

Hill & Knowlton’s corporate policy on blogging and code of practice

Benefits of corporate blogging

Blogging at IBM

BlogWrite for CEOs

Blogs and Not-For-Profit Organizations

CrookedTimber’s List of Academic/Scholar Bloggers

Chronicle of Higher Education Article on Scholars Who Blog

CNET.com Article “Blogging On The Job”

Blogging As Organizational Communication

Given the proliferation of blogging activity at work, for work, and about work, the purpose of this blog is to explore blogging as a form of organizational communication. Students in an Advanced Organizational Communication (CMNU531) course in the Department of Communication Studies at Northeastern University will be asked to participate in a series of assignments to better understand this phenomenon.

First, they will post their own blog entries on this blog to gain first-hand experience. Students must create at least three unique posts and must have at least 10 comments to other people’s posts. The content of the posts will be about their experience in the course, and commentary on the readings and concepts. All blogging activity will need to conform to the Course Blogging Guidelines.

Second, they will write a Blog Analysis Report. This assignment requires them to analyze a corporate blog, develop an interview protocol, interview the blog’s author, and write a 2,000 word essay sharing their findings. The primary audience for this report will be an academic audience.

Third, they will write an Applied Research Report (also 2,000 words). For this assignment, students will be positioned as external consultants who have been retained by an organization to conduct a “state-of-the-art” literature review and determine best practices about corporate blogging. A goal of this project will be to consult academic and trade publications, as well as organizational practitioners, and translate the findings, insights, and arguments into actionable steps for the organization. Thus, the primary audience for the report is an organizational practitioner.

To the world outside our class we invite comments on the students' blog entries and our class experiment. Student posts should begin to appear in the third week of classes (late September).