Internet InterFACE

Can going to a web site keep a kid in school?
That was the issue raised at yesterday's planning session for our new portal.

Studies show that students who make a friend or two, who meet and get to know at least one faculty or staff member, and who participate in an extra curricular event tend to stay in school and get more out of school than others. This is a discussion of engagement and social intimacy as it relates to retention. I am not convinced that "social distance" can be equated to hits on a web site. I would need to see evidence, correlations between frequency of visits to the campus pages and retention/engagement records. The theory, at least, is that the digital activity one logs might parallel getting to know teachers, peers, and going to events. As more people have more active social network life, it only stands as reasonable that we might build our digital presence with intention, making it more engaging.

From my perspective, "more engaging" means, essentially, more like Facebook. That means, our college web site needs to have an element of community (like IM/chat features, bulletin boards, public areas) and it needs to be somewhat narcissistic, too, perhaps encouraging interaction, status statements, photos, etc. (The very NAME of Facebook emphasizes the importance of the photo.)