I think that this is why we, as institutions, need to clearly decide what we
Tweet and what we don't.

Tweeting that 'the University is closed' (come and steal all our stuff!)
probably isn't very helpful/informative and can give a skewed picture of
what is actually happening.  A more appropriate Tweet may be 'Some services
are closing early due to adverse weather. Contact us before travelling in:
website' or similar.

Again, coming back to who owns the communication.  Are they all being sent
from a 'central' official source or are staff just Tweeting what is
happening?  This is where the 'official' Twitter account will come into its
own as being the official line as to what is happening.

C.

--------------------------------------------------------------
Claire Gibbons | Web Manager | Marketing and Communications

Next Open Day: Wednesday 10 February - http://www.bradford.ac.uk/openday

University of Bradford | BD7 1DP | E: [log in to unmask] | T: 01274 236529
W: http://www.bradford.ac.uk   

~~ Think of the trees - do you need to print? ~~
Ecoversity: http://www.bradford.ac.uk/ecoversity


-----Original Message-----
From: Managing institutional Web services
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Brian Kelly
Sent: 07 January 2010 11:28
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Nuisance tweets on university Twitter sites

Hi Amy
       What do you mean?
       If someone tweets "The University of Poppleton sucks" then they  
are allowed to do that.
       If they say "The @UniversityofPoppleton sucks" and you're  
concerned that this would be included on a search for  
@UniversityofPoppleton I don't think you can (or should) stop it.
      Are you worried about inappropriate content being automatically  
embedded?  This is a known risk with user-generated content.
      The @UniversityofPoppleton account can chose who it follows.
     Brian

On 7 Jan 2010, at 11:15, Amy Chamier wrote:

> Are the only sanctions against "nuisance" tweets to ask the Follower  
> who sent them to desist or to block them from the site?
>
> BR Amy
> Web Editor, Marketing & Development Unit
> Institute of Education, University of London
> x6260
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Managing institutional Web services
[mailto:[log in to unmask] 
> ] On Behalf Of Dan Brickley
> Sent: 07 January 2010 09:53
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Alerting mechanisms for snows alerts, disasters, etc
>
> On Thu, Jan 7, 2010 at 10:47 AM, Brian Kelly <[log in to unmask]>  
> wrote:
>> The University of bath used its @UniofBath twitter account to alert
>> followers that the University was closed  due to the bad weather.
>> Notification that information would be provided before 7.30 am was  
>> given on
>> the Bath Web site the previous evening, and the tweets were sent  
>> out on
>> time. Various people retweeted the news, exploiting the viral  
>> nature of
>> Twitter.
>> I've written a post about this:
>>
http://ukwebfocus.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/ket-it-snow-let-it-snow-let-it-sn
ow/
>> There has been some subsequent follow-up messages on the post and  
>> on Twitter
>> about how Universities can make use of social networking tools for  
>> events
>> such as bad weather conditions - but this might also apply to other
>> difficulties and disasters.
>> Does anyone have any formal policies and procedures related to  
>> this?  Or
>> suggestions as to ways in which social web can be used in this  
>> context?
>
> Interesting, and nice use of the tech. Now, just to play the cautious
> guy: do you have an emergency response for what you'll do when the
> inevitable happens, and some mischievous student or grumpy staffmember
> circulates "Please RT: @UniofBath closed for the week due to snow"?
>
> (and should http://twitter.com/uniofbath be a twitter-verified
> account, if people are expected to trust it?)
>
> cheers,
>
> Dan
>