I gave a talk on 16 July 2008 as part of the the Academic Work Matters series at MPOW .

I outlined the flexibility of blogging platforms and how blogs can be used in universities. I then talked a bit about the WordPress MU blogging platform that we are using to run a pilot project to provide blogs across the campus. (more about the specifics in a later post)

Here’s an outline of the talk:

1. What’s a blog?

• 1.1 Elements of a typical blog
• 1.2 How people find blogs
• 1.3 How people read blogs

2. Why blog?

• 2.1 Context – changes to scholarly communication
• 2.2 How people use blogs
• 2.3 Blog hosting options

3. Murdoch Blogs

• 3.1 Pilot project
• 3.2 Why Creative Commons?
• 3.3 How to get a blog
• 3.4 Customising how your blog works
• 3.5 Customising how your blog looks

4. Decisions to make about your blog

I recorded the audio during the talk. I was going to synchronise it to my slides at slideshare.net using their slidecast editing tool, but I used a lot of slides with very quick transitions and the tool couldn’t handle it. I got half way through syncing the audio on Camtasia and then just gave up.  So the audio is below and the slides embedded on this post and you’ll have to click in time.

You can listen to the audio here Blogging at Murdoch University: What, why and naked hamsters . At the blog site, click on the “Audio MP3” symbol. Otherwise check out: http://wwwlib.murdoch.edu.au/let/Outside/Murdoch_blogs_Greenhill.mp3

And here are the slides: Blogging at Murdoch University: what, why and naked hamsters

Thank you to fellow Aussie library bloggers Fiona  (who has a great personal site using WordPress) and Peta (whose Blogs masquerading as  post gave me some examples ). Apologies to Jim Groom at the University of Mary Washington. I raved about his fantastically thought out and documented WordPress Mu installation – good. I claimed it was hosted by a totally different university – bad.