7 uses for blogs in Higher Education

Blogs can be used for a variety of purposes. Here are seven uses, with examples from the LSE.

1) Commentary & Expert Analysis

Blogs are an ideal tool for disseminating regular commentary and opinion. These blogs might be written by a single author or several. Multi-author blogs in particular can provide an opportunity for Improving professional communication and expanding impact.

British Politics & Policy at LSE (multi-author)
POLIS Director (Charlie Beckett)

2) News & Announcements

This covers a variety of uses: departmental news, service updates, events or the latest information on a specific theme

LSE Law Careers provides students with up-to-date information on the legal sector

3) Supporting Research Projects

A website is a common requirement for funded research projects. Blogs make an ideal tool for recording the process and disseminating outputs.

DELILA Project Blog an LSE & University of Birmingham project funded by the HEA & the JISC

4) Learning Journals

Students can use blogs to support & develop their learning. These blogs are often reflective and might be private, shared with a teacher or completely public.

Language Log is written by Helen Mayer, a member of LSE Staff studying at the Institute of Education. The blog is a course requirement.

5) Learning Communities

This could be a group blog for a course involving teachers and / or students using it to share information and discuss the course. Learning communities can also be more loosely connected networks involving many individuals reading and commenting on each other’s blogs around a common theme.

The Fudan Team A student blog for the LSE-Fudan double masters in Global Media and Communications

6) Personal Homepage

Blogs can be used by university staff and students as an alternative to a traditional homepage.

Kenneth Benoit (Professor and Head of LSE’s Methodology Institute)
{The Caneelian} (Caneel Joyce, Lecturer, LSE Department of Management)

7) Resource Sharing

Many blogs are developed specifically to share resources with their community

Out of the box LSE Archives, in particularly their Collection category

We said seven, but we missed one:

8 ) Collaborative Authoring

Blogs can be used to develop a ‘publication’. The commenting functionality allows readers & collaborators to comment on each other’s text.

The Right’s Future written by Professor Conor Gearty drew on over 400 comments from readers

This is not a definitive list and there are clear overlaps between the different uses; many individual blogs serve a variety of purposes. If you have anything you’d like to add, including examples I’d very much welcome your comments below.