How should an institution go about providing a blogging service for its students? The traditional approach which has been taken to the provision of an IT service for members of an institution has been to evaluate the range of products and select a solution which satisfies the user requirements, taking into account the resource and support implications.

In a Web 2.0 environment, however, other options become available. Rather than installing software locally, services which are available on the network can be used - and blogging services such as Wordpress and Blogger are very popular blog hosting services.

What are the preservation aspects associated with the provision of a student blogging service? One might feel that the locally-installed application must be preferable, since management of the software and data is under the control of the institution. But what happens when students leave the institution? The normal policy in many institutions has been to delete student accounts and their data shortly after they leave. But is this desirable from the student’s perspective?  And what if they wish their data - their blog posts - to still be available after they leave the institution?

This is starting to happen, with the University of Warwick, which provided the first large-scale student blogging service a number of years ago. And as I wrote about a year ago, we are starting to see the first generation of student blog enthusiasts asking these questions. My post linked to a blog post hosted at the University of Warwick from a student (Jo Casey) who asked:

“In the middle of August I will be leaving Warwick (to be the new Corporate Communications Manager at the Open University). … But, given that I will have to migrate my blog, where is the best place to go?“.

Unfortunately Jo’s blog was been deleted after she left the University - I was fortunate to have captured her question on my blog.

In light of this particular example from an institution which pioneered use of students blogs, my question would be “Wouldn’t institutions be advised to recommend the use of mature hosted blogging services for members of the institution - such as students - who will normally only be at the institution for a short period?”

Would this be a desirable approach? What are the disadvantages? And could such problems be addressed?