So this semester (after about a year of work) the Blogs at Penn State will be used in classrooms to support online conversations (and probably all sorts of other stuff). We decided after much debate to restrict the pilot to 1500 people, but probably have the capacity to jump to 2000 if requests and numbers continue to flow in. In all honesty we could probably handle more, but the point of a pilot is to learn. We’ll be doing a while bunch of that this semester! As I type there are students clicking the links for the “self-enroll” process so they can start blogging right away within PSU. To me it is very exciting — the Daily Collegian even ran a little story about the new opportunity this morning.

We are already evaluation Moveable Type 4 as it offers all sorts of new features we think will be critical. We are also starting to build our list of features we think we should be providing when this thing hits production status and the whole of the University can have at it. One thing I am noticing is that the Blogs at Penn State Community Hub is picking up steam — people are showing up and posting questions and answers. It is very cool to see the community rise up and work to support itself. One of the things I thought I’d link to is a page that has a bunch of links to help faculty get the most out their blogging experience. I’ll be reporting numbers and reaction as they roll in. Exciting stuff!