Moving From Personal to Organisational Use of the Social Web

Abstract

The importance of the Social Web is now being widely accepted for those working in organisations such as higher educational institutions and public libraries. It might now be argued that the advocacy work of the early adopters, who made use of Social Web platforms hosted in The Cloud, has been vindicated and that such pioneering work can be migrated to a secure and managed environment provided within the institution. This paper, however, argues that the examples provided by early adopters who have been successful in maintaining their Social Web services over a number of years and developing a community of readers and contributors demonstrates that effective services in-house services can be deployed outside the traditional institutional environment. The paper goes on to suggest that such approaches are particularly relevant at a time of cuts across the public sector. However it is acknowledged that there are legitimate concerns regarding the content and sustainability of such services. The paper concludes by proposing a policy framework which seeks to ensure that authors can exploit Cloud Services to engage with their audiences in a professional and authentic manner whilst addressing the concerns of their host institution.