The uni that blogs together stays together

[Keyword: onlinejournalism]. The idea of students maintaining blogs is nothing new, but Warwick University have taken it a stage further with their own blogging service. The Guardian reports that the service hosts more than 3,000 weblogs "but with 15,000 students at the university, at least 12,000 therefore remain unconvinced". Interestingly, students can block tutors from reading posts, and there seems to be a trend towards "gaming" the system. "For example, students have faked comments to certain posts so they are identified as hot topics and highlighted on the main Warwick Blogs page".

This main page is most interesting. Visitors can browse the blog directory to find bloggers in their area (or by name), or look at the categories page to see what's being discussed ("Crime and Deviance" was the hot topic when I visited, suggesting a recent sociology assignment must have been set). It's a great display of blogging ability, and also a great way to engender communication within an increasingly fragmented student body. And if I was working on the student paper, I'd be browsing to see where my next story might come from...