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What is a good subject to start a blog about?

Help me to write an (anonymous?) blog about my life as a university lecturer.

  • How to write a blog about my work (I am a senior lecturer in a university) without making myself exposed, and without breaching rules of confidentially? I am a lecturer in one of England's 'new universities'. I would like to start a blog about the daily life at this uni.; the relationships between students and teachers, the bureaucracy, the policies. Almost every day I am witnessing events and situations that challenge many preconceived ideas people have about university life. Including the behavior of students and teachers, conversations, educational policies, paperwork, meetings, threats and bullying. There is a lot to tell about this kind of university life which has nothing in common with the widespread, romantic Cambridge/Oxford image of higher education. The problem I have with putting it all in a blog is that I can not think of a way to make it specific enough and at the same time anonymous. I am no whistle blower and despite everything which goes in this place, I firmly believe that we are trying to do the right thing with our course and our students. The problem of anonymity is complicated because I teach a fairly unique course, with a very specific syllabus, if I write about any particulars of the course, it will be very easy to figure out which university and which course is it. At the same time, one of the things i want to write about is the challenge of teaching the specifics of my subject. In addition, I want to write about the kind of things that get discussed in our staff meetings, the lies we have to tell, the hypocrisy but also the small victories and the delights. I would like people to read this blog to better understand what is going on in a modern, new university and how New Labour policies affect education, but also to have a outlet for my own feelings. My question is how can I do all of that (or some of that) without compromising my place of work, without exposing myself and without exposing anyone else? Am I right thinking that maintaining anonymity is important in this case? Does anyone have experience of writing this kind of blog while staying anonymous? And if it is not possible, which parts of my experience can I focus on without compromising my students and colleagues? I would love to hear from someone who has experience of blogging about their professional (preferably academic) life. Thanks for your help.

  • Answer:

    I'd suggest deception. Sprinkle throughout the blog deceptive bits related to time and place that will defuse any link to you without falsifying the main content, and make people say "ah, look at this, I doubt that's him". Not only will this take heat off the school, but if there's a problem later, you can exhonorate yourself. Of course all bets are off if there's big trouble and a subpoena rolls out. Of course a lot of this will stand on how careful you are about providing real details that would conclusively link you, but this would be the path I would take.

slimeline at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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While http://community.livejournal.com/academics_uk/ may not be the best or busiest community for academics out there, poking around on the journals of the members may give you some idea of how others are handling it.

Lebannen

no one will be able to definitively prove that you are the blogger. Hello, it's university politics! If anyone gets a wiff of something they can use against and/or something that might cause controversy, they'll tear you apart with smile. And that's BEFORE the 9am daily meeting. The only trick is to never get yourself into a position where you'd have to lie about whether it's your blog. One of the first things they'll ask is "Did you write this, yes or no?"

Brandon Blatcher

Also, here's another http://www.academicblogs.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page, which might be useful as a survey of how people in your field or in a similar situation to yours handle it.

LobsterMitten

Request your university and/or department's policy and guidelines for staff blogging. If they do not have such a thing, request that one be drawn up and posted. Don't reveal the location of your blog (ef "I've haven't done any blogging - I need to see the official position on that stuff first"), and start out anonymously, will the knowledge, as pointed out above, that the anonyminity is highly penetrable and will likely only last if your blog is of no interest to anything. Once you have guideslines in writing, you're in a very good position so long as you stick to them. However, if your blog rubs people the wrong way, the fact that it complies with guidelines will not be any incentive for them to not get back at you, by fair means or foul, if they're that kind of person.

-harlequin-

While you can worry endlessly about putting 2 and 2 together, so long as there is nothing that says "I am Lecturer Jones, and this is what I think," no one will be able to definitively prove that you are the blogger. The only trick is to never get yourself into a position where you'd have to lie about whether it's your blog.

GarageWine

Why do you want to blog? As others have stated that once you place material online the assumption is that you want people to read your material and have it reside on search engines and online archives for a good long while. The true question then is why do you wish for this information to be in the public domain? Your desire that it be anonymous and that people NOT know it is you would imply some conflicted feelings about an online blog. Carefully consider your reasons and ask whether a blog is a good idea or maybe the more traditional private journal/memoir would be better. Seriously, there are people still living down their adolescent rantings from usenet. Once it is online it is public record.

jadepearl

I think you can do it. Change the names, change the observational context to be allegedly hypothetical, and it will be like a novel. Nobody can prove otherwise.

Brian B.

How about a group blog: A number of writers from different universities sharing a login. It might obscure the details some and would make it much harder to challenge one particular member with content. There are quite a few UK academic mefites and if you were to have a contact email in your profile, you might get some joiners.

handee

Thank you everyone for you suggestions so far, I start to think that writing a blog in a way I was planning it is not possible, at the same time I do not feel that making private notes with the aim of writing a book one day will work for me - if i had it in me to write a book I would probably do it already. I will consider a blog on the 'positive' aspects of teaching my subject, but where is the therapeutic element in that? janecer - thank you for this link, it is spot on. I still find it hard to accept that so much of what is going on in the real world of education is completely obscured from the eyes of people who really should know, and I find it amazing that almost every profession is represented in the blogosphere, from teachers to police persons, but the academia is practicaly hidden from the public eye.

slimeline

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