Abstract

This paper focuses on Sites of Learning and addresses the question, “How can the digital environment be used to create new and more powerful forms of learning?” Specifically, this paper describes a new online resource developed by the author as a digital environment to enable members of the Stanford University, Stanford, California, community to learn about campus events and resources. The URL for this digital environment is www.SUpost.com; the “SU” stands for “Stanford University”, and “post” refers to users’ ability to post information and to view information others post in this digital environment. SUpost has four functions: (1) Create an online community for information sharing by and about Stanford students. (2) Provide easily accessible, up-to-date information about University events. (3) Allow members of the University community to post information and to read items posted by others in this digital environment. (4) Enable those participating in this digital environment to meet others through personal classifieds and to buy and sell items and services (this last feature gives the site an income stream). While SUpost was developed by the author for the Stanford University campus, it also serves as a template for similar sites at other universities. Between July 21, 2006, and January 17, 2007, SUpost had 70,766 unique visitors and 293,060 page views. On a typical day (e.g., November 14, 2006), SUpost listed 631 news items about community resources, 551 University events, 505 for-sale ads, 120 job ads, and 70 personals ads. Work is underway to develop such digital environments at other universities. This paper describes the design and development of SUpost and reports analyses of user behavior in this digital environment.