Roberto Mazzoni, Head of User IT Services at the University of Zurich, describes how the university relies on IBM Connections today to share knowledge with students, faculty and office administrators. We also learn about VAUZ, an association of 5,500 students and faculty at the university. VAUZ uses IBM Connections to share ideas and execute plans that keep the 175 year old university modern and on the latest technology.
It was thrilling to hear Robert and his team describe the value they were obtaining from their IBM Connections ESN back at Social Connections V in Zürich a few years back, and it’s good to see this academic use case documented as an official IBM case study.
Whilst I have enjoyed working with a number of well respected universities in my time (including Cardiff, City and Cambridge), it feels to me as though further education and specifically student populations are under-represented amongst those reporting significant value from online communities at the organisational level. Clearly there are many many online communities on academic platforms such as Moodle, and well as specific use cases that utilise social media platforms such as Facebook, as well as the almost ubiquitous Slack channels.
However, hearing from Zürich that that Connections is supporting collaboration across 5,000+ staff and students gives me motivation to seek out more positive references in this area.