Thompson Rivers University (TRU) in Kamloops, BC is working on creating a policy to outline appropriate online conduct for users associated with the postsecondary institution.
The social media committee, coordinated by TRU’s marketing and communications office, first met in April to begin a formal discussion about social media use within the TRU community.
By the end of the academic year the university plans to have documented guidelines and recommendations, but not rules, for social media use.
TRU currently monitors social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, and sometimes Instagram.
The social media page on TRU’s website states “our goal is to provide a community where people feel encouraged to share content and ideas in a respectful environment, and we reserve the right to remove posts that we feel undermine this goal.”
Associate vice president of marketing and communications Lucille Gnanasihamany began the initiative to form a more documented social media policy when she arrived at TRU last year.
“While we don’t have any control over personal sites, certainly with any of the channels that are affiliated with TRU we do ask people to conduct themselves in a fair manner,” she says.
Meanwhile, the University of BC’s social media guidelines state that inappropriate use of official or personal social media platforms is cause for disciplinary action.
The guidelines outline conduct for faculty use, personal use, and official channel use. They say to never post anything you wouldn’t share in a classroom, avoid posting anything that could reflect poorly on your colleagues, and don’t represent your personal views as those of the university.
“Codes of conduct and the expectations of respectful behavior at the university absolutely apply online,” says TRU’s director of innovation Brian Lamb, adding that if it’s a question of inappropriate online conduct, a social media policy isn’t necessarily required to reprimand a user because it’s a behaviour issue.
“It’s all overlapping circles and a lot of this does fall under conduct, and I think conduct has many arenas,” says Gnanasihamany. “It could be an in-person conversation or an online conversation, but we monitor and we reserve the right to remind people when we feel they have crossed the line.”