Group blogging is another good way to develop your professional and academic profile. Many schools, colleges, departments and research units run their own domain specific group blogs, which enable multiple authors to publish blog posts on related topics.
Moderated group blogs
Some group blogs are unmoderated, and allow members to post any content they choose at any time, however most group blogs are moderated and have a dedicated editor who manages and oversees the content that is posted to the blog. A good example of an edited group blog from the University of Edinburgh is Teaching Matters. Group blogs are a great way to encourage colleagues to try their hand at blogging and to get used to the practice of writing for the web.
If you are setting up a group blog it’s a good idea to have clear editorial guidelines that set out what topics the blog covers, how long blog posts should be, writing style, posting schedule and other relevant information. Here are some examples of style and content guides:
- Teaching Matters Style and Content Guide
- Departmental Blog Strategy from the University Website Programme
Examples of moderated group blogs:
- Beltane Public Engagement Network
- Centre for Research on Families and Relationships
- Edinburgh Legal History Blog
- EPCC Blog
- PE Research Digest
- Sport Matters
- Teaching Matters
- The Motley Coat. A blog of the Mason Institute
- #UEBSblog Business School Blog
- University Website Programme Blog
Syndicated group blogs
An alternative way to manage a group blog is to syndicate content from other blogs. Syndication involves pulling content in from other blogs to create an aggregated series of posts. We’ll be covering syndication briefly later on. The Open.Ed blog is an example of a syndicated blog, all the posts that appear here were originally posted on other blogs. By tagging these posts #OpenEdFeed they are automatically pulled into the Open.Ed blog. There’s no moderation or editorial involved.
Examples of syndicated blogs:
Some group blogs will adopt a combination of both approaches; an editor oversees the blog as a whole and manages what content appears, some posts are written by members of the group, and some posts are syndicated from elsewhere.
(Playfair Architectural Drawings, CC BY, University of Edinburgh, https://edin.ac/39TbxKw)