Online reputation management The case of the University of ... · Online reputation management The case of the University of Fribourg Ayche Sabra Jenny Nunez N° 06-211-205 N° 05-204-847

University of Fribourg Department of Informatics

Electronic Business

Online reputation management The case of the University of Fribourg

Ayche Sabra Jenny Nunez N° 06-211-205 N° 05-204-847 Rte de Moncor 21 Rte de la Gruyère 5 1752 Villars-sur-Glâne 1700 Fribourg [email protected] [email protected]

Examiner Prof. Andreas Meier

Supervisor Luis Terán

Fribourg May 18, 2011

Electronic Business Online reputation management

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Table of contents

Table of contents..........................................................................................................I

List of tables ...............................................................................................................III

List of figures..............................................................................................................III

Introduction .................................................................................................................1

1 Definition of online reputation ................................................................................2

1.1 The online reputation drivers...........................................................................2

1.2 Implication of a positive online reputation .......................................................4

1.3 Implication of a negative online reputation ......................................................5

2 Online reputation management: steps for a good online communication ..............6

2.1 Step 1: Observe and create a customer map..................................................6

2.2 Step 2: Recruit community members ..............................................................6

2.3 Step 3: Evaluate online conduit strategies ......................................................7

2.4 Step 4: Engage communities in conversation .................................................8

2.5 Step 5: Measure involvement with new tools, techniques ...............................9

2.6 Step 6: Promote your community to the world.................................................9

2.7 Step 7: Improve the community’s benefits ....................................................10

3 Online reputation measurement...........................................................................11

3.1 Online survey ................................................................................................11

3.2 Ratings..........................................................................................................11

3.3 Online reputation quotient .............................................................................11

4 The case of the University of Fribourg.................................................................12

4.1 Presentation of the University .......................................................................12

4.2 The University of Fribourg online ..................................................................12

4.2.1 Website...................................................................................................12

4.2.2 Facebook................................................................................................13

Electronic Business How to manage online reputation

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4.2.3 Twitter.....................................................................................................17

4.2.4 YouTube.................................................................................................19

4.2.5 Blogs.......................................................................................................21

4.3 Results of the online questionnaire ...............................................................21

4.4 Opinions........................................................................................................27

4.4.1 Students and professor opinions ............................................................27

4.4.2 Opinions of the webmasters and responsible for communication...........29

4.4.3 Critical assessment and recommendations ............................................31

Conclusion ................................................................................................................33

Literature ...................................................................................................................35

Appendix ...................................................................................................................39


III

List of tables

Table 1: The online reputation drivers.........................................................................3

Table 2: Students and professors recommendations ................................................28

List of figures

Figure 1: Panorama of social media in 2011 ...............................................................8

Figure 2: Home page of the global website of the University ....................................13

Figure 3: Unofficial Facebook page of the University of Fribourg..............................14

Figure 4: Official Facebook page of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences.15

Figure 5: Link to Facebook page on Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences

website ......................................................................................................................16

Figure 6: official Twitter account of the University of Fribourg...................................17

Figure 7: official account of the Web Office in the Service Communication & Medias

of the University.........................................................................................................18

Figure 8: inactive account of the faculty of Economics and Social Sciences.............19

Figure 9: YouTube channel of the faculty of Economics and Social Sciences ..........20

Figure 10: YouTube channel of the Department of Sciences of Communication and

Media ........................................................................................................................21

Electronic Business Online reputation management

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Introduction

Nowadays Internet is a much democratized tool which counts more than

2,163,000,000 users worldwide [WorldoMeters 2011]. In Switzerland, 70.9 percent

of the population has used Internet for the year 2009. In some countries such as

Iceland, Norway or Sweden, the proportion of users of Internet was even above 90

percent for the same year [World Bank 2011]. It is therefore important to be able to

evolve in an environment surrounded by Internet, and to be an active player with

efficient communication.

The objective of this paper is to understand the online reputation and the steps

needed to achieve an efficient online corporate communication. This will be

illustrated by case study of the University of Fribourg, which is not trivial as both

authors are studying at this University. Thus there is a strong interest in having a

greater insight of this institution by an observation of its online activities, as well as

with interviews of the webmasters (Samuel Crausaz, Nicolas Fretigny), a member of

the team web 2.0 of the University (Reto Siffert) and a member of the marketing and

communication department (Laure Schönenberger). Additionally, an online survey

has been conducted at the University in order to have the opinions and perceptions

of the students and others employees.

Based on the different sources of information, the authors will provide some

recommendations in order to improve the reputation online of the University.


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1 Definition of online reputation

In a general sense, the reputation is the stakeholders’ perception of an organization.

It is a collective term including identity, meaning the perception of internal

stakeholders such as employees and the image, meaning the view of external

stakeholders, especially customers [Davies 2003, p. 61] . In short, the reputation is

the way people see an organization.

The stakeholders are individuals or groups who may influence or may be influenced

by the organization such as suppliers, employees, local community, media,

competitors etc. They all have a different perception; they form different evaluation of

the organization. The challenge is to split the stakeholders in groups with similar

views of the organization and understand their perception [Dowling 2001, pp. 26-

29] .

When talking about online reputation, a distinction has to be made between

reputation online and online reputation. “When an established company goes online,

it can build, sustain, defend or even undo its existing, corporate reputation. This is

managing (or mismanaging) reputation online” [Walsh 2002, p. 5]. The online

reputation is a part of the overall corporate reputation. It is based on the values of the

online community. “Online reputation is a measure of how consistent the company’s

behavior is with respect to online values. The company’s website, its involvement in

online communities and its information offerings are some of the ways its compliance

or non-compliance to these values is expressed” [Walsh 2002, pp. 163-164].

A company may have a good reputation but might be almost anonymous online or

vice versa.

1.1 The online reputation drivers

Several drivers have to be considered and well managed if an organization wants to

have a good online reputation. Here below, the table 1 presents these different

drivers.


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Table 1: The online reputation drivers

Source: [Walsh 2002, p. 218], adaptation of table 6.1

Walsh noticed that “the online community judges the usefulness of a site principally

by the quality and relevance of information” [Walsh 2002, p. 219]. The credibility,

originality, integrity of information and its architecture are aspects to be taken into

account for a good online information quality. The website of the organization has to

be easy to use. That means that for example the navigation has to be fluent, the

browser has to be compatible and the download time short. If the company wants to

Driver Critical success factors

Information quality Information sources Originality of information Integrity of information Information architecture

Usability Navigability Browser compatibility Download times

Location Domain name Search ranking Association

Mindprint Innovation Language

Stakeholders interaction Customer/visitor interface Contactability Request management

Security E-commerce security Private data protection

Added value Making a difference

Reliability Promise keeping Promotional truth


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be reputable it has to be found on the Internet therefore the domain name, search

engine and association are elements to be considered. The Mindprint is the first

impression that a user has when visiting a website. “The more innovative,

aesthetically appealing and expressive the site is, the greater the Mindprint and

therefore the greater its recall value” [Walsh 2002, p. 226]. In this case, the

stakeholders are all those who visit the website and can thus contribute to the online

reputation by recommending for example. To have a good stakeholders interaction,

one must be able to contact the organization, the visitor interface has to be carefully

done and the requests have to be managed. The security is essential on a website

especially when using credit card. “How much value a company’s Internet presence

adds to the life of a user (online ticket, schedules…) is an important driver in its

online reputation” [Walsh 2002, p. 237]. The reliability goes through the promise

keeping and the honesty in advertising and promotion.

All these drivers, only well managed, give to the organization a positive online

reputation. In the next part, the impacts of a good online reputation will be presented.

1.2 Implication of a positive online reputation

An organization builds its online reputation by all its online exposure: information,

advertising, marketing, media, communication on Internet. According to Walsh, the

successful delivery of online reputation is the importance (the commitment) the

organization attaches to its online reputation [Walsh 2002, pp. 41-49].

When managing the online reputation it leads to many positive outcomes such as

reduced costs, market stability or enhanced client confidence. The company reduces

its cost because the reputation gives to it an advantage in negotiations. Distributors,

suppliers and creditors prefer to work with reputable companies. It has been show

that companies with a good reputation are less subjected to important fluctuation in

their stock prices. On an online transaction, the online reputation is very important

because the customer will chose an organization he has confidence in [Walsh 2002, pp. 60-63].

Here, just some examples of outcomes are presented but other authors maintain that

the reputation has several impacts on the organization. Boistel argues that a good


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reputation has an impact on the strategy, the marketing, the human resources and

the finances of the organization [Boistel 2008, pp. 9-25].

1.3 Implication of a negative online reputation

A negative reputation has the opposite effects of a positive reputation. “People don’t

trust the company, its market offerings, or what it says about itself” [Dowling 2001, p. 12]. Companies with bad reputation have less business partners because

suppliers, creditors and distributors prefer to work with reputable companies. Market

analysts undervalue its share price and consumers are more sensible to prices from

companies with poor reputation [Dowling 2001, pp. 12-13].

It is relevant to note that a good/bad online reputation has positive/negative impacts

on the organization, no matter if it is a profitable or non-profitable organization.

Therefore it is important for an organization to manage in an efficient way its online

reputation.


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2 Online reputation management: steps for a good online

communication

According to Weber, there are seven steps to build a solid foundation for the online

reputation management, and more precisely in the context of social media [Weber 2009].

2.1 Step 1: Observe and create a customer map

The first step consists in observing and creating a customer map. Indeed, before

starting using social media it is essential to understand how the communities are

organized and who the influencers are. The observation phase permits to discover

the existing information about the company itself and about its environment [Weber 2009, pp. 65-68]. At that point, the company discovers and must understand that it

cannot control its message and its whole communication, as thousands of channels

can deliver it easily. Therefore the company should be aware of the players on these

media and follow them carefully [Weinberg 2009, p.16].

The observation phase permits also the company to make an inventory of its

notoriety and reputation on Internet. It can be considered that different reputations

exist depending on the different stakeholders. All gathered information is then used

by the company in order to set clear objectives concerning its reputation [Réguer 2010, pp. 29-30].

2.2 Step 2: Recruit community members

Once a community is launched, members need to be “recruited”, as they are not

instinctively attracted by the media. Customers need a reason for joining the online

community, which can be the willingness to meet people, to entertain themselves, to

learn new things or to influence others. And therefore usual marketing tools and

strategies can be considered by including the URL of the community on printed

marketing materials or on a direct mailing for example, in order to invite people to


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join. The aim of recruiting to the social web is to have a power in both digital media

marketing and digital media relations [Weber 2009, pp. 77-80].

2.3 Step 3: Evaluate online conduit strategies

According to [Weber 2009, pp. 89-96], there are four online conduits that can be

used to communicate, and which choice depends on the target the company wants to

achieve:

1) Reputation aggregators are relatively important knowing that people searching

for a company are usually using a search engine and that the results of the

research are provided according to a ranking system. It is therefore essential

to have appropriate “tags”. In the case that the research results give an

insufficient return, other conduits can be more efficient.

2) Blogs can be considered as websites, but differ considerably in terms of

information publishing path and editorial calendar. As a consequence a writer

is often needed to deliver regular papers. In the case the company cannot

stand for an online newsroom, this option is not to be considered.

3) E-communities are sites where people can share and aggregate around a

common interest. This way of conduit is generally composed of professional

communities or communities focusing of health, wine, sports, travel, etc.

4) Social networks are member-based communities as MySpace, Twitter or

Facebook, among others. This permits instantaneous dialogue and

information sharing system that can be crossed with other social networks. A

company has to be able to face such a quick information flow and therefore

need to choose its social networks with attention.

These four conduits permit to understand the different types of channels that can be

used. If only consideration is made on social media, other configurations are

possible, as the one proposed by [Cavazza 2010]. He identified seven families

representing seven primary usages: publication, sharing, discussion, commerce,

localization, networking and games.


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Figure 1: Panorama of social media in 2011

Source: [Cavazza 2010]

2.4 Step 4: Engage communities in conversation

Until now, observation and customer map were made, members recruited, and online

conduit strategies evaluated. At this point it is necessary to engage communities in

conversation. The stronger the dialogue, the stronger is the visibility and thus

stronger is the “brand” [Weber 2009, pp. 97-99]. Engagement, participation and

dialogue within the social media are key factors to build visibility and relationship with

the members. If the company accord sufficient importance to these factors, it


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becomes a way to make marketing in public relations through these media

[Weinberg 2009, pp. 63-65].

2.5 Step 5: Measure involvement with new tools, techniques

It is important, before the company starts evolving in online media, to know what is

the purpose of entering these media, for example building brand awareness,

attracting new customers, improving customer retention, etc. Only then, a success

measurement appropriated with the main objectives can be set. [Weber 2009, pp.

113-115].

For many companies, simple free tools such as Google Analytics, Site Meter or

Technorati are sufficient to measure the activity related to their business. Other more

sophisticated tools such as Cymfony and BuzzMetrics can be applied for more

complex structures. [Weber 2009, pp. 117-121].

With monitoring tools, more qualitative results can be obtain, in order to know what

people say about a company or a brand. The awareness of the negative and positive

comments permit the company to have a feedback on people’s opinion, and to

understand what they expect from the company and to be able to easily enter in

contact with those people and to respond to their needs [Weber 2009, pp. 121-122].

2.6 Step 6: Promote your community to the world

First, it is important to be visible in the results of search engines. Then it is important

to identify the online communities which could be interested in the company’s

business, and to enter in contact with the members and instable a situation of

confidence and trust. But other ways, more relative to traditional marketing strategies

can be applied. For example, the URL of the website should be written on the every

print ad, or by replying actively to community members, or by organizing a contest

[Weber 2009, pp. 127-30].


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2.7 Step 7: Improve the community’s benefits

Companies often enter social communities to install a long-term relationship with the

members. Therefore they have to constantly bring something to the community and

maintain its quality and attract people. Some example would be to include a “Tip of

the Week”, share testimonial, add signup form for newsletter, etc. In other word, new

information has constantly to be provided, and therefore the company should

continually look for new innovations and figures [Weber 2009, pp. 139-48].


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3 Online reputation measurement

More than 80 percent of 1,000 CEOs of international companies believe that the

reputation is important in business goals but about 60 percent of them admit to not

measure or manage it appropriately. However, it can be measured. The tools that

can be used to measure the online reputation are online survey, ratings and the

online reputation quotient [Walsh 2002, pp. 241-243].

3.1 Online survey

An external audit of the organization can be done with an online questionnaire, which

will provide the opinion of the online communities. The questions should be around

the online drivers. To have a complete image of the corporate online presence it is

necessary to send different online questionnaire to different online stakeholders

[Walsh 2002, p. 241].

3.2 Ratings

Organizations can also measure its online reputation by getting ratings. Judges such

as surfing people evaluate the website and give awards. There are a lot of awards in

the Internet for example the Australian Internet Awards, the Future UK Internet

Awards, the Webby Awards and the Lafferty Internet Ratings. They use criteria such

as the technical implementation, the usability, stakeholder interaction, Mindprint or

added value to judge the online presence of a company [Walsh 2002, pp. 241-243].

3.3 Online reputation quotient

The online reputation quotient ORQ is the difference between “how a company is

expected to perform and how it actually performs, how it is intended to be seen and

how it is actually seen (online identity and online image audits).” A reputation matrix

is used to plot the distances [Walsh 2002, pp. 243-244].


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4 The case of the University of Fribourg

4.1 Presentation of the University

The University of Fribourg is a non-profitable organization founded in 1763 with the

creation of the academy of law. About 10,000 students and more than 2,000

professors study and work in it [University of Fribourg 2011a] .

The University of Fribourg is composed of five faculties which are Theology, Law,

Economics and Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities, and Science [University of

Fribourg 2011b] .

4.2 The University of Fribourg online

In this part, an analysis of different online media is done regarding the University of

Fribourg. Lots of media could have been examined, but the ones that have been

chosen are the websites, the Facebook pages, the Twitter accounts, the YouTube

channels and the blogs. For each of them a description and examination is provided.

4.2.1 Website

The University of Fribourg has a general website where information concerning the

whole institution is provided, such as general news, registration processes, different

services, and so forth. The website is then divided by faculty. As it can be observed

in figure 2, the faculties are differentiated by color according to the corporate

guidelines of the University: yellow for Theology, red for Law, pink for Economics and

Social Sciences, blue for Arts and Humanities and green for Sciences.

At first sight, the faculties’ websites (see appendixes 3 to 7) can be considered as

rather homogenous, as they have the same layout and that only the color of the

faculty is different (except for the faculty of Arts and Humanities), but the interview

conducted with the webmasters has revealed that the faculties’ websites are

managed independently and have absolutely no interaction one with each others.

This can be observed by a deeper observation of the content of the different

websites, which is rather heterogenous.


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Figure 2: Home page of the global website of the University

Source: [University of Fribourg 2011b]

4.2.2 Facebook

Facebook, with more than 500 million active users [Facebook 2011a], is a very

appreciated network used more and more by companies. If we consider the case of

the University of Fribourg, several results are founded when typing the name in the

search bar of Facebook. One page, which counts 359 people on May 10th 2011,

appears to be an official page (see figure 3). However, thanks to the interview with

the webmasers of the Univertity, it has been mentionned that no official page of the

University exists on Facebook.


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Figure 3: Unofficial Facebook page of the University of Fribourg

Source: [Facebook 2011b]

Concerning the faculties, only one is present on Facebook with an official page,

which is the faculty of Economics and Social Sciences (see figure 4). In order to

promote this Facebook page, the faculty has launched a promotion campaign on

November 22nd 2010, with banners hanged in the faculty building [University of

Fribourg 2010, p.7] . Moreover a reportage which has been broadcasted on the TV


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channel LaTélé on November 30th 2010 [University of Fribourg 2010, p.15 /

YouTube 2010] . Furthermore, the faculty of Economics and Social Sciences

promotes its Facebook page on its web page (see figure 5), which permits a better

synergy between both media.

Figure 4: Official Facebook page of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences

Source: [Facebook 2011c]


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These facts show that this faculty is the most progressive at the University of

Fribourg in terms of online activities.

Figure 5: Link to Facebook page on Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences

website

Source: [University of Fribourg 2011e]

Other Facebook pages related to University departements or activities can be found,

such as the page of the Chair of Sciences of Communication and Media, the Chair of

Marketing and Communication, or Les Goûters Scientifiques (see appendixes 8 to

10).


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It can be concluded that for the medium of Facebook, the University of Fribourg has

no general strategy. Some entities have although started using it as new

complementary channel of communication.

4.2.3 Twitter

Some researches on Twitter have shown that the University of Fribourg is present on

this medium with an official account where information about different activities can

be found (i.e. concerning conferences) (see figure 6). With 49 tweets on the 10th of

May, it can be considered that the University is not a very active user, knowing that

the first tweet was written in June 2007. Content is added on an irregular way, as

there are sometimes several months between two tweets.

Figure 6: official Twitter account of the University of Fribourg

Source: [Twitter 2011a]

Several other accounts related to the University of Fribourg exist on Twitter. Some of

them, as for exemple the account of the Web Office in the Service Communication &

Medias (see figure 7) or the Centre NTE “Nouvelles Technologies et Enseignement”


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of the University, are also considered as occasionnal users with respectively 20 and

74 tweets on the 10th of May 2011, and only few followers (respectively 12 and 20).

Figure 7: official account of the Web Office in the Service Communication & Medias

of the University

Source [Twitter 2011b]

Other accounts are in contrary inactive, such as the one of the faculty of Economics

and Social Sciences (see figure 8) or the one of the service Micromus, the student IT

service (see appendixes 11 to 16). Inactive accounts like those ones are often a

reservation of the account with the purpose of a future activity on it. In the case of the

faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, a welcome message is posted, which

dated from November 2010. Since then, no activity has been detected.


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Figure 8: inactive account of the faculty of Economics and Social Sciences

Source: [Twitter 2011c]

4.2.4 YouTube

YouTube is a big player in video sharing which was founded in 2005, and counts

more than 2 billion view a day [Website Monitoring Blog 2010].

The University of Fribourg is not present on this media as a global institution.

Concerning the faculties, only the one of Economics and Social Sciences has its own

channel (see figure 9), but is not active on it as only two videos are published.


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Figure 9: YouTube channel of the faculty of Economics and Social Sciences

Source: [YouTube 2011a]

Another actor which is present on YouTube is the Deparment of Sciences of

Communication and Media (see figure 10). One could think that because of the type

of studies this department would be active on this medium. However it is not the case

and no video is published on its channel.


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Figure 10: YouTube channel of the Department of Sciences of Communication and

Media

Source: [YouTube 2011b]

4.2.5 Blogs

The University of Fribourg do not have any blog for educational purpose. However

other services, such as Micromus, Centre NTE or Centre Didactique have their own

blog where they provide regular information (see appendixes 17 to 19).

4.3 Results of the online questionnaire

At this point, only information that can be found on the Internet has been taken into

account. It is now interesting to consider the opinion of the users of the online tools.

Therefore a questionnaire concerning the online activities of the University of

Fribourg has been sent through the University network. General questions regarding

the website of the University and its online activities were asked and measured on a


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7-point Likert scale. When considering metric data, the result will be shown not only

in terms of mean value, but also in terms of median value and mode value. The

median represents the middle value of all response, whereas the mode is the value

that occurs most frequently. Here are the results of the 842 respondents (appendix

1).

Regarding descriptive analysis, we can observe that a large part of the sample is

composed by females, as 552 females are counted for 290 males.

The questionnaire was available in French and German. The results have shown a

larger participation of French-speaking persons, with 522 against 320 German

speaking persons.

Participants were asked the faculty to which they are affiliated. The results show that

the larger part of the participants is from the faculty of Arts and Humanities with 383

participants. Then comes the faculty of Economics and Social Sciences with 173

participants, the faculty of Sciences with 138 participants, the faculty of Law with 120

participants, the faculty of Theology with 16 participants, 6 participants which are in

an Interfaculty program and finally 6 participants that are in the field “Other” which is

assumed to be composed from employees working in general services of the

University that are not related to a faculty.


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The students regularly consult the website of the university. More than an half

navigates on the web pages more than once a week. This could be explained by the

fact that nowadays most of the materials courses are online.


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People were asked if they have already search information through divers channels

such as social networks. The results show that the big majority (642 over 842) has

never seen the university out of the website. Facebook is the second channel where

people can follow university activities.

The participants were asked about how easy they find information on the website.

The table 2 shows that the result is in average good and quite homogeneous through

the faculties. However, the result of the students of the interfaculty studies is lower.

This can be explained by the fact that they have to navigate between different

websites. Furthermore, when they were asked if they have already been in a

situation where they could not find an information, more than a half responded “yes”

(51,5%).

Concerning the appealing of the content of the website, the students are relatively

satisfied with mean values ranged from 4.2 to 5.

In general, students appreciate the layout of the website unifr.ch. The mean values

stand between 4.5 and 5.1.

The image and reputation of the university is relatively perceived as high. The

majority of the respondents gave an evaluation of 6 over 7.


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People consider that the University of Fribourg has a good image compared with

other Swiss universities. The majority of the theology’s students gave the maximum

evaluation for this question. It has to be mentioned that the faculty of law has the

highest mean value (5.8), which confirm the fact that this faculty is famous in

Switzerland.

The activity of the university on Internet has been evaluated slightly above the

average. This result shows that the online activities of the university are considered

as sufficient by the students.

Concerning the online communication and the dialogue between the students and

the university, the respondents are satisfied. The mean values range from 4.3 to 5.

The majority of the people in the category other, which are assumed to be employees

of the university, judge the online communication as good as they gave an evaluation

of 6 over 7. This result could reflect a difference in vision between students and

employees.

In general, the respondents gave a good evaluation of the website of the university.

The mean values are between 4.3 and 4.9.


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Finally, the respondents were asked if they would recommend the website unifr.ch.

The results show that only a slight majority on 56% would recommend the web page,

whereas 37% would be reluctant to recommend it.

The results on the online survey can lead to the conclusion that students do not

assimilate the online activities on the website and on the social media to the

reputation of the University by itself. Indeed, the results concerning the website are

relatively in the average and there is a poor usage and visibility of other tools;

however the reputation of the University of Fribourg is seen as very good.

These quantitative results need to be completed by qualitative aspects and precise

opinions which are explained in the next section.

4.4 Opinions

4.4.1 Students and professor opinions

A questionnaire was sent to all members of the University of Fribourg. As mentioned

previously, 842 persons responded to it. According to this questionnaire and the

drivers of the online reputation, a table was made to illustrate the recommendations

to improve the online reputation of the University of Fribourg.


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Table 2: Students and professors recommendations

Source: [Walsh 2002, p. 218] adaptation of table 6.1 and the recommendations (appendix 2)

Students and professors would like to have a modern website with understanding

and updated information. The essential elements (exams, calendar, schedule,

inscription etc.) should be clearly exposed on the first page. An effort in the

architecture of the information could be made. It would be wiser to have homogeneity

between the faculties to create a real corporate identity. The courses and the course

materials should be in a same place instead of scattered between different websites

(Moodle, faculties’ websites, professors’ websites, etc.).

The search engine should be improved because people complain that they do not

find the information they seek. And the navigation could be facilitated by putting

direct links to important information.

Drivers Factors Comments

Originality of information

Modernity, Understanding Calendar of conferences

Information architecture Clearness

Essential information

Information quality

Integrity of information Homogeneity between faculties Corporate identity Updated information

Usability Navigability Better search engine Direct link

Added value Making the difference Show the difference

Mindprint Language Translation in Italian and English

Stakeholders interaction

Customer/visitor interface

Online conference Image Interactivity (social networks)


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Another point that could be improved is the added value. The University should show

how it is different from other universities and highlight its strengths.

As a bilingual university, it should have all websites in German and French. And

given the large number of Swiss Italian students and foreign students, it would be

necessary to translate more pages in Italian and English, particularly important

documents such as regulation.

With regard to the stakeholders’ interaction, the University of Fribourg should put

conferences online, more “beautiful” images and be more present on the social

networks essentially Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

To summarize, the University of Fribourg should have a young and interactive

website and live in the new era of web 2.0. All these improvements should lead to a

better online reputation of the University of Fribourg.

4.4.2 Opinions of the webmasters and responsible for communication

Two interviews with the webmasters and the responsible for the communication were

done about the online reputation management of the University of Fribourg.

Thereafter, the main ideas of both interviewees are exposed.

The first point to mention is that the department of communication and marketing

were separated so it is difficult to build a communication strategy. The two

webmasters of the university are more focus on the publication than on the web.

They manage and publish what comes from the editorial office so they have no

impact on the strategy. They distribute the information but they are not in charge of

the global strategy. Consequently the implementation of a strategy is unclear.

Which makes the communication strategy even more difficult to implement is the fact

that each faculty is independent. In each faculty there is a webmaster and a

responsible for the communication and marketing and therefore, each pushes its

identity and communication. A lot of new things are proposed, but the faculties do

what they want on Internet even if they do not have the legitimacy. In other terms,

they may not have the knowledge to manage Internet activities and content. Let us

illustrate the situation of the faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, which is the


30

most active online. As no actions are undertaken by the university, the facultie is

pushed to take decisions independently regarding the online activities.

There are some general statistics about the visits to web pages but no further

analysis. Each faculty analyzes their data separately with its own Google analytics.

There have never been any guidelines for the faculties’ websites.

One problem of almost all universities is to develop a real corporate identity. There is

often no union, no sense of belonging to the university. An example of belonging is

the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) where people are proud to

work and study. According to the webmasters, the university should position itself

relative to other universities or high schools but this positioning depends on several

things such as professors, publications, communication etc. The department of

communication launched a slogan competition to involve students and employees in

the activities of the university and thereby to increase the belonging. They had to

choose between different slogans for the university or propose one.

Another problem is the economic aspect. The budget for the marketing and the

communication is the same and it is not enough. The communication department has

a limited scope. Intentions and ideas are proposed but nothing is approved.

Concerning the social networks, the webmasters are actively thinking about

Facebook and iTunes and are expecting information before setting up a strategy. A

Twitter account has been launched but they do not want to go on web 2.0 if there are

not active. On networks, they have a vision of what they want to do but not a real

positioning. The webmasters are aware that there is a growing interest in social

networks but resources are limited. There should be a person responsible for social

networks who will make the networks more dynamic.

The University of Fribourg is not a company that has to make profit therefore it has

no commercial objectives and no analysis in detail. The purpose of the university is

not to be the largest one but to be a university close to the population in general.


31

4.4.3 Critical assessment and recommendations

It is a good point that the University of Fribourg is sensitive to the fact that Internet is

important. That is why a team web 2.0 has been formed. But there is considerable

progress to do.

The communication strategy is unclear and it is not explicitly communicated in the

university. And this affects the online communication that is not coordinated. So the

university should have a communication strategy based on a common vision of

corporate identity. Which will creates a clear positioning relative to other universities.

The University of Fribourg is a non-profitable organization (NPO) and it has no

performance objectives. The university’s budget comes from taxpayers.

Consequently many people think that this money should be properly used and not in

an excessive way. They think that the marketing and communication department is

not a priority sector and that the role of the university is not to do marketing.

Therefore budget problems and slowness are perceived. A solution could be to cut

the publication budget and put it in the marketing, communication and online

activities.

Social networks can facilitate the discussion between professors and students but no

concrete actions have yet been applied; they are all still under consideration. The risk

of this slowness – that results from a lack of budget and a lack of business

orientation – is that it could be associated with a university that is not enough

dynamic and not oriented towards the new information and communication

technologies (ICT).

The team web 2.0 works on the social networks for some time now and not much has

been done; few results are visible. One may wonder if the problem is only related to

the financial aspect or if it is a human resources problem or simply that the university

is not sensitive to this kind of preoccupations. Are people enough qualified? Is the

directorship enough concerned by the online activities of the university?

A big problem is that faculties are too independent. What is needed is that some

services are centralized or that the collaboration between services of different

faculties is stronger. For example, the different webmaster of the faculties should

have a meeting once a month and work together on what could be improved. A

centralized service might be more efficient.


32

Given that students complain that the information is not enough clear and structured,

a change for the better could be to have two different websites, one with useful

information for students and one for the external Internet user.

Compared to the University of Fribourg, Harvard is more competent in the web

activities. That could be explained by the fact that Harvard is a private university and

that it works much more like a business than an educational institution. An

explanation to this could be the country’s culture.

The University of Fribourg could learn or benefit from the collaboration with

universities more advanced on the online activities such as Harvard or follow the

example of French universities that have more structured information and similar

interfaces from one website to another.


33

Conclusion

The online reputation – part of the overall corporate reputation – is based on the

values of the online community. It is a measure of how consistent the company’s

behavior is with respect to online values. The website, the involvement in online

communities and the information offerings are some ways to express values.

There are several drivers such as the navigability of the website or the integrity of

information that have to be considered and well managed to have a good online

reputation. Positive and negative effects are associated with the online reputation

management. An example of a positive effect is market stability and an example of a

negative effect is the fact that the organization has less business partners.

Seven steps to manage a good online reputation are considered. The University of

Fribourg is only on the first one.

The online survey, the ratings and the online reputation quotient are some tools to

measure the online reputation. They might be helpful for an organization such as the

University of Fribourg.

The different websites of the university are consistent with the structure of the

institution. Each faculty has its own website and manages it in a coherent way but

this is not an efficient operation according to us.

The online activities of the university are in the discovery and observation process,

they do not know in which sense to go. It is unclear in which direction they go. And

this is reflected in all online means: the university is present but not active.

The university tries to convey the most information through its websites; they are the

main channels. The information is mixed, that is there is information for students and

for external Internet users in the same place. The students are not satisfied of the

structure and clarity of the available information on the website.

The online activities reflect the lack of coordination at all levels (between the

faculties, the services and the administration) within the university. According to our

observations, this lack of coordination results from the fact that the university pays

little importance to online activities and from a lack of belongings to the university

because in one hand there are no common objectives and in other hand there are no

performance objectives as there is in business companies.


34

The faculty of Economics and Social Sciences stands out from other faculties

because it launched into the online networks without waiting for the university.

The university has a lot to do regarding the web. It needs to realize that Internet is

important and it should review its vision of information transmission.

With the advancement of information and communication technologies, everything

moves faster. Will the University of Fribourg manage to boost its structure in order to

be consistent with this trend?


35

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unifr/114888208573414, accessed on 11h May 2011

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36

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2011

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10th May 2011

[Twitter 2011f] Cognitive Psych, http://twitter.com/#!/AttentionUnifr, accessed on 10th

May 2011

[Twitter 2011g] micromus unifr, http://twitter.com/#!/micromus, accessed on 10th May

2011

[Twitter 2011h] AGEF unifr, http://twitter.com/#!/unifrAGEF, accessed on 15th May

2011

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2011

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37

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39

Appendix

Appendix 1: Online questionnaire p. 40

Appendix 2: Recommendations of students and professors p. 48

Appendix 3: Web page of the Faculty of Theology p. 49

Appendix 4: Web page of the Faculty of Law p. 50

Appendix 5: Web page of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences p. 51

Appendix 6: Web page of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities p. 52

Appendix 7: Web page of the Faculty of Sciences p. 53

Appendix 8: Facebook page of the Chair of Marketing and Communication p. 54

Appendix 9: Facebook page of the Chair of Sciences of Communication

and Media p. 55

Appendix 10: Facebook page of Les Goûters Scientifiques p. 56

Appendix 11: Twitter account of Centre NTE p. 57

Appendix 12: Twitter account of Department of Sciences of Communication

and Media p. 58

Appendix 13: Twitter account of the Departement of Psychology p. 59

Appendix 14: Twitter account of Micromus p. 60

Appendix 15: Twitter account of AGEF p. 61

Appendix 16: undefined Twitter accounts related to the University of Fribourg p. 62

Appendix 17: Blog of Centre NTE p. 63

Appendix 18 : Blog of Centre de Didactique p. 64

Appendix 19 : Blog of Micromus p. 65


40

Appendix 1: Online questionnaire (German and French)


41


42


43


44


45


46


47


48

Appendix 2: Examples of recommendations of students and professors

“Il faudrait d'avantage de clarté, les informations pratiques plus faciles à trouver,

peut-être un moteur de recherche plus développé.”

“Rendre plus claires les règlements, éventuellement en les traduisants aussi en

italien et anglais. Je suis de langue maternelle italienne et j'ai eut des problèmes à

interpréter le règlement de la Faculté de Droit…”

“De plus il faudra, à mon avis, unifier les sites pour les inscriptions aux examens,

cours, séminaires, etc puisque au jour d'hui il y en a plusieurs (gestens, moodle, site

des chaires, des professeurs, de la faculté, etc) ce qui rend parfois compliqué de se

retrouver.”

„Die Uni Freiburg braucht eine moderne neue Seite. Die Informationen, die bereits

jetzt auf unifr.ch zu finden sind, reichen füglich. Für mich sind insbesondere das

Layout (das teilweise zusätzlich von Fakultät zu Fakultät unterschiedlich ist) und die

groben(!) Übersetzungsfehler untragbar, insbesondere für eine zweisprachige

Universität.“

„Wenn man Vorlesungen online ansehen könnte, wäre dies nicht nur eine

Verbesserung des Online-Rufs sondern auch eine modernisierung der

Unterrichtsmethodik der Uni-Freiburg.“

“Plus d'uniformité entre les pages des différentes facultés et entre les différentes

chaires au sein de la faculté (SES)”

„Mehr Studiensituationsgerechtigkeit, weniger Abteilungsorientierung. Es braucht

wohl jemanden. Man hat das Gefühl, jede Fakultät oder Gruppe kocht ihr eigenes

Süppchen.“

“Stärkere Präsenz in deutschschweizer Medien (online & offline).“

“Die wichtigsten Dinge, wie Stundenpläne, Studienreglemente, Nützliche Adressen

von Professoren und Lesesälen, nützliche Links - wie Studiengebühren,

Sportangebote etc.- klar ersichtlich am Anfang der jeweiligen Fakultätshomepage

stellen.“


49

Appendix 3: Web page of the Faculty of Theology

Source: [University of Fribourg 2011c]


50

Appendix 4: Web page of the Faculty of Law

Source: [University of Fribourg 2011d]


51

Appendix 5: Web page of the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences

Source: [University of Fribourg 2011e]


52

Appendix 6: Web page of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities

Source: [University of Fribourg 2011f]


53

Appendix 7: Web page of the Faculty of Sciences

Source: [University of Fribourg 2011g]


54

Appendix 8: Facebook page of the Chair of Marketing and Communication

Source: [Facebook 2011d]


55

Appendix 9: Facebook page of the Chair of Sciences of Communication and Media

Source: [Facebook 2011d]


56

Appendix 10: Facebook page of Les Goûters Scientifiques

Source: [Facebook 2011f]


57

Appendix 11: Twitter account of Centre NTE

Source: [Twitter 2011d]


58

Appendix 12: Twitter account of Department of Sciences of Communication and Media

Source: [Twitter 2011e]


59

Appendix 13: Twitter account of the Departement of Psychology

Source: [Twitter 2011f]


60

Appendix 14: Twitter account of Micromus

Source: [Twitter 2011g]


61

Appendix 15: Twitter account of AGEF

Source: [Twitter 2011h]


62

Appendix 16: undefined Twitter accounts related to the University of Fribourg

Source: [Twitter 2011i]

Source: [Twitter 2011j]


63

Appendix 17: Blog of Centre NTE

Source : [University of Fribourg 2011h]


64

Appendix 18 : Blog of Centre de Didactique

Source : [University of Fribourg 2011i]


65

Appendix 19 : Blog of Micromus

Source : [University of Fribourg 2011j]

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