This blog post is based on my presentation at the Georgetown Innovation Summit which begins at 2:53:00. 

To most people, hacking represents something negative. But I prefer to think of it as designing a workaround to achieve a desired result. By paying attention to these hacks, Higher Ed can gain all sorts of inisights to improve the overall student experience.

How Facebook learns from user hacking

In 2004, Facebook was growing, fast. Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the team needed to decide what feature to build next. They had to consider not only the time it would take to build the feature, but also the additional support costs.

One of the features being considered was the ability to upload photos besides your profile photo. Yes, there was actually a time when you could not upload your photo album to Facebook and tag all of your friends. It seems obvious to us now, however at the time it was not quite as clear that this was a feature that users wanted.

When the Facebook team looked at how people were using the site, they noticed users were changing their profile photo multiple times each day. Users wanted to show off their new photos and they came up with this 'hack' as a way to achieve their goal. 

In 2003 B.F. (before Facebook), students would receive the name, email and phone number of their assigned roommate and give them a call. It never occurred to them to look that person up online because there was nowhere to look.

By 2005 A.F., more than 85% of college students were on Facebook; each wanting to know everything they could about their new roommate to be sure that the next year of their life would not be spent in agony (desired result). The hack that students across the country constructed was to research their roommate on Facebook and if they did not like what they saw, call into the housing office and ask for a new roommate.

I have spoken with hundreds of people who work in on-campus housing and 99.9% of them experience some level of Facebook related roommate calls. The only department that did not experience them simply decided to withhold the names of assigned roommates until the students meet on the first day of classes.

So there is the hack. Now, how do you fix the process by incorporating the hack? Our clients achieve this through RoomSync because we empower students to search for roommates on Facebook. They are given access to all potential roommates before the assignments are made. The result? Users who want to be in control of the matching process are happy and housing departments do not receive any calls about Facebook.

How are students hacking your processes? Are they hacking their room like this Berkeley freshman? Try re-examining and thinking of ways to incorporate these hacks to improve the overall student experience. Do you have examples of hacks in Higher Ed? Leave a comment below!

We are starting a new series of blog posts featuring our fantastic clients to learn more about them and how they use RoomSync. Thanks to Sean Killion, Assistant Director for Assignments & Billing and Temple University Housing and Residential Life, for being our very first interviewee! 

How did you get involved working in higher education, and specifically, Temple Housing?

I went to Philadelphia University for business. I spent 6 years in advertising and marketing then went back to school for long-term career opportunities. I earned my MBA while working in Business Services in the Housing Department at LaSalle University. It was during this time that I switched from the business world to the higher education world. In March 2007, I left LaSalle for Temple University.

What unique things have you done in the past 5 years at Temple?

Residential Management Systems (RMS)

At Temple we had a homegrown system but in past three years, we moved from our IBM Mainframe, implemented an ERP system called Banner, and now use Residential Management Systems. Using the RMS StudentWeb Self-Assign, we can give students more flexibility in choices and inform them about the resources available to them earlier.

Roommates

Three or four years ago we were looking to satisfy our need to inform students about resources and technology for roommate selection. We have been with RoomSync for two years now thanks to their RMS partnership.

Housing on Demand

At Temple University, we’ve created “Housing-On-Demand,” a homegrown internal web application that gives students a user-friendly format to more easily communicate with the Residential Life Department. It consists of about 20 different apps including those specially tailored for students staying over breaks or moving onto campus early.

What does Temple University's Housing and Residential Life's social media presence look like now?

We use RoomSync to ease roommate selection and we have a Facebook fan page. We are mainly a resource for students to provide information about their interests on the fan page, however, in the coming fall semester we are planning to engage more people by running our Annual Room-Decorating Contest through Facebook.

How did you hear about RoomSync?

We were using RMS but were looking for more roommate-matching solutions. RMS recommended RoomSync because you specialize in this area. In addition, your application is integrated into Facebook so students didn’t need to go through a whole new system just for housing. 

What have you found to be the most efficient and effective way to inform students about RoomSync and get them to use the application?

We combine promotional mix strategies to get the word out about RoomSync and the entire housing selection process. We issue publications to provide concise information to students and communicate electronically through links on our Facebook fan page and emails. Specifically at Temple, we have direct marketing opportunities like our open house program where students signing up on campus receive tutorials on our systems.

Would you say there is a time commitment?

From my understanding, the set-up process was very easy with sharing interfaces and it basically manages itself. RoomSync makes my job a lot easier because the students have been given that opportunity to feel good about whom they are matched up with.

Before RoomSync, did you experience a lot of Facebook related calls from students/parents about their roommate assignements?

Yes, we saw The Facebook Effect*!

After the implementation of RoomSync, did you see a change in the number of Facebook-related calls?

RoomSync definitely drastically reduced the amount of calls and complaints. With RoomSync, we provide more information for our students to make them more informed consumers. It also helps to deflect complaint problems. If a student chooses not to use the resource, they should be ok with getting a random roommate.

What percentages of your students currently use or have used RoomSync within the past year?

We only upload our system with people who have made the commitment to live on campus with their housing deposit to target eligible potential roommates. Temple had 806 freshmen users this past year with a total of 25,183 visits (Approximately 31 visits per user to the application).

What shifts have you seen in time spent on and frequency of roommate conflict, room changes, and complaints, etc.?

Roommate conflicts due to random matching at Temple have definitely decreased with the increased use of RoomSync as an information tool.

On a different note, what is your favorite movie? 

I love so many, but if you're going to make me narrow them down, you should at least say favorite per genre! Star Wars, The New Hope”

What is your favorite musical artist? 

Again, so many on my iPod. But I'll go with the Beatles and Eric Clapton.

Additional Resources:

Sean Killion Biography

Temple University Residential Life Fan Page

*The Facebook Effect: Receiving a number of calls from randomly matched roommates dissatisfied after looking at their future Roommate’s Facebook profile 

A study by Rey Junco published in Computers in Human Behavior sheds some interesting insight on how using Facebook affects students’ GPA. 

In contrast to other studies on similar topics, this study takes into consideration: gender, ethnicity, and socioeconomic stature, along with actual overall GPA collected from the university’s registrar. The findings confirm that some Facebook activities are positively related and others are negatively related to a student’s overall GPA in college.

Essentially, the study finds the following conclusions:

• Time spent on Facebook has a strong negative correlation with overall GPA
• The frequency of Facebook chatting and posting status updates has a weak negative correlation with overall GPA
• The frequency of checking to see what friends are doing and sharing links with others  is positively related to overall GPA

While these results should not be surprising since the more time surfing through Facebook means the less time studying, an alternative idea to consider is that what students are doing with their time on Facebook makes the difference. By sharing information with friends and familiarizing themselves with the latest happenings on campus and in the world around them through social media, students will be more inclined to gain more knowledge and maybe even achieve a higher GPA.

Thanks for your time and keep syncing,

-Nadav

Are you and your roommate the best combo in the country?

…then enter RoomSync’s Best Roommates Video Contest today! All you have to do is submit one 30-60 second video to the RoomSync Facebook wall, and you could win prizes like iTunes gift cards, a dinner for two at Chili’s, or a pair of tickets to the movies!

How To Enter:

Entering the contest is simple. Simply post either a YouTube or a Facebook video to the RoomSync Facebook wall. The video must be of you and your roommate, and you must be roommates that met using the RoomSync app. In your video, please reference us as RoomSync (we recently changed our name from RoomBug to RoomSync!). The 30-60 second video must include:

-Your names

-Your university

-What you love about RoomSync

-What you love about your roommate

The Prizes:

Third Place Prize: $10 iTunes Gift Card

Second Place Prize: Chili’s Dinner For 2 or Movie Tickets for 2

First Place Prize: $10 iTunes Gift Card + Chili’s Dinner For 2 + Movie Tickets For 2

Entry Deadline:

The contest will end on September 23, 2011 at 6:00PM EST. For all rules and regulations go to http://blog.roomsync.com/?p=344 .

All it takes is 30 seconds of your time to enter for a chance to win some great prizes- so enter your video today!

Over the past several months, we have received excellent feedback from our clients and from our college-aged user base. The team is working diligently on upgrading the RoomSync application to make for an easier experience during roommate-selection. Below are the features that we plan to roll out in the latest version of the RoomSync application this fall.

Recommendations List
The top feature requested by our users was an easier way to find a short list of ideal roommates. Currently, users can filter all users by a set of lifestyle preferences like preferred bedtime. To expand upon this lifestyle preference filter, the ‘Suggested Roommates’ feature will present each user with a list of their top 20 recommended matches. These top matches are based upon the lifestyle preferences set by each user and will make it easier for users to find a small group of highly compatible potential roommates.

Academic Major and Hall Preference
Academics are a very important college roommate characteristic and was something that up until now, we were not asking users to enter. No more! Users will be able to select one or more majors and then search roommates based upon their majors. In addition, users will be able to enter their desired hall preference and then search other users with the same hall preference. This is important for on-campus users who desire to reside in a certain area of campus or be involved with a specific living/learning community. All of this information is customized based upon the institution’s available academic majors and residence halls.

Tag Favorites
Another feature we received lots of requests for was the ability to tag potential roommates as favorites that could later be officially requested as roommates. This useful tool lets our users self-organize a short list of potential roommates and easily keep track of their matching process. All tagged users will be placed in a ‘Favorite Roommates’ section on the RoomSync app home page, from which they can easily request them as a roommate.

Automatic Reminder E-mails
As exciting as choosing your own roommate on Facebook is, life can be hectic. We all have lots of stuff going on and we can all use reminders from time to time. As residents approach the end of the network’s closing date for matching, reminder e-mails will automatically be sent out encouraging them to find the roommate(s) of their dreams if they have not done so already. Administrators will be able to send up to three reminder e-mails to residents and will also receive their own reminder email about the network close date approaching. All of this means higher usage and more roommate matches.

E-mail Access
As an administrator, you may need to communicate with everyone inside of the matching network beyond simply reminding about network access close dates. Administrators will be given access to the e-mail addresses for users, which can be used to communicate additional information about roommate matching and/or other important housing information.

The Writing on the Wall
The Facebook wall is a great communication method on Facebook, whether its on a fan page, a personal profile, a group or a Facebook app like RoomSync. Moving forward, we will be replacing our community discussion board with an interactive wall on each community matching network for residents to easily interact and connect.

Increased Speed & Flexibility with iFrame
All of these new features will be introduced in a new iFrame version of the RoomSync app. The app previously functioned as an FBML (Facebook Markup Language) app, however the new iFrame version app allows for increased web surfing speed within RoomSync, greater flexibility for increased features and increased application analytics.

Have ideas for additional app features? Post your comments here, we’d love to hear them!

As a company, we are obsessed with improving the roommate matching process for residents and for our clients. We spend a significant amount of time evaluating new feature suggestions that will achieve this goal. In line with this goal, we have received feedback from our clients that the name of our Facebook application is not truly descriptive of the excellent service that we provide. For this reason, we are announcing that we’ve changed our company’s name from RoomBug to RoomSync. RoomSync describes what we do, which is syncing up roommates who are compatible in close living environments. Here is the full press release:

Leading Facebook® App for College Roommate Selection, RoomSync™, Now has 20 Universities on Board for 2011 Academic Year Formerly Known as RoomBug, RoomSync Makes “Rooming Blind” a Thing of the Past Gainesville, FL—July 7, 2011— RoomSync (www.roomsync.com), a leading Facebook application for college roommate selection that has reinvented the roommate-finding process, is now being used by 20 Universities across the United States. To date, more than 25,000 students have used the RoomSync app to find their college roommates. The app, which launched under the name RoomBug in 2010, has unveiled a plethora of new features, including   a top roommate recommendations engine and academic major and residence hall preference options, which will continue to innovate the roommate selection process nationwide. With a high majority of college students on Facebook, the social site has become the go-to location for students to scrutinize their roommates once they are assigned by their universities.

The RoomSync app helps students to identify potential roommates by accessing their Facebook profiles and answering a lifestyle preferences questionnaire. People who use RoomSync are also now able to view mutual friends, giving them the ability to gain further insight into potential roommates. In its first year of service, RoomSync partnered with four universities. Now, in its second year, the company is working with 20 universities, and is in discussions with many more for the 2012-2013 academic year. With more than 15,000 on-campus students, Michigan State University is the largest residence hall system in the United States and the latest college to sign up with RoomSync.

"We believe that this product fulfills the need of today's student wanting more options for finding roommates,” said Vennie Gore, Assistant Vice President, Residential & Hospitality Services, Michigan State University. “This social tool is a game-changer for housing organizations. We anticipate student satisfaction with the assignment process will increase."

“As a company, we are obsessed with improving the roommate selection process for residents and for our partner institutions,” said Michael Hacker, RoomSync Co-founder and President. “As we work with new schools, we are able to refine our product and satisfy the increasingly complex desires of students. At the same time, we do the ‘heavy lifting’ for the university’s housing department, which frees that staff to focus on other housing issues. It’s a win-win both for students and for housing officers.”

About RoomSync: RoomSync (www.roomsync.com), formerly known as RoomBug, is the leading Facebook app for selecting college roommates. Founded in 2009 by Robert Castellucci, Michael Hacker, Alex Edelsburg and Ariel Himmelstern, RoomSync currently has more than 20 university clients and 50 off-campus apartment clients. Through the RoomSync app, students are able to easily identify potential roommates based on information found through Facebook profiles. To date, 25,000 students have used RoomSync to identify potential roommates. A 2009 FB Fund finalist, RoomSync is privately held and is headquartered in Gainesville, Florida. Facebook® is a registered trademark of Facebook Inc.