I support Fred and Trel in saying that you need not and should not subvert policies especially since you can move to another fairly easily. As OpenSocial (okay IF then if you like), takes off this will be even easier. On FB vs Ning. I had the students in our seminar vote on how and where to do assignments. They asked me for options at first so I supplied 3 but encouraged them to introduce others. My suggested options included: posting to delicious, oral book reports, and adding questions for class on a wiki. Someone suggested using Ning and I showed a site to the class. In the voting, still underway on Doodle, everyone has voted for using Ning. Facebook? It wasn't even mentioned. (I found that particularly interesting as I asked who of the class was on FB and everyone -- save a visiting Korean scholar -- raised their hands.) ========================================================================== Paul Jones "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation." Alasdair Gray http://www.ibiblio.org/pjones/blog/ pjones@ibiblio.org NEW voice: (919) 360-7740 fax: (919) 962-8071 ===========================================================================