Kathy Reid<p><span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@kcarruthers" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>kcarruthers</span></a></span> <span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.social/@atomicpoet" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>atomicpoet</span></a></span> <span class="h-card"><a href="https://mastodon.mit.edu/@tguarna" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>tguarna</span></a></span> <span class="h-card"><a href="https://calckey.social/@Jdreben" class="u-url mention" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">@<span>Jdreben</span></a></span> </p><p>Thanks Kate. I spun up <a href="https://aus.social/tags/FediverseAU" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>FediverseAU</span></a> precisely because of this eventuality. </p><p>There's a whole book in Twitter and its value as an academic network - adaptive systems, eocsystems, world systems literature, and how Twitter's structural changes affect the broader <a href="https://aus.social/tags/higherEd" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>higherEd</span></a> communications network. </p><p>Universities *won't* spin up their own infrastructure, IMHO. I worked in an IT Dept of a major Australian University for 16 years - their focus is on outsourcing everything. </p><p>They don't *build* or *maintain* a lot anymore - they are *integrators*. Until one of their corporate providers offers Mastodon as a Service, they won't run their own. </p><p>Perhaps <a href="https://aus.social/tags/AARNet" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>AARNet</span></a> will run a whole-of-uni Mastodon, like it used to run whole-of-uni videoconferencing. That's a possibility. </p><p>Moreover, no university department is going to want to own <a href="https://aus.social/tags/moderation" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>moderation</span></a> of Mastodon instances - in the same way that Marketing departments want to control university websites, but don't want to be responsible for all that distributed content authorship entails. </p><p>There's no tangible, immediate value in hosting a Mastodon instance - because if the institution can't control the message, why would they provide the infrastructure? </p><p>We all know the power of <a href="https://aus.social/tags/networks" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>networks</span></a>, the power of <a href="https://aus.social/tags/connection" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>connection</span></a> and the power of <a href="https://aus.social/tags/ecosystems" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>ecosystems</span></a> <br> But that power is emergent, and intangible, and cannot be quantified in a business case 🎓</p>