LinkedIn

I've been using LinkedIn for about two years now and just remembered that it is an excellent example of a virtual community!

Virtual Communities on Wikipedia

Wikipedia's page on Virtual Communities has a nice crop of examples.

Well, Well, Well

There's always The Well, which is one of the oldest online communities - it's been around in one form or another for 20 years. I gave up my subscription in the early 90's when it became a paying service. The Well is held in high regard in the virtual community world, as is the Utne Cafe.

Meet Me in the Hallway

Howard Rheingold, at Stanford University, uses a separate blog as an extension to his residential class -- HUM 202: Toward a Literacy of Cooperation

CodeBaby Baby

Macewan College in Alberta, Canada, has integrated a CodeBaby agent into their online student portal. I've been playing with agents in online help systems for years - gotta love CodeBaby!

The Winners

Student Affairs Online has given awards to the following institutions for their online student services:

• Florida International University


• Indiana University
  

Simplified Community Building

Broward Center for the Arts has a very simple mechanism which they call a virtual student union - but in fact is little more than an email list builder! They're still building community!

Merlin

My friends at Mercy College created Merlin in the late 90s and have established themselves as leaders in the distance education community. I've had opportunities to speak with Mercy staff and students about Merlin, with much positive feedback.

Social Computing

The Tennessee Board of Regents has an extensive virtual student union - although it's busy for my taste. Their main student services pages are well organized and seem to offer an extensive array of services.