Best Practices Guide

In July 2011, members of the PrISM group began working on a set of guidelines and best practices for social media use that could be a resource for colleagues at the UT Health Science Center San Antonio and elsewhere.  We searched, gathered and considered a number of similar policy and guidelines documents from other public, healthcare and higher education institutions.  Two such documents that were particularly helpful were Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Social Media Toolkit and the University of Texas at Austin’s Social Media Guidelines.

Although we consider this to be a resource still in development, we are publishing it for the benefit of others as well as for commentary and critique.  We have attempted to create a resource that will be useful for people using social media both in an official capacity (speaking on behalf of a University department or unit) and in a professional capacity (speaking as an individual practitioner).

The contents of our Best Practices Guide are as follows:

1. Initial Questions
2. Guiding Principles
3. General Guidelines
4. Guidelines for Official Use
5. Guidelines for Professional Use
6. Links and References

Members of the taskforce that drafted this guide in July-August 2011 included:

• Ulises DeLeon, IMS Project Management Office
• Lydia Fletcher, The Libraries
• Roseanne Fohn, External Affairs
• Natalie Gutierrez, External Affairs
• Susan Hallmark, IMS Integrated Management Information Systems
• Jeff Jackson, Office of Student Life
• Charles Mathias, Department of Psychiatry
• Alan Miller, Office of Student Services
• Kelley Minars, The Libraries
• Bridgett Piernik-Yoder, Department of Occupational Therapy
• Nancy Place, IMS Academic Technology Services
• Luke Rosenberger, The Libraries
• Bonnie Scott, UT Teen Health (Ob-Gyn)
• Rene Torres, External Affairs
• Mary Yanes, IMS Academic Technology Services

Proceed to Section 1: Initial Questions