Personal cyber infrastructure is an extremely interesting concept. Our world now obtains the tools (widespread internet access, abundant computer usage, etc) to create an online infrastructure much more complex than websites such as facebook. This infrastructure could be a place for both academic and social purposes. One idea is to give newly enrolled undergraduate students a domain for them to create, explore, invent, and connect.
While the thought of having a place to post all academic work is great, instead of merely tossing it at the end of each semester, I see several drawbacks that may occur with these new domains as a whole. I believe that Campbell has this idea that these sites will be completely unregulated and that students will be able to add, post, and comment at their own will. If these domains are issued through a University there will undoubtedly be regulation. This will hinder the effectiveness of these domains, as student’s imagination and expression will be monitored for inappropriate content or possibly “non-University” related things. Because the sites will be in plain site for the entire world to see, each University will only want positive, clean, acceptable items on these sites. This will significantly reduce the success of these pages as a whole. One suggestion would be to not issue the domains through universities, but have the students purchase them on their own. Removing the ties from an educational source would allow more freedom for the user, overall creating a much more interesting and diverse cyber infrastructure for the entire world to share.
