Bournemouth University students facing up to a Facebook problem (From Bournemouth Echo)
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Bournemouth University students facing up to a Facebook problem
7:00pm Monday 30th March 2009 in
STUDENTS have complained they can’t work on Bournemouth University computers because people are spending too much time on Facebook.
The Students Union will this summer start a campaign to deter use of the social networking site in certain areas.
Polite notices will ask people to consider others and signs on the upstairs floors of the library will say those computers are needed for academic use.
Final year students had made a series of complaints to the union.
Miguel Dias, a final year Field Archaeology student, told Wire, the student paper: “I come into university at 9am to work on my dissertation, thinking I’ve beaten the crowd to the computers, and I still can’t get on them because people are on Facebook.”
The university has no restrictions on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and MySpace.
A spokesman said: “We support the forthcoming campaign to request and suggest students using social network sites step aside when appropriate. We would encourage any student who experiences difficulty to either approach fellow students politely or speak with members of BU staff.”
Adelaide Allen, the union vice president of communications, said: “Individual students should be able to say to their peers they need the computer, but no-one is going to police it.”
Students also increasingly use Facebook for study groups and the issue is hard to police – what about students emailing each other?
The issue was debated at a Union meeting and Adelaide Allen said: “Some people were saying they don’t want it at all, and some people don’t have their own computers and want to access Facebook.”
The issue will again be discussed at the next Union General Meeting on April 28.
Comments(9)
Dorset_Born_n_Bread !
says...
10:03pm Mon 30 Mar 09
Simple, problem solved, more academics being studied and local internet cafe's may even have more customers!
Linguist
says...
10:41pm Mon 30 Mar 09
Dorset_Born_n_Bread ! wrote:Quite agree B_n_B. 100%. And if students don't have their own pc, then let them go to an internet cafe to access it.
Well said, Social Network sites are for social and private use only, in no way is it beneficial to the University. If someone doesn't have a computer, there are plenty of internet cafe's and public library computers available at a small fee or for a reasonable limited timescale. BAN ALL SOCIAL NETWORKS from University computer networks. Its simple to stop it, no need to police it! Block the Domain Names IP addresses and keywords and applications and the problem will go away. Simple, problem solved, more academics being studied and local internet cafe's may even have more customers!
STUDENTS - you are at the university to learn !!!!!
rook
says...
10:34am Tue 31 Mar 09
djd
says...
12:07pm Tue 31 Mar 09
GetInThere
says...
12:17pm Tue 31 Mar 09
It's difficult to just impose a blanket big brother ban on all of the pcs. However, I do think there should be some small restrictions put in place as it has obviously got a bit out of hand.
GB1980
says...
1:26pm Tue 31 Mar 09
The computers reserved for non-facebook use should have social networking sites restricted on them so users CAN'T visit them.
Encouraging students "to approach fellow students politely" is just asking for trouble.
molly153
says...
5:20pm Tue 31 Mar 09
rook wrote:What tax is that?? Last time I checked students pay £3250 per year to study at Bournemouth University. I agree that study takes precdent over social networking but the computers are there for everyones use as they all pay their fee's equally. University is for study but it is also about developing individuals into autonomous, socially and emotionally literate professionals. Sites like facebook promote communication between groups of students when out of placement or during holiday periods when working on assignments. I would suggest that it would be hard for 50 or so people to be included on an email regarding an assignment question or discussion board hence where facebook comes into its own.
Glad my tax is being put to good use. Should be pretty simple for the IT department to stop links to any particular set of web pages.
It would be wrong to ban it however I am sure some courtesy when others are waiting for a pc to become available would be gratefully appreciated by students.
Eddie18
says...
3:27pm Wed 1 Apr 09
molly153 wrote:Well at least someone is seeing this from a students point of view!
rook wrote:What tax is that?? Last time I checked students pay £3250 per year to study at Bournemouth University. I agree that study takes precdent over social networking but the computers are there for everyones use as they all pay their fee's equally. University is for study but it is also about developing individuals into autonomous, socially and emotionally literate professionals. Sites like facebook promote communication between groups of students when out of placement or during holiday periods when working on assignments. I would suggest that it would be hard for 50 or so people to be included on an email regarding an assignment question or discussion board hence where facebook comes into its own.
Glad my tax is being put to good use. Should be pretty simple for the IT department to stop links to any particular set of web pages.
It would be wrong to ban it however I am sure some courtesy when others are waiting for a pc to become available would be gratefully appreciated by students.
Yes, it can indeed be frustrating if computers cannot be used, but wouldn't it make more sense to allow the ground floor of the library (for non-students, this is the 'loud' area) to be able to access social networking sites, whilst the other floors (the quiet study areas) to not have access.
And why shouldn't we expect the students to appreciate that their use of social sites needs to come after the need for academic work to be done, common courtesy thankfully is in fact still in place at the university.
Surely the fact that we are paying £2350 a year to be at Bournemouth University should allow us to be serious students and study, but also to socialise with our friends. As has been said, sites like Facebook are used not only by students in study groups, our own Students bar uses it to keep students up to date. Internet cafes are all well and good, and low cost or not, most students leave university with a mountain of debt, why should we add internet cafe costs to that debt when we pay for access at university?
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GB916 says...
7:53pm Mon 30 Mar 09