Examples of social media activity by Aimhigher partnerships

This page presents examples of partnership's social media activity.

For an introduction to social media, refer to the Aimhigher digital and social media guide.

Project: Aimhigher Sussex Facebook profile

Aimhigher Sussex is among the first partnerships in the UK to use Facebook to reach its cohorts.  Along with a student voice panel, this is proving a successful and powerful way of interacting with students in a non-invasive manner.

After an initial trial of a Facebook group, Aimhigher Sussex took the decision in summer 2009 to create its own Facebook identity who could then become ‘friends’ with Aimhigher Sussex students.  Only students who are registered with Aimhigher Sussex and appear on the South East database are admitted to the group which keeps it manageable. The concept has proved very successful, with the Aimhigher Sussex identity currently having 150 Aimhigher target cohort student ‘friends’.

Students are able to view other friends of Aimhigher Sussex, but not view their personal profiles unless a friend request is sent and accepted by the recipient.  Aimhigher staff regularly check the Facebook page to ensure that all messages and posts put onto it by students are appropriate.  Members discuss Aimhigher activities they have been on, share their feelings about school and college life and contribute to the student voice panel.

The Facebook group is also used to disseminate carefully selected information to students which is felt to be of interest and useful to them whilst not overloading them with information or emails.

For more information: contact either Fay Lofty – f.lofty@brighton.ac.uk or Kevin Betts - k.j.betts@sussex.ac.uk

Project: Babble, a summer school social media website

Aimhigher West Yorkshire developed its own social networking site called Babble, similar in look and feel to Facebook. Helen Child, Assistant Director at Aimhigher West Yorkshire, explains:

“The site has primarily been aimed at all students who had a place on one of our summer schools. The aim was to enable them to interact with each other prior to attending summer school in a secure environment they are familiar with and confident using. This was to aid retention and tries to prevent drop out.

“Following the success of the summer school site we are now developing a ‘big babble’ for our entire Aimhigher cohort across West Yorkshire. We will also look to having a practitioner babble for our Aimhigher organisers and co-ordinators in schools and colleges.

“The site was set up as a secure environment for learners. Log on ID and passwords are required, and these were sent out to learners. The site is managed and run by our summer school co-ordinator Sarah, and she is the only non-learner who has access to the site. She has been nicknamed ‘Summer School Sarah’ and the learners ask her questions, and treat her as a bit of an agony aunt. The students add their own profile, upload pictures and videos, write on each other’s wall, add others as friends, locate other learners attending their summer schools and generally interact with each other.

“During the first 8 weeks the site clocked up more than 100,000 views and the average length of time students spend on Babble is 29 minutes, compared to Facebook's 22.

“The feedback has been very positive, and evaluation of the summer school has shown that we had an increase in retention by 7% overall. A third of our learners used Babble and over 80% had positive feedback on the site. Generally the learners have been supporting each other on the site, making friends and using the site for which it was intended. There have been no issues around language or bullying to date, but this is monitored all of the time.

“We are developing Babble for our main Aimhigher cohort, and we are undergoing a consultation process at present with safeguarding organisations, to ensure we have got all safety aspects of the site as secure as possible. This will ensure we can promote safe Internet usage as well as progression to Higher Education, through the use of Babble. We hope to launch the site early in 2010.”

For more information: contact Helen Child, Assistant Director at h.child@hud.ac.uk or 01484 471314.