University of Edinburgh wanders into twit storm

After becoming the latest organisation to delve into the joys and, apparently, pitfalls of online social networking, the University of Edinburgh has found itself at the sharp end of a dressing down from an unlikely group of internet users. They like Jonathan Ross, and they adore Stephen Fry, but twitter users have shown little love, so far, for Edinburgh’s largest university.

The row kicked off when one student, in light of an article published in this newspaper, sent a message to the “UniofEdinburgh” twitter account, asking: “how is the comms dept responding to the Journal story where a lecturer blamed poor feedback on the recession and weather?”

Perhaps unwisely, the university issued the following curt response: “Not via Twitter. Bona fide journalists can get responses to uni stories appearing in the press by contacting uni Press office.”

Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service which allows users to post short updates—so-called “tweets”—of up to 140 characters, to be read by fellow users. Users may also send each other open replies using the @ prefix, as well as direct messages and pictures.

Despite its small beginnings in 2006, the service has proved immensely popular, its success being chalked up to the ease of updating and receiving tweets via sms and internet-enabled mobile phones. Most analysts claim evidence for upwards of 4-5 million daily users, and a large number of students at the University of Edinburgh already use the service.

What followed was, it would appear, a lesson in how online communities react when spurned. Almost immediately, a second user stepped in to ask whether “this mean[s] that the university feels it's more important to respond to journalists than their own students?”

The pair were soon joined by around a dozen "twitterati" lamenting the university’s silence. Posters included the official twitter feed of the Edinburgh University Student’s Association (EUSA), former EUSA president Josh MacAlister, and president-elect Thomas Graham – as well as the enigmatically nick-named WibWobble, who coined the “hashtag” #uofefail.

Hashtags were created as a system for categorising related tweets; most are used for stylistic or humorous effect. Regular users of twitter have informed The Journal that the aforementioned hashtag is, indeed, reasonably amusing.

Much of the frustration centred around the university’s perceived rejection of twitter’s culture of informal, pithy conversation, and their use of the service as a news-feed rather than a social networking facility. As one user pointed out: “twitter should be a two way conversation – it's pointless otherwise.”

UniofEdinburgh responded: “Our presence on twitter will be mainly for uni news & events. All student enquiries should be directed to relevant departments.”

George Thomas, current vice president service at the Edinburgh university students’ association also manages EUSA’s twitter feed. He spoke of the benefit of the network as a tool for communication, saying: “@eusa gives me direct access to over 200 people that care about EUSA, want to hear what we are doing and who will tell us what they think. There is no other way I can hit 200 students, ask them what they think of an idea to change EUSA and get a pile of responses in less than an hour.”

He added: “The University is missing a trick if it doesn't start to engage with students through things like Twitter. Students care about their university and what they get out of it. But you have to ask the question in the right place.”

The university was approached by The Journal, via twitter, to enquire whether plans existed to use twitter as an avenue for two-way communicatio. UniofEdinburgh replied: "@EdJournal We are happy to direct all tweets to relevant deps for further info, but are unable to provide meaningful responses in 140 chars."