Kingston University Student Union is lobbying the university to introduce a text messaging service to inform students when lectures are cancelled or rooms changed.

The campaign, spearheaded by KUSU President Olrick Coker, follows an innovative campaign by Manchester Metropolitan University Student Union which asks students to text them details of lectures which are either cancelled or begin more than 10 minutes late.

Paul Norman, Membership Services Manager of the MMU Student Union said: “Students increasingly value their contact time. It is a national issue. That price put on the contact time by students is very important. Increasing numbers of students are from different backgrounds, for instance, single parents get up very early in the morning and have to drop off the kids to school and battle through traffic, they are parents first rather than students.  Not all students can roll out of bed 10 minutes before a lecture.”

Currently the MMU Student Union have no records about the extent of the problem and have devised the campaign to gain the information they need to lobby the university to affect positive change.
No personal details are gathered about tutors.  However, the data they gather is passed to the faculties so that they can investigate the reasons for lateness or cancellations.

Mr Norman added: “We would argue we do not know the extent of the issue, what we do have is anecdotal evidence from students.  That maybe because it is widespread and it maybe because of the value that is placed on contact time.  But we won’t be able to find that out until we can measure the situation.”

MMU Student Union says it is receiving between one and five texts a day regarding lateness or cancellations and therefore this could feasibly be affecting around 400 students a day.

Mr Norman said: “There may be a number of reasons why this happens, it could be sickness, it could be problems with timetabling, but that would be for the university to manage and giving them that data will enable them to take action.  We could also use similar technology to inform students that they don’t have to come in for that lecture if it’s cancelled.”

Mr Coker was unavailable for comment, however, Mark Callaby KUSU Communications and Campaigns officer welcomed the MMU Student Union campaign.  He said: “It seems really interesting and is a good way of gathering information about cancelled lectures or ones that start late.  It would prove really useful when lobbying the University to improve this situation.”