A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
The university's Web Committee has formed the report to inform staff members on how Facebook should be used safely and the appropriate level of interaction between them and students.
Maz Hardy, from the Department of Sociology, presented a “Facebook Strategy” to the university's Web Committee.
The report details the problems that may be caused by students displaying private data on their profiles and befriending academic staff members, as well as security issues.
Whilst Hardy suggests that informal emails are fine, becoming "friends" with a lecturer may be inappropriate.
In the report Hardy highlights that many students believe profiles are invisible to people outside their networks, and points out that anyone can search for someone, and can view limited information about them.
She also said: “There’s a real social naivety around it. There’s a real fine line as information is in the public domain. They [students] sign up to a university network, and if they harm an individual the university have a responsibility to act on that.”
She also pointed out that because the York UK network was technically a university domain, the university could use information gathered from profiles.
Hardy discussed an incident where students tagged pictures of themselves setting off fire extinguishers, and were subsequently punished by the university because the pictures were published on the university network.
Hardy said that whilst students can find a way around allowing public knowledge of their activities by raising their privacy settings or not tagging pictures, they should be careful.
YUSU Societies & Communications Officer Sam Bayley welcomed raising awareness of what information students put online, both in terms of security, and also the possibility of potential employers using that information. He said: “As long as students are mindful of the risks, I'm sure they're wise enough to make their own decisions on who they become friends with.”
Suraj Gangani, a second year Management student, said: "I don't feel that the uni should monitor Facebook. It is a social forum like any other, and it could set a dangerous precedent."
"I'm not personally friends with any lecturers, but I can understand why it's a useful contact when you leave university."
However, he added: "It's a forum for people you regularly see and keep in touch with, you can always ring the university if you need to."
The report was written before Christmas, and Hardy pointed out that with the new arrival of "Facebook Chat", a instant messenger service, the report may need re-writing.
"She also pointed out that because the York UK network was technically a university domain, the university could use information gathered from profiles."
This could be open to serious legal challenge if the phrase "reasonable expectation of privacy" is thrown at it...
The recently improved privacy controls on Facebook also render some of the points redundant. I wonder if the report mentioned the e:Vision security problems as a case study. Is there anywhere we can view the full report?
"She also pointed out that because the York UK network was technically a university domain, the university could use information gathered from profiles."
What? The York UK domain has nothing to do with the University domain, other than you needing a york.ac.uk domain to join it.
Mitch: the full report seems to be this November thing here: http://www.york.ac.uk/weboffice/committees/webcommittee/meetings/fb.pdf (go Google!). There's also some other random document here: http://www.york.ac.uk/weboffice/committees/webcommittee/meetings/facebook.pdf.
I'm not quite sure that the report suggests monitoring Facebook usage, more of a general awareness program of the privacy issues surrounding it.
Reading the reports it seems like a list of outdated issues (now mitigated by Facebook's new privacy strategy) that was probably sparked by someone reading some sensationalised tosh in the Daily Mail about the dangers of social networking sites. Although I suppose it does no harm to reiterate the common-sense points made in the reports to students.
Also, having a quick peruse of the web committee's meeting minutes I found: "in late January the University had purchased an island and a year's development time in Second Life"
Ahh money well invested by the uni in Sadville.
comment deleted by a moderator It seems that the sociology department has gone facebook mad at the moment. In the first year i completed an essay on about the dangers of myspace and facebook (honestly, it was the hardest essay to do. I would check facebook for research and then be stuck there for two hours!)
Out of next years modules, two of them include the study of facebook! I think the department must be on the payroll...
PS Mitch and Chris Northwood are legends.
I'm not gonna deign to reply to that #4 other than to say thank you for taking the time at 3am to anonymously attack 2 people you've never met, via the internet. The irony of it is better than any response I could give.
Much love.
xxxxxx
I think Mitch and Chris Northwood are brilliant, whoever they are... They make me laugh, and they usually have sensible things to say... 
@#4 - I suggest you look into RSS and find out how easy it is to keep tabs on updates on your favourite websites, so if an update happens when you're on your computer, you find out about it quickly!
@#5 - thanks!
Yeah, the Second Life thing confuses me. I don't know anyone who plays it (EVE being my MMO of choice) and anytime I read about it, it just seems to be about how some company is using it to make money. I just get the impression that it's full of people trying to make money off each other, and unless you're doing it to set up a business, it seems pointless.
Myspace is better
WTF is facebook?
This is so embarrassing.
Is it just me or is the title of the article nothing to do with the content?
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comment deleted by a moderator I think you're in need of a big hug, #18!
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