Alex Harries's diary

Elle and Ben get all Blue Peter...

I've just come back from Ravelin Park, where SADO Ben Norman and RAG bods Jenny Leggott and Sarah Blatchford have been bedding down for the night with only cardboard, damp sleeping bags and tarpaulins (err, and each other...) for warmth.

No, they're not trying to recreate a summer picnic atmosphere - not at this time of year, anyway. The event is the University-organised "Sleepout", which has been planned to raise awareness for the homeless population of Portsmouth.

There were around 25 bods milling around when I left, including three Purple Door staff (one of which is Alice Hickman, the University's Volunteer and Work Experience Officer and Ben Norman's oppo, who I may have met before...), two security guards, and a full tea urn.

It looks like the choice spot for the night will be under a pair of large tarpaulins which have been erected between two trees in a loose-but-functional impersonation of a giant tent. The area surrounding the shelter was intertwined with the string holding the shelter up, leaving the whole area slightly resembling a giant spider's lair... Ewww, spiders...

Hopefully everyone will have a fun - if chilly - night and get some sleep into the bargain. This kind of event is good (as long as it serves its purpose to raise awareness for the homeless, naturally) and it would be great to see the University collaborating with the Union more often to publicise such events. Pugwash News is always available to help, of course.

Ms Blatchford has my camera at the moment, so once it's back I'll get some photos online. In the meantime, look out for pics and even (possibly) some footage on BBC South Today and in the Times Higher Education supplement - when the Uni want to promote something, they don't 'arf go for it... :o)

Find out more on the University's website.

The University's marketing machine seems to be making some tentative forays into the world of Web 2.0 marketing as the start of the academic year looms. The Purple Door bods have a "Facebook flyer" (advert) on Facebook advertising their Purple Door graduate recruitment service:

Interesting stuff, and clearly they've recognising Facebook's value as a student community portal. I don't - from limited experience - recall seeing University advertising on MySpace or Bebo, for example.

Perhaps the key difference here is that Facebook lets advertisers market only to members of a specific network; in this case, people in the University of Portsmouth network (i.e. people with an @port.ac.uk e-mail address).

One tiny problem though - someone seems to have mis-typed the University's web address - clicking the flyer takes you to a non-existant web address, http://port.ac.uk:

Ahh well, mistakes happen :o) Watch this space for some UPSU Facebook flyers... ;o)

/al - eating my words a little...

Once again, I'm complaining about the University - sorry to bang an old drum, but here goes...

For those of us who have had academic issues (or, if you're like me, you've just been a bit too lazy the last year) and have had to take resits during the summer before you can get your final degree mark, you probably already know the marks were decided at a board last Wednesday (or so I'm told).

Now, I'm not an impatient person when it comes to matters about the University - I learnt a long time ago that things just take a long time to happen there, but I don't think I'm being entirely unreasonable to ask that, 5 working days after my exam results were finalised (and weeks after my resits were marked), I still can't find out what mark I got, and whether I've passed my degree or not.

I appreciate the departmental offices are up to their eyeballs in admin work related to outgoing and incoming students, and the department's telephone operator I spoke to on the phone last Friday - who told me the resit results would be on our portals two days ago - sounded so harrassed I felt genuinely sorry for her.

I also understand that the long-awaited (and heavily delayed) move to the University's all-singing, all-dancing, silver bullet Jupiter records system is expected to be a cure-all for the problems surrounding the student portal, among other things.

Once again, it seems, the student portal is the weak link here as, despite being the University's "official"* method of communication with its students, the information it's presenting is the usual combination of out-of-date information and undecipherable anagrams (although I guess I ought to be grateful it's working at all, unlike - for example - this time, this time, this time, this time, and this time. Ahem...!). I mean, what's going on here?!

If you're in the same boat as me, please let me know in the comments thing below. If I hear anything from the University to explain what's going on here, I'll be more than happy to put their views forward as well.

* I use the term "official" in the loosest sense of the word here

/al - grumpy in Portsmouth, as usual ;o)