The Union's website, UPSU.net, has won the "best Students' Union website of the year" award at a recent Students' Union Marketing conference.

Kris Talikowski of start-up company Juice Master judged the entries to the competition for "best Students' Union website". The award was given in recognition of UPSU.net's development of the features commonly referred to as "Web 2.0", including the use of RSS and social bookmarking such as Facebook and Del.icio.us.

"Really embraced RSS" 

Kris expanded on his reasons for choosing UPSU.net, saying 'I like the fact that Portsmouth are one of the few unions who have really embraced RSS feeds... I also thought the bookmarking was a great addition and links to Facebook etc, although I would make this more prominent.'

RSS, or "Really Simple Syndication", allows anyone to have news and other information from any website collected in a Feed Reader, much like an e-mail inbox. You can find a more complete explanation of RSS on our About RSS page.

Every page on UPSU.net has links to share the page's content on sites like Facebook and Digg. More about the new UPSU.net footer

On the subject of our "Save to..." links, Kris explains: 'Almost no unions have "refer this to" links for any of their content. If incorporated with Facebook, for example, people could 'share' photos from the union website, 'share' news from the union. Portsmouth is a promising example that unions are heading in the right direction.'

"Tremendous efforts"

The Union's Media & Publications Officer, Adrian Fraguela, added, 'Achieving this award has given our team a massive boost to achieving much more. The award recognises the tremendous efforts the team has put in and also encourages us to keep pushing new ways of communicating with the student body.'

Speaking at the SU Marketing conference, Kris focused on how Web 2.0 - a trend based on the principle that a website's visitors should have a democratic say in its content - can and should be seen as a fundamental guide in the development of not only Students' Union websites, but all community-based websites.

Kris prefers to use this image to explain what Web 2.0 is. Read Kris's speech notes

Where Students' Unions are concerned, Kris was also clear that all Students' Unions need to work hard to make sure they're "connecting" with their students, with the idea of "e-democracy" also playing a significant role in how Students' Unions engage their membership.

In his speech, Kris covered areas such as Second Life - "a 3-D virtual world that blurs the lines between gaming and social networking and has 3.3 million residents" (according to Paul Crichton of the BBC's Access 2.0 blog), and which has been hailed by the BBC's disability-focused blogs "Access 2.0" and "Ouch!" for its design and accessibility.

Also mentioned were social networking sites such as Facebook, and social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, and Technorati. These social bookmarking websites are just a small example of the huge and ever-growing communities where popular public opinion and user choice is used to rate web content, for example videos, news articles and blog entries.

"Massive increase in membership" 

Digg is a social networking site where anyone can submit and vote for for web content. Digg.com

Peer review may not be a new idea, but "Web 2.0" emphasises how the internet can work as a highly effective way for everyone - not just technically-minded users - to get involved in creating and pushing web content into the public consciousness. Student groups are a prime example of how online communities can help to build and reinforce learning, support and socialisation networks, with sites as diverse as Facebook - a socially-orientated website - and commercial projects such as "WebCT", which are designed to provide and support learning both in the classroom and online, showing a massive increase in membership in recent months.

The Lux proposal has drawn heated opinion Read the Lux proposal

For the Union, UPSU.net has proved to be a highly effective way for students to air their opinions on matters important to them, with comments from news articles such as the plans to redesign Lux, the Union's nightclub, and last year's lecturers' strike adding insight into how these events are perceived and affect students, and helping the Union to decide on which areas it needs to focus to further improve its services.

Open source 

Portsmouth Students' Union's website - UPSU.net - was re-launched in 2005 with a new content management system, based on the free open-source "Mambo" system. In the last two years, the site has undergone continual development, and now features thousands of web pages dedicated to the students of Portsmouth, from forums and blogs to news, club and society pages, and advice and support services.

Web developer Alex Harries said he was 'amazed, and very proud' of the website's award. 'This award is a good sign of things to come for UPSU.net, and I hope we will be able to focus hard on further expanding how [Portsmouth] Union's online presence can really engage and involve students in the coming years.'

'As a Students' Union, we need to do as much as we can to make sure everyone who visits UPSU.net finds it easy to send us their feedback on their experiences, both online and with the Union itself. It's vitally important that students know they have the chance to make themselves heard, and to know that the Union is listening to them.'

Alex will be succeeding Adrian Fraguela in August this year as Adrian steps down from office after two years as the Union's Media & Publications Officer.

The SU Marketing Residential is run by SU Marketing, a professional body catering to marketing staff at Students' Unions across the country. www.studentsunionmarketing.co.uk

The SUM Residential event is an annual four-day conference for Students' Unions to share their experiences and knowledge to help expand Students' Unions. This year's attendance included representatives from more than 50 Students' Unions, and it is widely regarded as an essential learning experience for those attending.

Best delegate award

The Union's Media Sales Coordinator, Pier Powell, also picked up the "Best Delegate" award in recognition of her contributions to the Students' Union Marketing group throughout the last year.

Kris Talikowski is a former Sabbatical Officer at Plymouth Students' Union, and is currently employed as the Marketing and Development Manager of start-up drinks company Juice Master, a fresh smoothie retailer. Kris and also freelances as a technology speaker and consultant.

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