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AU Case Studies - Using SMS in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies

This case study looks at the use of SMS (Short Message Service more commonly known as text messages) for communication sent from administrative staff to students in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television Studies.

The department started using the JANETxt service (available to all departments in the University) in academic year 2008-9.

An interview with Jackie is also available to listen to (you can also read the transcript of this interview).

Purpose

The initial purpose of using SMS to increase contact with our departmental students. In some cases students are locked out of the email system. We wanted to find a way to keep in touch with these students. The text message system seemed a perfect way to do that.

Messages

We have used the system over the last academic year [AY2008/9] to notify students about lecture and seminar cancellations. We have only used the system for urgent messages as we wanted to avoid ‘information overload’. Recently we have also used the system to remind students about examination times.

Feedback

we have received extremely positive feedback from our students. They appreciated being informed by text of lecture cancellations as it is a more immediate form of contact than email. We would like to use the system more but we are conscious that we don’t want to undervalue the system by sending out too many messages.

Point to note: the system is dependent on students registering their mobile number on their student record [and also opting-in to the SMS service].