Expansion of British University Networks

Report: Expansion of British University Networks (BUN)

Contents

1. Introduction

2. Findings: The decision whether to expand to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland

3. Conclusion

4. Bibliography

1. Introduction

British University Networks (BUN) is a social network made for students studying at universities in England. The company established in 2003 and at the very beginning only three universities in England were participating. By 2005, already 60 universities have joined the network and in 2010 every university in England participated. In this social network students have the ability to communicate about everything that has to do with their life as a student at a university. Furthermore, students can grade the university, the lectures, their instructors, and the leisure facilities the university offers.

In today's society social networks have a growing impact on the society in all areas of life. This can for example be seen with Twitter and Facebook, where more than 70% of the world's population is registered and for the youth there is nothing more important than "staying connected." (Cohen, 2013, p.2)

2. Findings: The decision whether to expand to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland

A social network is defined as "a dedicated website or other application which enables users to communicate with each other by posting information, comments, messages, images, etc...." (Oxford Dictionaries, 2013) Although some universities want to reduce BUN to a particular region in England, an expansion to the other countries of Great Britain is a more effective way to improve the network.

There are several arguments in favor of an expansion. One of the strongest arguments is that students can use the shared information when they have to decide which university they want to attend. So they do not only have the information provided by the universities themselves, but they can also use the information of students who already attend the universities. This can make the decision for a particular university easier. Another advantage of an expansion is that exchanges to other universities are easier to organize, because students who are not good enough to get a scholarship for an exchange have the ability to organize it privately via BUN. (Cohen, 2013, p. 15)

Yet, before deciding to expand to the other countries of Great Britain, there are also a few risks that need to be considered. One major risk is that the social network Facebook is so well established in this day and age that critics worry that an expansion may be useless because of all the opportunities people have when they are registered there.