Dream Larger: University of Melbourne reaches out to students on social media

UNIVERSITY of Melbourne is reaching out to its students using online social platform, OurSay. Until October 19, you’ll have a chance to post questions you want answered from the ‘higher ups’ on the DreamLarge project site. Chin-Ting Lee reports.

University of Melbourne students now have a chance to get their voices heard by the people that matter, thanks to a project run by the university’s student union in collaboration with online social media group, OurSay.

OurSay describes itself as an independent organisation giving you “direct access to the people in power” – and for the next few days you’ll have the chance to do just that

From September 14 until October 19, students will get to post, or vote for, a question they want the Vice Chancellor of the university, Professor Glyn Davis, to answer.

On October 24, the three most popular questions will be answered through a live panel discussion featuring Professor Davis along with Professor of Higher Education Studies Simon Marginson, and University of Melbourne Student Union (UMSU)’s newly elected President and Education (Acadmic Affairs) Officer, Kara Hadgraft.

Professor Margaret Simons, head of the University Melbourne’s Centre of Advanced Journalism, says this project was proposed as a test run for research into the capacity of social media for boosting people’s participation in politics.

She says with Australia’s federal elections coming up next year, the result for this forum project with OurSay could be the first attempt in exploring the potential for social media in political activism.

Have you been on OurSay? What do you think?