UCAS yougofurther Supports Internet Safety Day

Safer Internet Day is organised by Insafe each year in February (this year on Tuesday 9th) to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people across the world. The topic for 2010 is "Think B4 U post!".

I’ll no doubt be blogging on the subject a few more times before the day itself – but right now I just wanted to point up a great example of how a good community manager can use Safer Internet Day to raise safety awareness and encourage their communities to share their experiences and pool advice and information.

One of our longest standing clients is the higher education closed community yougofurther, and we work really closely with them on their safety guidelines and operational execution.    Together, we hatched a plan to promote Internet Safety Day, and they launched ‘Internet Safety Month’ this January.  Last week the editor Murry Toms posted an invitation to his community to blog their experiences of internet safety and cyberbullying – and offered an Apple Macbook for the best entry:

“It’s Safer Internet Month on yougo in January, and you’re all invited.

This is your chance to share your views and opinions on the thing that yougo considers the most important of all – online safety.

Between Giles Ursell, yougo’s Community Manager and resident UCAS expert, CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre) and eModeration, our online moderation agency, we provide a safe and secure environment for UCAS applicants to meet up and chat about their experiences [...]

Have you a bad experience online? Are websites over-moderated? Is yougo a safe place to be? Should we do more to improve safety on yougo? Got any tips or advice for staying safe? Heard of CEOP? What do you think? Do you know who to contact if you suspect wrongdoing? Is it easy to report abuse? Is cyber-bullying on the up?”

As expected, the posts are coming flooding in, some with heart-rending stories of cyberbullying, some with great advice, loads with praise for how secure they feel on the excellent yougo site, and a few revealing a scary lack of knowledge about who abuse should be reported to, and who CEOP are (despite the prominent CEOP report button as the top of every yougo page).

This is a lovely example of good community management, how to engage your members, and a serious topic handled in a way that absolutely fits with the ethos of the site.  Murry has reached out to his community on a subject which touches them directly, and made this pan-European event into an opportunity for students to learn, teach and ask questions.  This is a chance for him to reassure his audience about the high level of moderation and safety of their own community, and start a debate rolling about other social networking sites. eModeration has been invited by the yougo team  to speak to the UCAS organisation at the end of the month about internet safety and social media, and we hope to be able to use some of the feedback from this competition in our talk.

About yougofurther: yougofurther.co.uk, supported by UCAS, is a student-only community website geared towards connecting applicants and students in higher education. Launched in April 2007, it currently boasts 450,000 members who have formed a niche community around the site's forums, groups, events, competitions and other activities.  Aside from the peer to peer interaction, student 'experts' such as UCAS, Lonely Planet, TARGET Jobs, the Rugby Football Union (RFU) and universities such as Oxford and Cambridge have hosted webchats to share their valuable knowledge with applicants and students.

eModeration supports the on-site moderation team at UCAS, working in tandem with the in-house team throughout the 24-hour cycle.  eModeration and UCAS work very closely together regarding the site's community development and guidelines.

"eModeration is a vital member of the yougofurther.co.uk team, ensuring the yougo is a safe and secure environment for applicants and students to connect with each other. Making the step up to university is daunting enough for young people, but the highly-skilled team at eModeration, through their professional and adaptable approach, have produced a compelling area for 16-24-year-olds to get to grips with the process. eModeration ensure those channels are made as accessible as possible."
 Murry Toms, Editor of yougofurther.co.uk.