Guidelines for Student Communications

Guidelines for Student Communications

The Experience, Engagement & Wellbeing Team is responsible for non-academic communications to students, through newsletters, social media channels, VLE announcements and more.  You can submit content for consideration in student communications using the online submission form. Please read the guidelines below before submitting your content.

Departments and Schools can share a maximum of two articles in any one issue. The student newsletter is for University of Aberdeen news and events only. Requests to include information about partner events, personal achievements, fundraising efforts, or anything not directly related to the University will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

Content will be reviewed by the Experience, Engagement & Wellbeing Team and shared on the most appropriate channel to promote to students. All submissions will be edited before publication to ensure a consistent tone and style throughout.

Student newsletter deadline

The UoA student newsletter provides a fortnightly round-up of news, events and opportunities for University of Aberdeen students.

The UoA newsletter is issued every second Thursday. The deadline for contributions is 10am on Tuesday (the same week as distribution).

The Students' Union create their own fortnightly newsletter which is issued on alternate weeks. Submissions to the UoA newsletter will not be included in the SU newsletter and vice-versa, unless they are resubmitted using the appropriate online forms.  

Newsletter distribution dates

Student newsletter distribution dates are available here.  

Your content: word count, repeat submissions & PDFs

Word count

The word count for submissions is 50-70 words. If the word count exceeds 70 words, your text should be added to an appropriate webpage by an administrator in your team and a “read more” link should be provided. If your team doesn’t have an appropriate webpage, your text will be added to the general student news or events pages.

Repeat submissions

If you’d like an article or event to feature on our channels more than once, you will need to re-submit it through the online contribution form. We will do our best to include it more than once if space allows.

PDFs

PDFs will not be accepted as content. Please submit your content in the format outlined by our contributions form – title, main content and URL. If you would like to link to a PDF from your content, please ensure this is added to a webpage first and include the link in the URL section.

Targeted newsletter content

There are a number of regular features in the student newsletter which are shared with all students including: upcoming events, opportunities for you and wellbeing top tips.

Targeted information can also be included in newsletters, and this will be added as a targeted content block and sent only to relevant students.

Targeted content blocks can be used for:

  • School specific information
  • Undergraduate
  • PGR students
  • PGT students
  • Online students
  • Qatar
Surveys

The University participates in a number of student experience surveys each year that gather student views on their academic and non-academic experience at the University of Aberdeen.

This feedback is extremely valuable and helps us to shape positive change based on student feedback and contributes to the University’s position in national league tables. To maximise participation in these national and institutional surveys, we will not promote adhoc research surveys and others that have not been approved through our Feedback Working Group. Find out more about student feedback. 

Social Media

Experience, Engagement & Wellbeing manage a number of student-facing social media channels. You can submit content for these channels using the same online submission form.

A list of student social media channels can be found here.

Submissions can be made at any time for student social media. A best effort approach will be adopted to sharing content, however publication cannot always be guaranteed during busy periods.

Content may not be shared if it is not relevant for large numbers of students. When more appropriate, your content may be posted in smaller closed groups which target specific groups of students e.g. PGT/PGR/Accommodation.

Images

Images should be eye-catching and relevant to the content submitted. Contributors should ensure that they have permission to use an image before it is submitted for inclusion.

They should be a minimum quality of 72dpi and must be submitted as jpegs.  Low quality or blurred images will not be included.

To ensure accessible content, images should not be used to share large amounts of text. Images should only be used to support accompanying text.

If you submit an image that is not suitable for use or you do not have images to support your submission, Experience, Engagement & Wellbeing may select a general campus shots or stock image to support your content.

Students' Union eNewsletter

The Students' Union e-newsletter is normally shared on alternate weeks to the student newsletter, with a focus on the Students' Union, sports, and societies. To submit contributions to the AUSA newsletter, please email AUSA Communications.

The deadline for content for the Students' Union newsletter is 5pm on Monday for newsletters sent the same week.

Submissions through the UoA Staff & Student Communication Contributions online form will not be included in the Students' Union's newsletter. You must email these directly to the Students' Union.

Need support? 

If you have questions or would like any advice about communicating with current students, please email studentlife@abdn.ac.uk.