An initial survey of existing social media engagement across the School reveals an uneven level of engagement. The central School has its own social media channels; as do the School’s repository SAS-Space, and the new SAS Open Journals platform (developed with JISC funding). The School also provides a podcast and video streaming service. Several institutes have engaged to some degree with a number of social media platforms, as well as event podcasting. Further to these institutional endeavours, a small but dedicated group of individual academic and professional staff use myriad social media channels.
A number of needs to develop a School-wide approach have been raised that highlight the need for an organisation-wide assessment and focused strategy in this area, including: the hosting and/or aggregating of existing blogs into a single locally-hosted server; development of, and staff training in, the use of social media and multimedia sharing platforms, and their integration with existing School platforms.