In the city of San Francisco, "citizens can send direct messages 24 hours a day to the sf311 Twitter account to report standard non-emergency city-related sightings (like pot holes), request street cleanings, and any other service already supported by the phone or website." This was reported by the Mashable article San Francisco First City to Instate City-Wide 311 Twitter Program.

It goes on to say: "Of course the real beauty of enabling 311 support through Twitter is that residents can now have the convenience of sending in their requests on their terms, include photos, relevant links, and do so while on the go."

If a whole city can offer this service to enhance the experience for citizens, what are the possibilities for enhancing the student experience on a university campus?

Potential notifications include:

• lifts not working
• computer room out of operation
• security gates rusty and need oiling
• high-demand library books not available
• paths and rooms requiring cleaning
• lecturers inaccessible
• issues regarding transport into university - e.g. extending what University of Bath did on Twitter when the snow in Feb 2009 had a big impact on transport in Bath.

Could you think of other non-emergency issues that students could report? Add your thoughts in the comments below.

Using notifications received from students and academic staff, the university's student relations and administration teams could raise the issue with the relevant parties to get it resolved, and report back to the person who sent through the notification. Where appropriate, messages could be tweeted and blog posts published to inform many more people about developments.

A service like this set up at the university could have a major impact, not only on how it serves current students and academic staff, but also on prospective students who take the university's online reputation into account when considering their university choices.

Afterall, the lines between student relations and public relations is blurring, and a disgruntled student being transformed into a content or happy student has a direct impact on way the institution is perceived on the web and therefore on student intake.

The Chameleon Net strategy-oriented technology trends seminar covers some of the latest mobile and web technologies including geo-tagging & geo-location. Other topics covered include augmented reality, social software, content moderation, web analytics & conversion.

Our Online Technology Update seminar is taking place on Thursday 18th June in London and you can read more about it and register at www.chameleonnet.co.uk/seminar