The National Union of University Students in Finland (SYL) is calling for an attention-getting function like Facebook’s poke feature to be introduced to the Sisu system used by many Finnish universities. As SYL sees it, the feature would further improve interaction between students and their university, and between students themselves.

“The poke feature is a familiar form of digital interaction that has remained popular as digital communication has evolved. In a digital society, there are always new platforms to adopt, and new apps to add to the growing collection on everyone’s phones. Most people would be familiar with pokes,” says SYL President Akseli Tiitta.

According to the model set out by SYL, among their other advantages pokes could be used to inform students about late returns of coursework or upcoming group work. And it should be possible to “poke” anyone in the same organisation.

When it comes to developing the poke feature in Sisu, SYL recommends learning from Facebook. To use the poke feature in Facebook, go to facebook.com/pokes.

Further information:

Akseli Tiitta
President of the board, SYL
+358 44 906 5004
akseli.tiitta@syl.fi