Is it someone highly knowledgeable about a subject?
Yes they know a lot and if you have questions about a subject, they can probably answer them in a confident manner. However, these academics haven’t always got the best teaching skills, often making it difficult to learn what they’re trying to get across

Is it someone who gives you plenty of hints for the exam?
Although you may appreciate it for passing the module, how much is this setting you up for when you may need the content of the module elsewhere. In cases where you’re being forced to do a module, but you feel it is really of no use to you, is this the best type of lecturer to have?

Is it someone who has been lecturing the same module for a number of years?
At this stage, they normally have reasonable lecturing skills. They should also know the subject material pretty well. However, we felt they were normally bored of it if they were onto their 5th/6th time of teaching the same thing.

What are your thoughts on what makes the best type of lecturer?

[See post to watch Flash video] ]]> http://leestone.co.uk/daily/2009/07/university-review-of-the-year/feed/ 0 http://leestone.co.uk/daily/2009/06/u18-possibility-of-a-later-bus/ http://leestone.co.uk/daily/2009/06/u18-possibility-of-a-later-bus/#comments Wed, 03 Jun 2009 09:27:12 +0000 Lee http://leestone.co.uk/daily/?p=468 Further to my post on the U18 Vs The Bright Orange Bus, could we be seeing the U18 making another move towards taking some of First’s business and making it more likely for people to switch.

The following was posted on the Uniconnect facebook group:

Having the buses going till 3am – even only 2 an hour, would certainly remove one of the main arguments of getting a U18 bus pass. It would also make life a lot easier for people getting home after the SU’s club nights.

All we need now is a joint bus pass between the two services.

It’s a brief video showing some of the things BUSU has achieved in the last year – from Freshers’ Week to the success of societies to the various campaigns that have run throughout the year and of course – improvements to the buses.

At the end of the video, there is even some good news on their latest project – the new Student Centre.

More can be found out about BUSU at BathStudent.com

At the start of this week a new battle started around Bath – the Battle of the Buses between First and Wessex Connect.

The Existing Service - The 18/418 - The Bright Orange Bus, provided by First

Vs

The Newcomer - The U18 - UniConnect - Provided by Wessex Connect

This Monday Wessex Connect launched its rival service to the 18/418 – the U18. Concentrating on the Oldfield Park to University route, it has been highly campaigned for from the Students’ Union as an improvement to the bus service from First – a topic of conversation which seems to frequently come up.

The U18 was announced at the same time that Wessex Connect announced that they would start providing an alternative to the cancelled 20a/c service in Bath. As well as providing more buses and lower fares than first, they also announced that they would be donating 1p per ticket sold to a charity, chosen by students.

The route covered by the U18 seems to be concentrating on passengers for Oldfield park – probably hoping to capitalise on them to fill the buses earlier on in the route. They’re also the customers who have complained most about the poor service that first have been providing. As well as going a slightly different route to First, they are also providing buses every 10 minutes – a lot more frequently than the old bendy buses, although they do stop a lot earlier in the evening (no Flirting on a Friday night then getting the U18 home I’m afraid!)

The U18 Route

Fares so far are proving slightly cheaper, with 10 journey tickets being made available at the cheaper rate of £5 as an introductory offer during May (people have reported that quite often their 10 journey passes aren’t being stamped, causing it to become more like a 14 journey pass!). Although bus pass costs are up on their website, it is yet to be seen if they will do (and if so the price) a joint student bus pass between them and first – making it a lot easier for the student to travel. More information on the uni-connect service, including timetables and fare information can be found on their website: http://uni-connect.co.uk

However, is it all good news?

The choice of date that the service began on was an interesting one. They were already starting the takeover of the 20a/c service on the Monday but I’m not sure if it was a good idea to start the new U18 service at the same time. At the university, we’ve just gone into exam times, meaning the number of people travelling to the University is drastically lower than normal (I don’t think anyone would be suffering from full buses, even if the new service hadn’t started). The one benefit though is that it is helping them get their name out, as well as tempting people over to the service, in time for when everyone will be returning to the University in Septemeber and purchasing their new bus passes. They’ll be hoping that starting earlier will help them sell some more passes (and probably cover the costs of starting up this service, I personally don’t think they’ll be doing much more than breaking even at the moment).

The reduced 10 journey ticket to £5 is probably also hoping to do the same. Unfortunately, at the moment I think they’re failing at getting people over.

Two occasions last week, a U18 and an 18 pulled up at The Guildhall bus stop at the same time. No-one got on the U18 and everyone waiting got on the 18. Now the easy reason for this would be that everyone already had a bus pass for the 18 (my reason for getting on it). But they didn’t. Most of them seemed to be buying return tickets. Now was it because they were planning to stay later? Perhaps they just wanted to stop with what they’re familar with for now.

I’m not the only one who has noticed this. I spotted the following twitter post by @stevebr77 a few days ago:

Does this mean the U18 has failed? Not really. From what I can gather it’s proving popular with people in Oldfield Park and will probably continue to gain popularity come next academic year when people will be getting their new passes.

I think one mistake they have made is failing to brand all their buses. You’ve seen the photo up the top of the blue bus they’re using. It easily makes it recognisable as a new service, so does well to help differentiate to those needing to board the bus, as well as providing good advertising. However, Wessex Connect don’t seem to have managed to get all their buses branded, so have been using a reasonable number of their ‘standard’ buses. These don’t look too dissimilar to First’s buses, so hasn’t really helped promote a new service. It has in fact led to some confusion with some people who have got on the bus, tried to use their First bus pass and have been able to do so.

From First’s point of view, I would be cautious, but not too scared yet. It would be interesting to hear from them on their blog about whether or not the new bus service has had a huge impact and whether they’ll be doing anything to combat it.

They’ll probably continue to be quite succesful with the weekend and late night service, as their isn’t too much competition. It wouldn’t surprise me, however, to see them drop the frequency of the buses during the normal daytime. If I was them, I’d keep their timetable the same, let people buy their bus passes in September / October, then reduce the frequency from every 6 to every 10 minutes (at opposite times to U18) – not particularly nice for the customer, but it wouldn’t be a huge impact.

The alternative solution would be to remove it’s 418 route, or perhaps alter it to do Bus Station to Bath Spa only – that way they’ll still benefit from the business there, as well as what they pick up from the Guildhall.

The other thing that really needs looking at is the bus stop at the university. With so many buses running, once you have a few buses queued up to catch up time (from either company), it soon turns into chaos up there – as I saw when I travelled to the University last Monday. This is made worse as both buses are trying to load from the same point, so end up blocking each other in etc. If the two services are to continue, I think the University will have to look at either redeveloping the turning circle to have two loading points (still with space for extra buses to wait / unload). Or, they’re going to have to move one of the bus stops to a slightly different location – with it being rumoured that the U18 may extend the service to go to 8 west, perhaps their stopping point could be moved to the other side of the turning circle.

For those of you in Bath, leave a comment to let me know what you think about the new bus service. Will it succeed or fail? Will we be seeing them expand the route any time soon?

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

The SU bars are closed, with Pitstop (Sandwich Shop), on reduced hours and extremely reduced options (almost to the point of why bother opening). The University bar is on reduced opening hours too.

Now I know most Freshers’ go home for the holidays, but I feel sorry for those who are still here. Their options are dramatically reduced and they’re even limited with travelling into / out of town itself due to the buses running a reduced frequency service and finishing earlier.

I’ve even been surprised with how empty the Library is. Even with the holidays, I was expecting it to still be reasonably busy with people working on Coursework and final year projects, but it doesn’t seem to be that full when I look through the windows.

The reduced number of people also seems to make a difference on Internet speeds (especially wireless) – everything seems to be running a lot quicker and smoother.

I do quite like looking out of the office window onto an emptier parade, but it does seem to be lacking the atmosphere somewhat.

Bath University Parade in Snow

The University was hoping to open almost as normal today, but how are they doing so far?

Update 8:02am: The university has now cancelled 9.15 lectures as well as 8.15. There are also no buses running up the hill yet. Keep an eye on Twitter or internal news for updates. Should hear more from the university by 8.45.

Update 8:25am: Apparently the STV will be open as normal today.

Update 8:50am: all lectures before midday have been cancelled. The refresh fair has also been postponed to another day. Still no buses running.

Update 10:00am: Buses still not running to the University. Some other bus routes in Bath are attempting to run though. For further bus updates follow the bus service on twitter @bathcsc

Update 10:19am: The University is now closed for the whole day. Further information for people on campus is due to be posted on the internal news page soon. Fresh is open till 2pm today.

Update 10:27am: Looks like the STV can’t saty open and will be closing at 2pm today.

Update 11:15am: The Flirt! Foam Party has also been postponed and will be taking place next week. Check the internal news page for the most up to date list of shop opening /closings. Worthy of note though is Level 1 will be open for food between 11:30am and 2pm tomorrow.

Photo by Katie Mabery

Look at the internal university news page for updates.

Update (9:50 am): uLive has been cancelled for tonight (The Twang)

Update (11:56 am): All ICIA related things have been cancelled. The busses are running again though if you wish to get on/off campus

Update (7:57 pm): The University should be open again tomorrow, although any 8:15 lectures have been cancelled. Expect an update on the campus homepage by 8am tomorrow if any of this changes.

This post is for Thursday 1st January, 2009

It seems strange to talk about a new year in Bath because at this stage, there isn’t really much new about it. Next week is revision week, followed by two weeks of exams.

As such, we don’t start our next semester for another 3 weeks, so there isn’t really a ‘new’ feeling until then.

That is unless, you’re frantically revising and realising you can’t really remember covering some of the content, in which case, you’re learning a lot of new things. Fortunately, it’s not too much like that for me, however there is a lot of frantic revision going on.

Having a Christmas break is a bit deceptive, when over the few weeks you have off, you need to finish a coursework project and revise for 4 exams, all fairly early in the exam timetable. On top of that I’ve had the fun of sorting out placement applications and organising interview dates. All in all, it gives you a small amount of time to enjoy Christmas, but not a huge amount.

Once exams are over, it’s time for 4 new modules – all of which are linked quite strongly to my modules in semester 1 (unlike last year when they were generally completely different.

My work for Backstage has also been a lot quieter recently with us taking a break for Christmas – it’s going to get a lot busier quite quickly though with ICIA shows, BUSMS’ Little Shop of Horrors, BodySoc’s Continuum, the Summer Ball and many more all taking place this year and all requiring planning to start fairly soon after we come out of exams.

With Arts Exec we’ll also be looking at starting to organise the Societies Awards Evening amongst other events.

All in all, I need to return to Bath already running to keep up with what is going to be happening over the next few months!

The photos in this article were taken by University of Bath Students’ Union VP A&D – Hayden Arrowsmith.