Facebook and Twitter are just two of the ways the University of Gloucestershire is reaching out to students in the 21st century.

University bosses have embraced the popular social networking sites as a way of engaging with students and applicants, using them to promote open days and events and fuelling open debate.

So far nearly 1,000 students have embraced the university's Facebook site, which has been up and running for the past two years while hundreds have logged onto Twitter in the past few months.

Students also have their own university email account where university staff can contact them about various issues such as room changes and students can message one another.

Staff say it's important the university keeps up to date with modern comm- unication channels.

Head of marketing Jill Stuart said: "Networking web tools are the new 'telephone', and enable people to engage in new ways, develop a sense of community and becoming cyberspace citizens.

"Facebook in particular had an excellent uptake and is growing all the time. It's a two way street in terms of getting information out there and hearing back from the students.

"We genuinely want to know what they think of things so that issues big or small can be addressed. Sometimes that might be critical but then you find there are those who disagree entirely and come back with something different. It's a fantastic open discussion. It also gives potential students the chance to see what current students are doing and thinking and that can help them decide whether or not to come to the university.

"Facebook and Twitter are generic networking sites – there are a few niche ones we might look at exploring, but for the moment these tools are offering us a great way of communicating with the student fraternity already."