Using this site

What's the difference between NUSonline and OfficerOnline?

Student Officers had previously been catered for in a small, hard-to-navigate area of nusonline called 'resources'. NUS felt Officers needed and deserved a better quality of online support and have worked hard to achieve that with this website.

We have now split our online services into two sites:

nusonline.co.uk

nusonline.co.uk is the public face of NUS and also a membership site for all holders of the NUS Card. Its aims, developed in accordance with the NUS "Mission, Vision and Values" statement, are:

i) to ensure that all students have access to important, up-to-date welfare information;

ii) to build awareness and promote participation in student-issue campaigns, on both a national and local level;

iii) to provide students with high-quality, nationally-available discounts in order to save them money

officeronline.co.uk

officeronline.co.uk is a specialist resource and community site, developed for the benefit of NUS member unions.

This site holds all the materials that NUS provides to Student Officers by way of support. The site will continue to grow, offering community features and regional areas to facilitate officer networking and knowledge sharing.

This site also makes clear to Officers which services NUS provides (such as training, events, regional support and campaign materials) and how to access them.

Registering to the site will enable us to improve communications with our members, as we develop sophisticated email strategies to keep officers updated.

Why do I need to register?

Several areas of this site are 'locked', meaning that they can't be accessed without logging in as an approved member. This is because NUS is a membership organisation and we feel it is right and proper that only members should benefit from access to resources developed specifically for them.

Registration also enables us to send specific emails to Officers, alerting you to events, issues and new resources (much like the Fortnightly Mailing does at present).

If your union is not a member of NUS you cannot gain membership of this site. Details of how to apply for NUS membership are found in www.nusonline.co.uk/membership.

Who is allowed to register on OfficerOnline?

OfficerOnline.co.uk has primarily been created to support student officers at Constituent Member unions.

We anticipate that the majority of users will be elected Student Officers. But accounting for the variance in resources our member unions have at their disposal, we will aim to be inclusive and supportive of individual union requests.

We will therefore allow Student Liason Officers and General Managers to join the site, provided the individual Union's elected officers do not object. We will also look to include those students which elected Officers feel need and warrant access to these resources, such as students actively engaged with liberation activities.

How does the registration process work?

In order to be assured that everyone applying for membership of the site is eligible, we have a validation system in place.

The system works like this:

Every year NUS collects details of who's who in each member union. This information goes into The Guide and also into a database called Orwell, administered by NUS Services.

At the beginning of the academic year, an automated mailing is sent from this database to the Officers listed on this database, letting them know that they are eligible for use of OfficerOnline.co.uk and instructing them how to use the site. From 2005 onwards the date of this invitation will be publicised in advance.

This action should cover 90% of site members.

Those individuals eligible for membership of the site (see above for details) who do not receive this invitation by email can apply for registration via the link in the site's top navigation bar.

If the person applying is already on the Orwell database, they will rapidly receive a confirmation email. If they are not on the database (and this will be the case for most unelected students) their application is forwarded onto the Regional Assistants, who will approach the Union's General Manager for confirmation.

Please note: this process takes around 48 hours, so don't expect to hear back from us for at least two full working days.

If you're not an elected Student Officer and you wish your application to go smoothly, please ensure that your Union President and General Manager know who you are and are happy for you to have access to this site as an active participant (on the grounds that you're involved in developing or maintaining your local union).

If there are problems with gaining membership, please approach the relevant NEC member at NUS. Ie. if your field of activity is LGBT work, approach the LGBT Campaign convenor. A full list of NEC members is listed here.

If I can't access the site AND don't receive explanatory emails three days after trying to register, what should I do?

If your attempt to register on the site fails and you haven't received an explanation, contact the National Secretary at NUS. Their details can be found here.

Where eligibility for membership on this site is disputed, the National Secretary may be contacted.