The Hoot is powered by Open SU, and supports its policies.
It’s staffed by a small, friendly editorial team who read submissions as they come in, check they meet the guidelines and then publish at appropriate times. Authors of posts that don’t meet the guidelines will receive an email sent to the address linked to their account to let them know why, or to share a few tweak suggestions. We aim to publish all posts that meet the guidelines no later than two weeks after submission, but may take a little longer if we’re experiencing a high volume of submissions. If you feel that your post has been waiting in the queue for longer than this period, feel free to email us at oustudents-media@open.ac.uk and we’ll investigate.
Our readers are OU students, past, present and future, University staff, Open SU staff and more. They represent a huge and diverse community, with a wide range of experiences, backgrounds and opinions. As such, the range of content that we will publish is rather broad. Study journey stories, fun trivia quizzes, life-writing, interviews and more are perfect for our audience.
We are governed by the Open SU Articles and bye-laws, and uphold the values of the OU Student Charter. The four principles laid out in the Charter are:
- We treat each other with dignity and respect.
- We aim to inspire and enable learning.
- We share the responsibility for learning.
- We work together to secure the University’s mission and promote the University’s values.
There are some subject matters that we will not publish:
- Articles with a strong political bias, canvassing support for a political figure or party.
- Articles expressing or amplifying extreme, bigoted or hateful views that conflict with the values of Open SU.
- Articles that target individuals or liberation groups.
- Articles with no substance other than to be inflammatory.
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