Will Unileaks improve the student experience?

Yes

In 2006 the world was given an unprecedented opportunity to see the secret embarrassments, mistakes and blunders of the most powerful governments with the creation of Wikileaks. In 2011 a less well known website was set up, promising to do the exact same for the higher education sector.

Unileaks might still be in its early days, but already it is showing great potential to do some serious damage to the idyllic image that universities try to portray.

Of course Unileaks will be an unwanted nuisance. It will lead to mistakes by university staff being blown out of proportion and internal mistakes being thrown into the public eye when a more delicate solution could be found. It will lead to reputations being tarnished by small incidents that have no impact on the quality of the institution as a whole. Yes, it will undeniably have its setbacks, but it will also uncover invaluable facts that could change how the system is run, and the system most definitely needs changing.

When our own university is embroiled in an arms trade scandal, can anyone really say we know enough about what is going on in Heslington Hall?

The student-university relationship is an incredibly important one that must be based on mutual trust to have any worth at all. Whether it’s funding or plagiarism, Unileaks will give us the fantastic ability to really see what is going on. YUSU and the NUS can only go so far in making the University accountable and can by no means compete with the tactics of using anonymous sources that websites like Unileaks have at their disposal.

Unileaks may be new and relatively obscure, but I hope at least a few Vice Chancellors in the UK have thought seriously about the effect it could have. Universities should heed its warning. If successful, Unileaks will shed light on all the little cracks and scars these instituions have tried to hide (and there are probably more than we imagine). Unileaks will undoubtedly have problems, but it may just lead to our universities becoming more efficient, accountable and transparent.
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No

First, let’s just establish exactly what Unileaks is. In short, we don’t really know. Under “who are we?” on its website, the answer is simply “UniLeaks is a news organisation.” Not exactly illuminating for an organisation espousing openness.

The organisation takes some of its inspiration from Wikileaks, using a similar anonymous ‘drop box’ tool for submissions, allowing for anonymity of contributors. A lot of the discussion I have already heard around Unileaks draws close parallels between the two organisations; the similar name is part of this, but some people seem to think Unileaks is an affiliated or subsidiary organisation. This is not the case. Whereas Wikileaks aims to “bring important news and information to the public,” Unileaks grows from a slightly different standpoint. In an open letter to UK University Vice-Chancellors it claims to draw inspiration from “action students have taken in response to Government austerity measures.” Okay, well, that’s fine right? Activism can be inspiring, nothing wrong with that. However the letter goes further, claiming “a new generation is refusing to assume responsibility for the apparent failure of neoliberalism.” I’m always wary when an anonymous organisation talks on behalf of an entire generation, but even more so when it’s clear many students do not see failings in the higher education sector as the “failure of neoliberalism.”

Unileaks is not an organisation which is dedicated to opening up the workings of the higher education sector; it has a very political axe to grind. From the off it is using the rhetoric of the left to solicit contributions. It is also using an association with the Wikileaks brand to give itself legitimacy.

Beyond this major concern, I don’t agree that randomly leaking snippets of information will help anyway. Will leaked emails really tell us more about the university decision making process? Probably not. If the practice becomes more widespread, it will just drive key decision making out of the formal channels in an attempt to avoid ever being caught out. This will make student representation even harder than it already is, as Student Unions lose their positions on university committees and have increasingly less of a say in the direction of the university. This means the legitimate representatives being superseded by a wholly illegitimate organisation which cannot be held to account, and does not act primarily for the benefit of students or the improvement of their university experience.