From Stephen Fry to 10 Downing Street, it seems that everyone is on Twitter these days, with research by eMarketer suggesting that the microblogging service will have 18 million users by the end of the year.

The iPhone is the perfect companion for Twitterers, allowing you to post updates from wherever you are. Here are 10 of the best applications for Twitter, ranging from common clients to more specialised software.

The iPhone is the perfect companion for Twitterers, allowing you to post updates from wherever you are. It’s hardly surprising that when the iPhone first went on sale in mid-2007 that Twitter was one of the first things developers wrote web applications for — back then the only way of running third-party software.

In the 18 months since the launch of the App Store, allowing developers to run their own, native software on the device, plenty of Twitter clients have come and gone, offering you all sorts of different features. You could scour the App Store yourself looking for the best ones, but it could prove difficult sorting through the 115,000 applications now available to download onto your iPhone or iPod Touch, so why not let us do the hard work—here are 10 of the best applications for Twitter, ranging from common clients to more specialised software.

Birdfeed

Birdfeed is a Twitter client with a simple and clean layout, with the developers saying they wanted it to feel just like one of Apple’s own iPhone applications. They haven’t failed either, as the design is beautiful and the app itself is very easy to use. Despite its incredibly simple layout — no tab bars to be found here — Birdfeed is incredibly powerful, hiding features away until you need to use them. If you’re a power-user then you might not like the design, as its simplicity means going back and forth through layers of menus, lacking the immediacy of other clients.

Echofon

Echofon is the new name for Twitterfon, which made its name by being one of the best free Twitter clients available on the iPhone. The app was renamed, and has since grown into a software empire. On the iPhone, there’s now a free application and a paid-for one, which has more features. The big one is that it tracks which tweets you’ve read on your phone and on your computer, eliminating needless scrolling. There’s also the option for changing the colour theme, but none make it look great; the app’s appeal has always been that it’s been fast and functional, not pretty.

Tweetie

Tweetie’s original release in late 2008 was a milestone for native iPhone Twitter clients. Beforehand they’d been slow and clunky, and Tweetie changed all that. Loren Brichter, the developer, recently released version 2.0 of the application, adding a lot more features for you to play with. The unique swipe gesture to reveal functions is still there, but with more options — you can even translate tweets now. Tweetie 2 integrates with online Twitter services and allows you to edit your profile from your phone, among many other things. Unfortunately, the extra features have added extra weight, and a previously very slim and simple application now feels bloated.

Twitterrific

The Icon Factory’s Twitterrific is a veteran iPhone Twitter client, and was the first available native application for the service back, back in July 2008. The developer’s main job is creating icons and other pretty things for computers, and it shows. Now at version 2, Twitterrific is perhaps the best looking Twitter client for the iPhone. It backs this up with plenty of features, and unique pop-up menus to access them. The app keeps you within easy reach of your main timeline, which can make things feel cramped. Also, the account selection menu is a mess, as they include other things — like trending topics — and not just a list of your accounts.

Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck started life as an Adobe AIR cross-platform desktop Twitter application, and its iPhone version was eagerly anticipated — not surprising, as it’s used to post over 10% of all tweets. Tweetdeck is unique, as its layout consists of several columns, set side-by-side. If you follow a lot of people, this lets you choose small groups and only see their updates, rather than being drowned by everyone’s tweets. The concept transitions to the iPhone fairly well, with users swiping to move between columns. While straightforward to use, this one is for power-users only.

Hootsuite

Hootsuite started off life as a web service for Twitter, with a set of very powerful tools. You can keep an eye on several accounts, schedule tweets to be posted in the future, and track how many people click on links you include in your updates. The iPhone application puts all this power in the palm of your hand, and is surprisingly user-friendly. It’s missing some features you’d find in other applications, like reply chains, but it also copies the best ideas from the other clients on this list.

Birdbrain

Birdbrain is a highly specialised application that tracks statistics connected with your Twitter account. With it, you can track changes over time of how many people are following you, how many times you’re mentioned or replied to, and how many updates you’ve posted. If you’re a stats nerd, and want to see how popular (or unpopular) you’ve become on Twitter over the past day, month, or year, Birdbrain is the app for you. But it also has a more practical side; with the rise in spammers and marketers using Twitter, you can quickly check your new follows and block them if they’re undesirable.

Birdhouse

Birdhouse “is a notepad for Twitter”, say its developers. One of the people behind it, Adam Lisagor (@lonelysandwich), has devoted his Twitter account to posting 140-character comedy, and has basically made the application he wanted to use for that purpose. If you consider yourself a Twitter wit, Birdhouse lets you draft, and re-draft, your Tweets until they’re perfect and ready to publish. Even if you’re not in it for the laughs, Birdhouse is incredibly useful. You can store updates for later, publishing when ready, and easily pull them if you spot a mistake.

Boxcar

Boxcar is a perfect example of an application that does one thing, and does it well, with no fuss. Boxcar’s speciality is displaying push notifications — which appear just like a SMS message — for your Twitter account. It’s amazingly flexible in what it alerts you to, where it displays, and when. You can set it up to alert you to every tweet from people follow, mentions and replies, and direct messages. You can also set up a “quiet time” when it won’t show any notifications at all, perfectly for when you’re sleeping.

qStatus

qStatus is the quickest way of posting an update on Twitter. The app launches straight into an update box and brings up the keyboard, so you can start typing straight away. qStatus also has powerful sharing features too: it’s the first application that lets you quickly tell the world what music you’re listening to on your phone, as well as letting you post video. You can also use the app to update your Facebook status, or both at the same time. The only problem is that the text box is slightly too small to show a 140 character update, which is a silly, easily-fixable oversight.

John Pilger, a legendary journalist and documentary maker, discussed “Why journalism matters” on Monday night, with Professor Richard Keeble, from the Lincoln School of Journalism.

At the end of his talk, it was announced to the public that the University of Lincoln would build and host an archive of Mr Pilger’s journalism, as well as re-design his website.When asked at the start of the discussion why the craft mattered, Mr Pilger said that “embodied in journalism are basic freedoms. Freedom of speech, the right to know”.

“Without that power, that information… there can be no participation that we call democracy.”

However, he said, “that’s not the way it’s practised. You’ve just had a little bit of utopia.”

“I think it’s important for young journalists to understand that a scepticism is important. Not of people. Some young journalists believe that a scepticism about people preordains them. There should be a scepticism about power.”

In an email interview with The Linc before the discussion, Mr Pilger said that “like almost everything, there is the good, the bad, and the indifferent.”

“Journalism matters, in my view, when it tells the stories of people, rather than acts as the agent or conduit of power and the status quo. That can apply in all sections of the craft, from foreign reporting to sports reporting.

“Our lives are dominated by the insidious propaganda of authority; journalism ought to be an antidote.”

“Journalism has been best served by the honourable exceptions,” he said. These are “exceptions to a system that is little more than an extension of the established order.”

“You need to look at the ‘samizdat’ on the world wide web… Once you’ve learned to trust certain writers and sites, you can create your own reliable world of reportage and truth-telling.”

You can find a list of such sites on JohnPilger.com.

“We are truly the agents of people,” he said, whereas “so-called ‘mainstream’ journalists are agents of established power.”

But he disputed the label of “mainstream”, preferring to label it “corporate”, as the most prominent media outlets are often controlled by large corporations. “Those whose journalism is meant for the most people are the mainstream.”

When asked by The Linc about “alternative” media, Mr Pilger said it “is the real mainstream, because it’s more in tune with reality, facts, and people. I think the public is beginning to see the corporate media as a system of propaganda, a monoculture whose differences — rather like party politics — are illusory.”

Mr Pilger also criticised the BBC, saying that it also represented “vested interests”, whilst agreeing “with the institution of the BBC”.

“The elite that runs it… I don’t think represents the people that put their faith in the BBC.

Referring to then-BBC journalist Andrew Gilligan’s 2003 report on the government’s “sexed up” Iraq dossier, which made ludicrous claims about that country’s military capabilities, Mr Pilger said: “When the BBC got a bit close to the truth they fired the Director General and the reporter that told the truth.”

Mr Pilger said that important journalistic work can be done anywhere in the world. “You don’t need to go to Baghdad or Afghanistan. Reporting the way power presents itself… that can be done here.”

The University of Lincoln’s new vice-chancellor, Professor Mary Stuart, took over the top job on the first of November. After a few weeks of settling into the position, The Linc sat down with her to find out about her plans for the university’s future.

“I want Lincoln to be recognised as a top-class university, and I want it to be recognised both in the UK and across the globe as a top-class university,” she says.

Before coming to Lincoln and taking over from Professor David Chiddick, who will officially retire at the end of the year, she was deputy vice-chancellor at Kingston University in London, and brings a wealth of academic and managerial experience to the role.

Expanding on what “top-class” means, Stuart says: “We need to be an institution that is known for the particular niche around teaching that we offer, we need to have particular strengths in research, so that both students are learning from top people in their field, but also that other staff want to, from other universities, want to engage with us and work with us.”

“High quality teaching, good research, and a strong student experience are key to our future,” Stuart says, “That is what I come from, what I expect, and where very much we will be developing.

“I feel passionately about the role of the university as an academic environment,” but that the student experience is fundamental, and says the university is putting an emphasis on the areas of the National Student Survey where they scored badly, such as Performing Arts.

“We have to have a dialogue with our students, which means that we are continually trying to improve, it’s not something that stands still. That doesn’t mean you can do everything they ask for, it’s more about when you can’t being able to explain what the constraints are.”

Another important part of improving the student experience, she says, is offering the right extra-curricular activities: “I did some research a couple of years ago, and it clearly indicated that getting a first or 2:1 is not enough in order to get that good job, you have to have other things on your CV. We need to make sure we’ve got the right mix, [so] that all our students can participate.”

The focus on these areas signals a break from Chiddick, whose time at the university was spent changing the institution from the old University of Lincolnshire and Humberside, and building the modern campus that dominates the waterfront.

“I think that any university at different times has different needs, and when you think that the university was only established as the University of Lincoln in 2001, you are looking at the need to grow and building,” Stuart says.

“But yes, I am different,” she says, citing again her focus on teaching, research, and the student experience.

The ongoing growth of the university and plans that were started under Chiddick fit very well with Stuart’s vision for the university. “The fact that [the Faculty of Business and Law] is going to be with a front onto the High Street, that will make a huge difference”, in further integrating the university with the city, she says.

“There is more we can do with the city. We’re now starting an engineering faculty, so that will bring a huge number of new kinds of skills, and that’s a partnership with a global business that happens to be located locally, and that’s Siemens. There’s more we can do around that.

“We are concerned about our city, we’re concerned about business in the area, we’re concerned about the development of the economy, we should be doing work for them,” Stuart says. Working with business will also help ween the university off government support, she hopes.

The University of Lincoln is currently the seventh most dependent university on funds from the Higher education funding council for England (Hefce). Other universities get far more funds from private sources.

“[The situation] does concern me, and I think it needs to be changed. One of the reasons why it concerns me is that the public sector is going to be facing cuts in the next few years, and if you are very dependent on public funding you will feel those cuts much more than an organisation that has different streams of income.”

But it’s not just the prospect of cuts that require this to be changed, she says: “Unless we can diversify our income we will not have the scope to be able to develop the university the way we want to.”

Stuart says that Lincoln is “a 21st century-relevant university, [one] that is kind of an updated version of the big civic universities,” and so the institution should involve itself with outside groups and help provide practical services and expertise.

On the research the research the university should undertake in the future, she says: “[It] has to be relevant research, I think that’s the sort of institution that we are. It’s got to be useful research, and that leads us into that other area that I think we need to be known for, and that is being enterprising and entrepreneurial, and working with business, the third sector, the arts, those sorts of things.”

He praised the university, its “fantastic” staff, and said he was “enormously proud of the success of the students”. Lincoln, he said, is “in a really strong position”.

On November 1st, Professor Chiddick will officially hand over to his successor as vice-chancellor, Professor Mary Stuart. He praised Professor Stuart as “very experienced, very able”.

When asked how he felt about departing the university, Professor Chiddick said: “Obviously I feel sad to some extent, because this has been my life for the last nine years, often days and nights as well.”

“On the other hand, the university’s in a really strong position, and that is the time to go. I always knew I was going to leave in 2008 or 2009, when the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) was published, because we’d then know whether the university was flying or failing. And, of course, it’s flying.”

Professor Chiddick said that it is “difficult to say” what he is most proud of, looking back over his time as vice-chancellor.

“I am enormously proud of the success of the students. The staff send me all the successes of students that they have… I see them regularly, I see the awards they get, I see the jobs they get, and that is really terrific to see that.

“The fact that the university has settled into community of the city as easily as it has — there are still tensions, I’m aware of that — but the fact that the city, the people in the city, the local authorities, and others, think positively of the university, is a testament not just to the staff but to the students.”

Looking to the future, he said that “financially, the university is now stable, very stable,” in contrast to some other institutions, and that “we have a fantastic platform from which to go forward”.

Professor Chiddick joined the university in 2000, when it was still known as the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside. Previously, he was a pro vice-chanceller at De Montfort University, which then had sites in Lincoln.

“In those early days, the [university] was mainly in Hull. Most of the [students] were there, all the administration was there. There was literally an office [in Lincoln], with a secretary that came down once a week.”

The story of Professor Chiddick’s career as vice-chancellor is the story of the university’s radical transformation.

“It was perfectly obvious to me, and to one or two other people around the country, that if you could pull off the trick of moving it all down to Lincoln, and changing the name to the University of Lincoln, you could create something rather special here.”

He described the change from the University of Lincolnshire and Humberside to the University of Lincoln as essentially “developing a university from scratch”.

“Nearly half of the workforce didn’t come with us to Lincoln [from Hull], so it was a case of recruiting new staff, and lots of wonderful staff came to the university — academic and support staff — because this was exciting. This was the first real new university to establish itself for about 40 or 50 years.”

When asked about the criticism that the university has focused too much on construction, rather than employing more teaching staff, Professor Chiddick said “we needed to put the buildings up, otherwise we wouldn’t have anywhere to put the staff”.

He also pointed out that the university still makes use of several temporary buildings, “so we haven’t completed the development of the university”.

However, he accepted that “the issue around staff-student ratios is correct, to a large extent,” but said that a lack of RAE money (awarded for quality of research) had hindered the university.

“We had no RAE cash in the early days. And what the [2008] RAE has helped is to do… is, in the future, begin to recruit more staff.

“But what it also tells us is, to get the [National Student Survey] scores, to get the research outputs that we’ve had, we’ve had some fantastic staff to be able to do that with the [ratios] we’ve had in the past, to get us to that position.”

The university’s RAE funding increased by over 600% after the 2008 Exercise, growing to about £1.6 million. The average increase was just 7.9%.

As for Professor Chiddick himself, he said that while his is retiring, he won’t be idle.

“People have been asking me ‘what am I going to do?’ There is a temptation to say ‘nothing’, because I am retiring. On the other hand, I think most people who know me would know that that is unlikely.

“I do climb mountains, believe it or not, so there have been mountains that my friends have climbed that I’ve not been able to over the past few years, so I’m going to catch up there.”

He also said that he would be returning to his specialist area of urban renewal.

“I’m working in one or two cities at the moment, in particular in Derry, in Northern Ireland, with some people who want to regenerate their city and grow their university at the same time. So that’s basically the sort of thing I’ll probably be doing around the country, probably in one or two parts of the world as well, but no permanent jobs as vice-chancellor — or anything like it — in the future.”

The most noticeable disturbance caused by the economic downturn is likely to be that of student numbers — both those applying to, and those accepted into, university.The University of Lincoln received a total of 12,146 applications this year for degree programs, an increase of 910, or 8%, on 2008′s total. Nationally there was a 10% increase, from over 550,000 in 2008 to nearly 610,000 in 2009.

While it is true that many thousands of applicants may miss out on a place at university because of the government cutting back the increase in places, it is important to remember that there still will be more students taking a place at university this year than last year.

The move was taken by the government in order to limit increases in its spending, but there still will be be more tuition fee money going to universities.

Some funding has been cut, though. The Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) has reduced the amount given to the University of Lincoln in teaching grants by £501,768. While a large amount of money in its own right, this is just 1.36% of the over £36 million total.

Hefce had reduced teaching grants by £65 million nationally, leading the University and College Union to warn that it “will equate to the loss of a further 1,500 full time lecturing and support staff”. The union’s general secretary, Sally Hunt, says that the cut “is just the first wave of new cuts we are likely to see in higher education.”

The idea of cutting any funding from universities has been called into question. The OECD, a rich-country think tank, says that countries should put more money into higher education. The group says that governments get far more out of university graduates — in tax revenue, for example — than it costs to educate them in the first place.

More generally, funding cannot be too tight at the university, as it has just built the Enterprise building, as well as sponsoring Lincoln City Football Club’s away and third strip, and has advertising inside the Sincil Bank stadium itself.

“Perhaps the stereotypical view is a bit out of date,” he suggests.

Paul is the university’s “Electronic Resources Librarian”, and is charged with looking after the library’s expanding collection of digital works, as well as the systems used to manage and access them.The job is just a year old, and Paul says that it ‘ties together’ all the jobs involving digital resources that was previously just “unofficial parts of people’s jobs,” and also to plan where things go in the future.

He says that a dedicated person was needed “as e-resources became more and more important.”

His day-to-day activities are focused on e-journals, e-books, and databases, rather than dust jackets and the Dewey Decimal System.

“There’s a big move to buy more e-books, driven mainly by students themselves. As more students study from home, or work part time… so a lot of the demand is coming from students to make sure we have core texts available in [an] electronic format.”

However, he says that paper still has its place, and won’t be going away: “There’s a whole new set of problems with e-books. They’re not a complete solution to everything. You get rid of the problems of paper books, where you only have one copy between 20 students, because with an e-book you can have 500 students reading the same book at once.”

“But then copyright problems come in, and compatibility with students’ own computers, so it changes the way we have to support students and the problems they might have.”

Currently the library has about 42,000 e-books, and access to about 45,000 e-journals. Though not an insignificant number, the amount of digital resources can’t compare to the amount of traditional books held across the university campuses.

“It’s still dwarfed by the print collection,” Paul says, which consists of about a third of a million items.

The separation between paper and digital is something that the library staff plan to bridge, though, and Paul says that some changes to the physical environment may be needed to bring this about.

“The library as it’s set out at the minute is very much about accessing physical resources, and what we hope we’ll be able to do… is redevelop parts of the library to make much more flexible learning spaces where students can come in and use digital and paper materials, for group study, for project work, and for individual study.

“One of the big changes, which will be really obvious to students and staff, is that we’ll start to see changes, particularly the ground floor of this library and that’s going to be quite impressively, hopefully. It’s eventually going to look quite different when you come into the library here.”

Another priority is simply making students aware of the digital resources: “E-books are much more invisible, so one of the things we’ll be trying to do is a bit of marketing to make sure the students know that these things are here.”

One of the things he suggests might happen is putting markers on the shelves where the paper book would go, to make students aware that there’s an e-book version that they can use. The idea is to get students familiar and comfortable with the idea of electronic works, so that it becomes part of their everyday library usage.

In the end, these changes may lead to even more radical ones, such as in the way library staff support students.

“The big difference is at the minute a lot of it involves expecting students to come to us and the shift is we’re going to try and take the library out of these four walls, and out to students.

“The support that students can get inside this building might be less about a student coming to a desk and asking for help, and much more about staff in the library going round the library and seeking students out, and finding students who might be working in a group or having a particularly problem. Taking the help to the students, more than sitting behind a desk and waiting for the student to come to us.”

The road was used by many of the development’s residents last academic year, and became notorious for frequent ticketing by the police.The figure, released by Lincolnshire Police in response to a freedom of information request, covers the 12 months from August 1st, 2008 to August 1st, 2009. It is the equivalent of almost three parking tickets being issued every day for the entire year.

Phil Lindley is a third-year student who lives at Pavilions and says he received perhaps 25 or 30 tickets on Ruston Way last academic year. “I’ve lost count, literally,” he says.

At £30 a ticket, this one road will have raised over £30,000 for the police, and maybe more, as if a ticket is not paid within a certain amount of time the fine increases.

“Because everybody parked down there it was very lucrative for them.”

“The biggest mistake I made was not paying them off straight away… I’m sure I paid for [the police's] Christmas bonus.” In total, he thinks he may have paid £1,000 in parking fines last academic year.

Parking options for students in Lincoln are incredibly limited, though most advise students not to bring their cars. Even so, for those that do bring their cars, “It’s so restrictive round here if you want to park, it’s ridiculous,” says Mr Lindley.

At the Pavilions there are only 12 parking spaces available for students to use, despite the many parking bays in front of the complex’s residential blocks. Those spaces are inaccessible for car users for most of the academic year, kept behind a locked gate that residents can only go through on foot.

Priority for the few spaces goes to students on nursing and social work courses, and those wanting a spot have to write a letter or email explaining their need. Even then, the permits cost £400 for the academic year. Little wonder why so many students parked on Ruston Way’s pavement.

Those living in the student courts are also out of luck, as there is no on-campus parking for students (though students can use the university car park after 4.30pm on weekdays and at weekends). Similar to the Pavilions, there are parking spaces nearby, but are unavailable for use and signs warn of “24 hour clamping”.

Things are easier for students living in houses. For those that live in ‘Residential Parking Zones’, such as in the city’s West End, permits for on-street parking can be bought from Lincoln City Council.

However, since shared student houses are classed as “Houses in multiple occupation”, or HIMOs, students pay a fee of £52 per permit. This is double the £26 that an ordinary household would have to pay for its first permit. (A second or third permit would cost £52 each.)

For those whose can’t get parking at their accommodation, and still want to bring their cars, there is only really one option left: use an NCP car park. The company sells “season tickets” to its facilities, providing a month, three months, or a year’s worth of access.

But this does not come cheap. For a student who wants to have their car in Lincoln for the entire academic year, it would cost at least £680. On top of the cost, the location of the NCP car parks in Lincoln may mean a long walk before you can drive.

Nearly everyone recommends that students don’t bring their cars to Lincoln. The university’s Residential Services department, who are responsible for the student courts, say that everything in the city is so close you don’t need one.

Though he continues to bring his to university, Mr Lindley says his advice to first-year students would be to “only bring it if you absolutely need it.”

Another third-year student, Steve Ward, says: “Lincoln is a very small and compact city. You don’t really need a car to get around.” He admits that “the only reason I’ve got a car here is to do big shopping trips.”

Dance and drama students were the source of the most “definitely disagree” responses to the survey at Lincoln. The negative responses were largely focused on the feedback students received from tutors, and the way the course was organised and run.

A majority of students, 60%, thought the course was not well organised and did not run smoothly, while only a fifth said that it was. Last year just under a third of Drama students said their course was well run.

Half of the students who responded to the survey said they did not receive prompt feedback on their work, and a third said the feedback was not detailed. This is an improvement on last year, when just 11% of Drama students said they received prompt feedback.

When asked if the feedback had “helped [them] clarify things [they] did not understand,” 42% said it hadn’t, and no students said it “definitely” had.

Constantine Pavlou, a third-year drama student, says: “The course isn’t particularly well run, but the main problem is that they don’t have enough faculty [members], and the course is suffering because of this.”

The students were split on whether they had adequate access to specialist rooms and equipment, with 38% saying they did, and the same percentage saying they didn’t.

Pavlou says that you can get access to the studios “if you’re organised”, and that things are better now they have their own building, the Lincoln Performing Arts Centre (LPAC).

“But it can be difficult. [There are] over 500 students and we’ve got three studios. It’s still not enough. The facilities are good, but there aren’t enough of them.”

Professor David Sleight, Dean of the Faculty of Media, Humanities and Technology, says: “The National Student Survey is a vital tool, not just for identifying what we are doing well, but also what we need to improve.”

“Changes have already been made to address historic issues in terms of feedback and organisation within performing arts, and I am confident future survey results will reflect this.

“The results of a module satisfaction survey for BA Drama carried out this year present a more positive picture of student satisfaction than the NSS results, suggesting these changes have already had an effect. Student experience is of paramount importance to the university and we will be striving to make further improvements.”

Finance and Accountancy was the star of the show for the university, and was ranked first for student experience, out of 79 institutions.

That course had “definitely” negative responses to just four of the survey’s 22 questions, and all were low single-figure percentages. There were 12 questions with such responses for performing arts, and made up a fifth of all responses when students were asked about the course’s organisation.

Also coming to speak is Tom Bower, who won a libel case this summer brought by Richard Desmond, the owner of the Daily Express, who sued Mr Bower over allegations made against him in a biography of Conrad Black, the jailed former owned of the Telegraph newspapers.

Mihir Bose, a writer and journalist, and former sports editor at the BBC, will speak on November 16th.

Previous guest speakers include Will Lewis, editor-in-chief of the Telegraph Media Group, Nick Davies, a Guardian journalist and author of Flat Earth News.

The lectures usually take place on Mondays at 6pm, in the Cargill lecture theatre. Full details and dates of this semester’s events will be available in the coming weeks.

The department already provides free anti-virus to all students and staff. Mike Day, the head of the university’s IT department, says that the idea “is to make sure the student experience is safe” and the new system will allow them to be more proactive in making sure students have adequate anti-virus protection.

It will only be in use for students’ living in the university Courts at the Brayford Campus, and at Riseholme, and it is hoped that it will be fully operational by the time students come back from Christmas.

Mr Day says this is because first-year students often get their first “permanent” computer at Christmas.

The department hopes that for students it will be a seamless transition.

Mr Day says: “The process is the same that they’ll already go through now to get on to the network. It won’t look very different from the students’ point of view, but the checks in the background may well be different ones, more extensive as we roll this out.

”We really don’t want to shoot ourselves in the foot by introducing something that’s supposed to help and it actually doesn’t.“

To help this aim, Stuart Hickling, a desktop support officer, says: ”We’re not going to rush the process. If the consultations highlight problems we’ll go back and address them.

“We need user feedback to make sure that the process is simple and easy to follow.”

Ian Marshall, the university’s IT infrastructure manager, says another benefit is that it will be easier to connect gaming consoles to the network, though this may not happen straight away.

Privacy concerns were raised when Dan Derricott, a part-time Students’ Union officer, solicited student feedback on the idea and asked: “Would you be happy for the University to scan your PC? Surely it would just catch out those machines that could cause damage – or might it go further?”

But Mr Marshall is keen to stress that it would in no way infringe students’ privacy. He says: “None of these checks actually install anything on the machines. There is [a program] that runs, but it doesn’t stay on your harddisk or in your memory at all. It just runs and reports back.”

In addition, what is reported back is very limited, says Mr Day. “The only information we record is the fact that someone’s passed the checks and therefore they can access our system. That’s all that gets recorded.”

The university will benefit from the past experiences of other institutions, says Mr Hickling.

“We’re in the fortunate position that there’s 500 other institutions that are already using this system, 90 plus in this country. We’re liaising with other universities that are also using this system so we can benefit from their experience as well.”