Students overwhelmed by messages: too much noise, too little use

UM seeks to improve student communication, appointing coordinators to bring order to the chaos

09-07-2026 · Background

Too much, too vague, overly detailed or simply irrelevant: Observant found that students at Maastricht University feel overwhelmed by the flood of information coming at them from the university and its faculties, ranging from newsletters and Canvas announcements to social media posts and noticeboard messages. The university acknowledges the issue and has begun to take steps to address it. But it works both ways, says Tom Nobbe, programme manager for modern digital communication at UM. “Students have to want to stay informed – that’s their responsibility.”

This article was first published on 07-10-2025.

“I get email notifications on my phone, sometimes as many as twenty in one day”, sighs a second-year student. And yes, she reads them all, afraid of missing something. “But is it really necessary? The senders think everything is equally important, but most of the time I wonder: why do I need to know this? Especially when it has nothing to do with my own programme.” A third-year student agrees: “Sometimes I can’t see the wood for the trees. I only really pay attention if I’m waiting for a grade or have a deadline coming up.”

This article stems from years of student complaints about the way the university communicates. Observant has repeatedly heard the issue raised in Faculty Council meetings and discussions with student representatives. The same frustration came up in conversations with around sixty students for this piece. Their main gripe is the sheer volume – not just the number of messages and announcements, but also the multitude of communication channels they come through: from email, Canvas and digital noticeboards to poster campaigns, social media and WhatsApp.

Students say they feel “overwhelmed” by messages and, what’s more, “we often don’t even know why we’re getting them”. A first-year student says she receives emails about assignments for third-year students. Others can’t always see the point of certain messages: “They’re about everything from general university announcements to obituaries.” And: “Why can’t everything just be in one place? That would make things so much clearer.”

Tuition fees

Most of the students interviewed say they only skim messages, which means they risk missing something. One student has created separate folders in her email inbox “to categorise everything first and read it later”, but the system doesn’t always work. A few months ago, she lost track of several important emails, including ones about paying tuition fees. “I couldn’t find them again in the haystack. I may have accidentally deleted them.”

“Here, have a look”, says a second-year student, opening her inbox. A long list of emails appears, many of them forwarded from Canvas. This online learning platform is used to share information not just about modules students are enrolled in, but also about assignment and application deadlines, updates about electives, exam dates, tutor messages and rescheduling notices. All those notifications end up in students’ inboxes. “It’s so chaotic. You have to actively filter them”, complains a third-year student. He knows he could turn off notifications, but he doesn’t want to miss anything important. “We even get a notification when a tutor posts something like ‘Looking forward to seeing you all tomorrow’”, says a first-year student. “Seriously? Please teach professors how to communicate through Canvas. Not everything is important – it just creates noise.”

Vision

Programme manager Tom Nobbe, in charge of improving student communication at UM, isn’t surprised by these examples. Yes, students receive a lot of information, he says, and their complaints have reached the Executive Board as well. Plans for improvement have been in the works for some time. Or, as Nobbe puts it: “In late 2023, early 2024, the Executive Board and the deans adopted a new vision for student communication.” But before they could start discussing practical ideas, such as IT changes, the threat of government budget cuts put a spanner in the works. “We then had to look at what we could still do under the current circumstances”, says Nobbe.

For Bram van den Berkmortel, a student and University Council member (LEX-Motus), student communication has been a concern for some time. He has found that there are considerable differences between faculties. When he was studying at the Faculty of Law, he received far more emails than he does now as an FHML student. “Law has a weekly digital newsletter, Law Student Messages, with everything from general announcements to deadline information. The faculty had a student assessor investigate how many students actually read the newsletter. It turned out that almost half of them read it only occasionally or not at all. I myself only realised after four years that Law Student Messages is the faculty’s main communication platform.”

In 2023, Observant already reported that many students at the Faculty of Law seemed unaware of the digital newsletter’s existence. At a Faculty Council meeting last year, some suggested simply sending more emails to get information across instead. In a recent response, the faculty’s Education Office stated, “Law Student Messages is our main channel for sharing education-related and other important information with students. The platform is generally appreciated.” “At FHML, we get course-specific messages, making it easy to spot the important ones”, says Van den Berkmortel. In a response to Observant, FHML explained, “In our experience, most people don’t read emails carefully, especially if they get a lot of them. That’s why we only use email in exceptional cases.”

Fragmentation

The above illustrates the fragmentation of student communication at UM, says Nobbe – not just in terms of channels, but also in terms of who communicates what. “With the best intentions, multiple people send out information on their own initiative. Sometimes it’s the Education Office, other times the Marketing and Communication department. People often forget to look at the bigger picture and consider how students experience it. That needs to change.” As a first step towards improvement, the university has decided to appoint “student communication coordinators”. “Each faculty will have one, as will the library, the Student Services Centre (SSC) and the Maastricht University Office (MUO).”

After all, in addition to information sent out by individual faculties, students receive general university updates via a weekly UM newsletter. “The SSC also sends messages at our request – infrequently, a few per month at most – about topics such as the university elections, national strikes, or last year’s education budget cuts and internationalisation debates”, explains UM spokesperson Koen Augustijn.

Most of the students interviewed by Observant admit they “don’t really read” the university newsletter. They’re simply not interested: “The information isn’t specifically for me. It’s not about my own programme or faculty.” A few, however, say they appreciate the university-wide updates. “I think it’s good to know UM’s position on major developments, like the situation in Gaza or protests against budget cuts”, says a master’s student.

Coordinators

To avoid days when twenty messages go out at once, the student communication coordinators – “Hopefully they’ll start before the end of the year” – will need to consult with each other on a regular basis, says Nobbe. “We’ll also need to think more carefully about the right channel and audience for each message. Should it be sent by email, posted on noticeboards or included in a newsletter?”

The faculties, library, SSC and MUO will first have to decide internally how to shape the new role of student communication coordinator within their own organisations. “While they’re free to do this as they see fit, the idea is that someone will be asking the question ‘How do we communicate with students?’ on a daily basis. It isn’t just an extra task – proper resources will need to be allocated to it”, says Nobbe. He adds that there will be no additional funding for the role: “Effective communication is a core activity.”

The IT side is also being reviewed for possible improvements. “We want to make the information channels we currently use more accessible.” Details are still being worked out, including what form this might take. “The aim is to have as much information as possible in one place, where students can access it as needed.” It’s still too early to tell whether something like a platform or dedicated app will be introduced, says Nobbe. “It doesn’t need to be a long and complicated project, but we felt it was more important to first overhaul the organisational side.”

Finally, he points out that the responsibility for effective communication does not rest solely with the university. “Ultimately, it also depends on students being willing to read what we send. They have a responsibility to make an effort to stay informed. It works both ways: if we communicate more deliberately, students are more likely to pay attention. But if they don’t, no amount of communication will make a difference.”

About this article

For this article, Observant spoke to around sixty students at all faculties in the city centre and Randwyck. These informal interviews were held over several days at random times during the past spring. Students were asked what kind of information they receive, how they experience the way the university communicates and – if relevant – what could be improved. Observant also contacted the Faculty of Law about Law Student Messages, as well as the communications departments of UM, the Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences (FHML), the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS) and the School of Business and Economics (SBE) to ask how they communicate with students.

SBE already has a communication linchpin

To the School of Business and Economics, the role of student communication coordinator is not entirely new. For several years, Loes Pustjens has kept a close eye on who communicates what, where and how at SBE. She advises internal – and occasionally external – parties and keeps in touch with contacts such as student and career advisers and the Education Institute. “If someone wants to get a message out, they come to me”, she explained to Observant in a written response. “We then identify the target audience and I draw up a communication plan.”

SBE students receive information through various channels, including social media, digital screens and email – one of the main communication platforms. “Where we post something depends on the topic. We try to distinguish between need-to-know and nice-to-know information. It’s not always easy – what’s vital to one person might be completely irrelevant to another”, explains Pustjens. Certain information, however, must be communicated by the faculty. “Take the course registration deadline. If we don’t communicate it, our timetable coordinators run into trouble. For information like that, we send a targeted email.”

“We only use Canvas in exceptional cases, such as emergencies, but we prefer not to. Course-specific information shouldn’t get lost amid announcements by the faculty. Canvas isn’t designed for student communication.”

Nice-to-know information – such as student job vacancies – is shared via the monthly newsletter, on the screens and through social media. According to Pustjens, the emails and monthly newsletter are generally well read. “But we’ve also heard from students that they receive a lot of information, sometimes so much that messages get overlooked. I understand that. Every student has different information needs, and our systems aren’t set up to accommodate that. It would be nice if we could find a different way to communicate with students."

"I think ideally there would be a kind of app where students can choose which topics matter to them – vacancies, mental health – while still allowing the faculty to ‘push’ important messages, such as information about exams, registrations or emergencies.”