Some countries have snow, others leafless trees, but the surest sign that Winter is in full swing across Australian campuses is when minor scuffles break out over allocations of helium balloons and bunting.

Yes, the annual fiesta of festooned faculties, decorated departments and camouflaged decay is upon us as universities across Australia dust off their plans for Open Day.

Because each event involves thousands of visitors, hundreds of staff and student ambassadors, wrangling with security staff, maintenance staff and committees with enough members to match the subsequent year’s intake, Open Days tend to be monolithic structures that roll in an almost continuous cycle of preparation, planning and post mortem.

Each Open Day at larger institutions costs anywhere from $100,000 to $300,000+, when advertising, bunting, lunch vouchers and student gift cards are totted up. That figure would grow substantially more if staff planning and participation was costed and factored in.

So why are they in August and what exactly do we all get out of them?

Research I conducted earlier this year with 1000 university students from a range of universities revealed that Open Days still play a significant role in influencing university choice – second only to the web. Yes, despite the gripes over lost banners, the risks of being found out by the brand police and that unshakeable groundhog day syndrome that makes many open day events feel tired, students still love the chance to walk the campus grounds, meet some bona fide lecturers and pick up another dozen brochures to cover over that empty patch of carpet under the bed.

More than 76% of the 1000 current students interviewed in my Twig Marketing survey this year said Open Days had had a significant influence over their choice of university – including the majority of Postgraduate students, despite the traditional emphasis of Open Day on undergraduate courses. Only the web rated higher as a source of influence over university choice (just over 80% of respondents). In the digital age, the ongoing prevalence of this traditional exhibition event is something of a surprise.

For academic staff, this is a useful reminder of the value of the day in the minds of the seething pile of potential students that are laying siege to their carefully-aligned brochure pile. It's also possibly a reminder of why you shouldn't post up hand scrawled signs, crusty old banners that have long passed their use by date and why you should hide the bunch of flyers designed by the Dean's nephew.

Experienced staff either cringe or revel at the chance to peddle their wares to a mob of would-be punters – but rarely proffer new ways to increase yield from their efforts. Most universities subscribe to a measurement philosophy based on the notoriously woolly counts of attendees – with the idea that a higher number of people attending is a good thing. With porous campus borders, counting left to students with a little clicker and little in-depth analysis of the profile of attendees, this is a less-than-rigorous analytical tool.

If there is an increase in attendance, and we establish that it is directly due to a splendid ad campaign and the prospect of giveaways from a local radio station, is that in itself important? Or does growth only become important if you can quantify how many of your extra visitors have a decent chance of achieving the institution’s entrance scores?

In the past, Open Days for institutions with high ATARs were plainly fairly inefficient beasts – attracting tens of thousands of visitors, of whom half or maybe a third find themselves within cooee of an entrance score that could see them study there in future. This meant that staff spent a minimal amount of time chatting with everybody, lots of people left with questions unanswered and the majority of students left partially happy.

Deregulation and the carrot of a mobile future student population post 2012 has suddenly cast a new emphasis on Open Days and while many institutions will undoubtedly unfurl the same old plan for bunting and balloons, there will be a bigger focus on Open Days and their potential outcomes this year.

Which leads to a second piece of research that I conducted at the VCE Expo in Melbourne earlier this year – which combined with the random survey interviews of 1000 university students mentioned earlier, provides some interesting insights into Open Day and the effectiveness of institutional communications generally.

Ultimately, students like Open Days not because they are there - not necessarily because they are great. From my own observation, having visited many; signage is often poor, information distributed is often confusing, and the valiant effort to mask old tired buildings with bunting and balloons serves only to highlight the shortcomings of old- fashioned facilities.

Out of more than 300 Year 11 and 12 students surveyed at Melbourne’s VCE expo in May 56% said university and TAFE marketing materials had little impact on their choice of University. This reflects the importance of improving the quality of communication across the board to students. My survey of the 1000 current university students found that only 53% of female students and 58% of international students felt they had found out all they needed to know before they enrolled.

Given the value placed by students on Open Day and ongoing shortcomings in the information provided to students, this research provides a strong mandate for reform and improvement of the traditional Open Day program.

Students want them, but some are ready for Open Days in April, having to wait out half the year to taste their education future. Others leave Open Day with more questions than they arrived with, and find it hard to follow up with staff from the coalface afterwards.

Because of the scale of the event and in particular the scale of the committees that run these events, Open Day innovation is almost a tautology – but it shouldn’t be.