FOR
RELEASE: Sept.
10, 2012
EDITORIAL
CONTACTS: Quintina
Burton, 615-898-5143, quintina.burton@mtsu.edu or Gina E. Fann,
615-898-5385 or gina.fann@mtsu.edu
MURFREESBORO — Wondering what’s
happening tonight, tomorrow, this weekend or next month at MTSU?
Effective
today, the university now has a one-stop website for the campus community — and
the rest of the world — to learn about upcoming activities at MTSU: www.mtsu.edu/calendar.
Easily
searchable and with a website that’s easy to remember and bookmark, the final
version of the MTSU University Master Calendar has been in the works for
several months. A special Master Calendar Committee studied it from almost
every angle to make it easy to read, search and use.
“Our
university has been in need of a universitywide ‘master calendar’ for a long
time, and we are excited about its release. This project has been a campuswide
group effort,” said Quintina Burton, chairwoman of the special calendar
committee and a longtime member of MTSU’s Event Coordination staff.
“This
calendar has something for everyone! The overall goal was to create a calendar
for the surrounding Murfreesboro community as well as a useful calendar for
our MTSU campus community.”
The
calendar includes each event that’s scheduled in or at an MTSU facility and has
contact information as well as more details via a hotlink. Users can subscribe
to their selected calendar to get weekly updates via email, RSS or iCal
feeds.
Visitors
to www.mtsu.edu/calendar will
automatically see the top “featured events” for the coming two months when they
first arrive at the site.
They can then customize a search to find upcoming student
activities, athletics or arts events, special conferences or lectures, testing
and important student dates and deadlines, just to name a few.
Users also can get the full impact of the MTSU events
calendar by selecting “all” to see each day’s events in color-coded calendars.
The
new calendar is powered by the popular 25Live event scheduling and
publishing software. 25Live is a product of CollegeNet Inc., a
Portland, Ore.-based company that provides web-based on-demand technology used
by colleges, universities and nonprofits nationwide.
Events
that receive additional publicity from the MTSU Office of News and Media
Relations will include a link to the news articles, photos, etc., at their
new 25Live calendar listing too, organizers said.
MTSU
students who helped evaluate and tweak the calendar before the launch had good
things to say about it.
“This
calendar will be a great tool for anyone looking for something to do on campus,”
said mass communication major Robert Rittling.
“I like being able to add events to my calendar. I think that will be a
big hit with the students," added Jason Bandy, a senior majoring in
computer science.
Special
campus events also will be listed on the main MTSU.edu home page to catch
users’ eyes, officials said.
The university’s
WebViewer online calendar will continue to function, Burton said, but it now
will mostly be used to check room availability.
MTSU’s
facility booking procedures and policies to include events on the new calendar
will remain the same, and the list of authorized facility-scheduling
personnel has not changed. The website for that information is www.mtsu.edu/eventcoordination/studentinfo_evtcoord.php.
Each
scheduler will be asking for plenty of details from event organizers to ensure
thorough information for each calendar item, Burton said.
Suggestions
and input are welcome as users get accustomed to the new calendar, officials
said. Comments can be sent to evtcoord@mtsu.edu.
—30—
For MTSU news and information anytime, visit www.mtsunews.com.
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