Events and Scheduling Office

Stakeholder: Lisa Ayers
Current: http://www.middlebury.edu/administration/schedule/
WebRedo Contact: Ryan Kellett

General: Events Scheduling and Information Office has the goal of integrating the scheduling and sharing events information with the Middlebury College campus. It serves as the Functional Administrator of Resource 25 (fully hosted by Midd) for facilities and events scheduling management, maintains the “Events at Middlebury” website (http://cat.middlebury.edu/events/ ), and produces the table tent dining hall calendars.  The Master Location Schedule (http://r25web.middlebury.edu/wv3midd/wv3_servlet/urd/run/wv_space.DayList) is a component of Resource 25, also maintained by the Events Scheduling Office.  The Guide to Academic Facilities website (http://cat.middlebury.edu/events/facilities/) maintained by LIS, is linked to Resource 25 and is utilitized extensively by the campus community.  The work flow for scheduling is managed through a series of online forms, recently upgraded using sites.middlebury.edu and soon to be shared with the campus.

Goals:
  • Resource 25: Keep CollegeNET’s R25 in increased capacity. CollegeNET’s goal is to be 100% web based by 2011.  A component of the current version of R25, Webservices, has not yet been implemented.  Webservices will be necessary to advance our use of R25.  25Live is a recent release from CollegeNET and will allow for many of the advancements that are desired for Events at Middlebury (http://corp.collegenet.com/depts/higher_ed/series/25Live/ ). Using a vendor with the technical support offered by this option allows for a reduction in support required from Middlebury’s web management staff and sustainability when there is Middlebury staff turnover.
  • One Stop Shop: R25 must be deployed in such a way that every dept, office, and stakeholder buys-into it its use as the universal scheduler. Currently, too many redundant efforts are made to recreate calendars separate from R25. This contributes to errors and inaccuarcies in event information and prohibits communication when late changes are made that require notification (change of time, location, cancellations, etc.)
  • Event Marketing and Campus Announcements: The Events at Middlebury site should be enhanced to serve as a tool for distribution of College Announcements, highlighting key events information and bring comfort to events planners that their events are being advertised in such a way as to change behaviors and reduce or eliminate the needs for All Campus emails for this purpose.
  • Event Feed: Users should be able to use event feeds for whatever purpose they choose. RSS and iCal support are highly encouraged such that users do not have to use Outlook. Feeds can also be placed on CMS pages and pulled into individual portals. Departments should be able to to pull information from R25 for their department sites as needed to facilitate a one entry point calendaring process.  This would allow for accuracy and consistency of information while enabling an appearance of a specialized calendar for those departments who desire a calendar presented on their web site.  Events information should be able to be shared with users in such a way as to allow for attention to be brought to events of each users’ interest as opposed to them having to weed through a long list to find their interests.   All of these tools should be supported in such a way as to advance in concert with technology changes to continue to bring value to the students and departments and reduce the possibilities of underground calendars being developed because Middlebury’s no longer serves the needs of the changing population and the technical advances.
  • Facilities View: Easy and fast CMS updates to view spaces on campus. Also, need for multimedia presentation of spaces (photos, videos, and configurations of tables/chairs) and the support to keep this information current. Also dynamic listing of room features (smart classrooms, technologies that is clearly understood by the lay person considering space options prior to reserving a room).
  • Master Location Schedule: Continue to offer to the campus
  • Events at Middlebury: Major redesign for ease-of-use with multiple views (month, week, day). Need to preserve sortability by categories and depts. Equal representation of events (“objectivity”) such that no event is advertised better than another.
  • External Events calendaring:  Enable a separate calendar that allows for marketing of off site events (such as those planned by College Advancement, Admissions, etc.)
  • Multimedia: ability to pair pictures or other media with an event so that it can be marketed with that media. It is more attractive on Events at Middlebury website. Must be user-uploaded pictures.
  • Payment system: allow for a built-in payment system to register and pay for events. Some box office functionality.
  • Event Alerts: opt-in/opt-out alert system (email? or message to portal?) for event changes and cancellations
  • Broadcasting: Broadcast “Today’s Events & Today’s Announcements” visually at other places on campus at physical locations (grille, library, dining halls). And/or one daily email announcement with direct feed from R25.
  • Security/Privacy: segment views of events for faculty, staff, students, other. Protect certain events from being over-attended.
  • Monterey: Enable these features to be used by Monterey as they are already sharing R25

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