Portfolio : Events Website

On a campus with nearly 40,000 students, faculty and staff, there is plenty of activity. The institution offers a campus events calendar, managed by the IU system. The calendar was plagued with usability problems due to the IU system's design. The IUPUI Web Team realized the system's limitations and, after speaking with core audiences and campus administration, tackled a redesign of the IUPUI portion of the events calendar in 2005. After realizing many of the drawbacks of this system, OCM web specialist Chris Brown took on and coded a complete redesign in late 2008. The new website, Happening at IUPUI, offers significantly more functionality and customization then any previous iteration.

Multiple Media is Key

To reach the most students on campus, it is vital to position event data where they look. Simply placing event listings only on just one website - the campus events calendar - will not reach many students. A major element of the redesign was to allow data to be automatically pushed to other campus websites, and eventually entirely different media.

Event listings can now be found on several websites, including the campus website, OneStart, Student Life & Diversity "Life" website, and other frequently-visited campus pages. Additionally, tech-savvy students can subscribe to RSS Feeds, which allow them to add event listings to their web browser, homepage, or numerous other places. The calendar offers the ability to subscribe to specific feeds from different calendars. For example, see the Most popular calendars page for some idea of the diversity of different calendar groups.

Schools or departments can easily add event listings to their website, with no maintenance required. This helps further the campus goal of increasing retention, as well as awareness of the campus events we all spend so much time planning. Contact Chris Brown to discuss implementation on your site.