University Business - May 2007 - (Page 75)

BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY Mark Your Online Calendar Some IHEs are using calendaring software to strengthen the bond with students. By Jean Marie Angelo R EMEMBER THE BULKY day planner? The mini-black notebook was de rigeur for the business executive of the 1980s. The portable planners were stuffed with addresses, agendas, day planners, and to-do lists. Today these applications, and many more, are now online, thanks to calendaring software. Several years ago online calendaring applications started surfacing as a companion to free e-mail services. Yahoo and Microsoft were early players. Google got on board last year. While the web traffic generated by online calendars is still a “drop in the bucket,” according to HitWise, a website that offers news and metrics regarding online trends, use is growing. The traffic for Google’s online calendar, for example, was up more than 300 percent between mid-2006 and January 2007. Still, the traffic probably accounts for less than 1 percent of the total for the search engine. Calendaring software developers are hoping that the use of the application will follow the same path as mapping. As more features—including new 3D graphics—are offered, more users are turning to the web first to check out the specifics on a geographic area and to get detailed directions. Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft’s MSN offer free calendaring for those who register with their websites. Apple includes its iCal application as part of the OS X system software. Users can “populate” these calendars with notes on special events and prompts for e-mail reminders, as well as include Those who want to meet can avoid the painstaking efforts of calling and e-mailing each other to check for free time. items that will repeat themselves daily, monthly, or annually. A note on someone’s birthday is a good example. Most useful—and fun—are personal settings that allow for customizing. Calendar programs generally let users create “sub-calendars.” One can be used just for career tasks, while another is reserved for volunteer duties, or a kid’s school schedule. Of course, favorite text colors and requests for e-mail reminders are available, too. If a user didn’t get to an event on a particular day, the item can be dragged and dropped onto a different day. Given that the calendars are browser-based, users can access them from anywhere, also as long as they remember their IDs and passwords. PUSHING INFORMATION TO STUDENTS Now that more are discovering online calendars, a new group of vendors is addressing other needs. Just this year Trumba introduced a “spud” in its software that lets a web manager turn a static list of events into a dynamic one. A student visiting a university’s website can not only read about an upcoming concert in the quad, but can also click on the text and opt to add the event to a separate online calendar. The idea behind the new technology is to encourage a student to add an event to an online calendar. Those who add an event to a calendar are more likely to attend, so thinks the executive team at Trumba. “The mission of a university is to offer a lot of events,” says Trumba CEO Jeremy Jaech. “They convene people to talk about things.” Naturally, he feels the higher education sector is ripe for using more applications that highlight online information for students and staff and that “push” this information onto personal online calendars. Currently one-third of Trumba’s 4,500 clients are colleges or universities, says Jaech. Others include media websites and corporations. Taylor University (Ind.), a private institution with close to 1,900 students, became a Trumba customer this past February. “We are using this for all sorts of events,” explains Evan Kittleman, director of online communications. The liberal arts college posts academic calendar events, which include alerts on registration, and notes on openings and closing, but also lists sports items and May 2007 | 75 universitybusiness.com http://universitybusiness.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - May 2007

Contents
College Index
Advisory Board
Company Index
Editor's Note
Behind the News
Viewpoint
Money Matters
Marketing
Human Resources
Financial Aid
Community Colleges
The Innocents Abroad
The Big Business of Research
What’s New in A/V
The Kids Are All Right
Designing a Unified Campus
Business Technology
What's New
Calendar of Events
Direct Connect
End Note

University Business - May 2007