Duke Launches New Online Events Calendar
Monday, August 11, 2008
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Durham, NC -- Members of the Duke University and Triangle communities will be able to search more easily for concerts, films, lectures, games and other events at Duke with a new online events calendar the university launched officially on Monday.
The calendar, at http://calendar.duke.edu/, is compatible with standard personal calendar tools. Users can subscribe to RSS feeds to receive automatic notification of events posted by specific groups, during particular time periods or in categories such as arts, sports or religion.
“We expect this new calendar to highlight Duke’s rich cultural and arts scene, promote collaboration across academic disciplines, help our students get involved in activities and strengthen ties between the university and its neighbors,” said Provost Peter Lange, the university’s chief academic officer. “It should become a popular resource both on campus and with the many people who visit Duke.”
Deborah Johnson, assistant vice provost, is leading the rollout of the new calendar, which was developed over the past several months and has been operating on a temporary basis since mid-July.
“This tool grew out of the collaborative efforts of faculty, students and staff,” she said. “After listening closely to what users want in a calendar, we developed a system that enables departments to retain editorial oversight and publish to multiple calendar sites simultaneously. It also gives users a better experience.”
The calendar highlights several events of special interest. Users also are able to sort quickly through all of the upcoming events to view those within specific categories or dates. Ongoing events, such as art exhibits, are featured in a separate section, thereby reducing clutter in the listings of daily events.
Duke developed the new calendar using open-source software called Bedework, the same technology used for calendars at other universities, including the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Cornell University and the University of Chicago.
Ginny Cake, assistant chief information officer for Duke’s Office of Information Technology, said a team of technical experts from across the university selected the software after reviewing multiple products.
“We were guided by what students, faculty and others at Duke told us they needed,” Cake said. “People search for information in different ways, so we tried to provide a solution that will serve a technically savvy user who is comfortable with RSS feeds, as well as a local resident who just wants to skim through Duke’s website to find something fun to do this weekend.”
In addition to designated individuals who will publish events for their school, department or other unit, any member of the Duke community with a valid ID can submit events to be reviewed and published on the new calendar. In July, Duke began training staff members and others about how to enter events into the new system.
“Duke’s previous calendar was a ‘temporary’ solution that ended up lasting for more than five years,” Johnson said. “This new version is a significant improvement and will go a long way toward highlighting the wealth of events and opportunities that Duke has to offer to its students, neighbors and others.”
