Each year, approximately 80-100 campus faculty, staff and students are trained to be Registered Calendar Authors. Training can be done as a group, or arranged as a one-to-one orientation session. Training takes about 30-45 minutes, and is easy for any level of computer user to learn quickly. Training includes not only learning about the University Calendar format for posting events, but also tips on making your postings more effective, and utilizing the University Calendar's shortcuts to save time and effort.

Author training also will give you examples of how the University Calendar can be incorporated into your own area website. Once you incorporate the Calendar you're your site, customized RSS feed of your events are always current for your site visitors to explore, thereby increasing awareness of those public events, engagement and scholarship that your area makes available to the campus and community.

There are several types of registered authors: 1) the department author, who posts for a college, department, office or unit; 2) the student author, who posts for a registered student organization, and 3) the advisor author, who authorizes student author postings. Groups or areas posting 10 events or more each semester should appoint a registered author to take training and be responsible for posting events. Those having less than 10 events in a semester can post as a non-registered author. Questions about becoming an author, or scheduling a training session, please contact Deb Wylie at 438-2937.

Download the University Calendar Author Guide

RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated digital content, such as calendar schedules and events. RSS feeds allow for University Calendar events from a specified college or department to be included in that academic unit's Web site. RSS formats are specified in XML (a generic specification for data formats). RSS delivers its information as an XML file called an 'RSS feed', 'webfeed', 'RSS stream', or 'RSS channel'.

Contact Institutional Web Support Services at (309) 438-8835 for more information about implementing an RSS feed into your Web page.

1) Why is posting my event to the University Calendar important?

The University Calendar strives to be the central resource of information about events and outreach occurring at Illinois State University. Posting your event on the University Calendar is a quick and easy way to promote your event to the campus and to the community. It is free to use, and when everyone on campus uses the calendar to promote their events, any visitor to the Calendar can see at-a-glance what all is going on at ISU.

2) Who will see my posted event?

Currently, the University Calendar has over a quarter of a million visitors a year. Of those visiting, there are campus community members such as students, faculty and staff, alumni and annuitants. From the extended community there are prospective students, parents, other University and educational institutions, business and governmental agencies, philanthropic and media partners in addition to individuals and families from communities, local and beyond.

3) How soon after I post my event does it appear on the Calendar?

If you are a registered author, your posting will appear immediately once you click SAVE. If you are a non-registered author, your event will appear as soon as it is approved (within 1-3 hours during regular work week hours-within 1-2 days if your event is submitted over the weekend).

4) What kinds of information do I put in the extra definition boxes?

Additional information can be added such as: an agenda of the event; registration directions; a bio on a guest lecturer or performer; a short description of the charity your event is supporting through outreach (like a fundraiser); a short description about the group that is sponsoring the event; when events have multiple sponsors-use a description box to give appropriate credit to all sponsors involved; if the event encompasses an issue-use the description box to refer readers to other sources where they can learn more or get involved in addition to your event; donation information (do you want your event participants to donate food or school supplies?); if you are meeting off-campus you may want to use a box for driving and/or parking directions; etc. These fields are a tool to help you market your event and to add essential information that will be helpful to attendees to know.

5) Where do I find out about semester breaks, holidays, the first day of classes?

The Academic Calendar is located several times on the main calendar page. One place is just below the University Calendar header in the Announcements, Academic Calendar Dates 2006-2010. The remaining places are located at the bottom of the University Calendar page. Scroll down the page after the day's listing of events and the Current Semester Calendar is listed there. Below that are hyperlinks for future semesters. Click on either hyperlink for a multi-year overview of academic dates, holidays, administrative dates, etc.

6) What if there are multiple postings showing on the Calendar for the same event?

If you notice a duplication of the same event, please contact Deb Wylie at (309) 438-2937, or email to dkwylie@ilstu.edu.

All Postings Need:

1) A Title: The title should inform the reader. Which is better?

RSO Meeting -or- Colleges Against Cancer Meeting with Guest Speaker

2) A Description: Your description can foster interest and excitement to the reader to be involved in the event you have planned. Describe your event or activity with clarity and enthusiasm. The description is your opportunity to 'invite' your campus and community members to your event, activity, meeting, fundraiser, etc.-make it compelling!

3) PSO Event: Does your event seek to provide a service or opportunity to the public community in support of the public good? Are you providing a lecture or event that is open to the public? Are you hosting a fundraiser or a food drive type of event that will benefit a charitable cause? Are you offering your expertise and abilities to schools, churches, other organizations to enhance their well-being through education, artistic performance, wellness, skills training, etc.?

4) Date, Time and Location: Use the pull-down menus to complete these areas. Use AM and PM designations, and if you don't know when your event will end, make your best guess and enter that. The location pull-down menu is linked to the ISU Campus Map, so your event audience can immediately identify how to find where your event is being held.

Make sure that your information for your event is accurate. If an event is changed, postponed or canceled, the correct information needs to be on the calendar as soon as you know it!

5) Event Details-Department: Registered Authors will see the college, department, unit, or RSO they author for automatically appear in this field. Non-Registered Authors will have this field completed by the Calendar Administrator once the event is submitted.

6) Topic: Choose from a list of over 50 topics the one that represents your event best. Although this field does not appear on your final event posting, choosing a topic can help Calendar visitors when they search for all events under that topic name.

7) Activity Type: Choose one from the pull-down menu: Event, Sporting Event, or Meeting.

8) Additional Information (not searchable)-Label 1 and Description: Authors can use these fields to elaborate more about the event, provide an agenda for the event (if applicable), give some biographical info about a guest speaker or performer, provide directions if an event is held off-campus, etc. Subheaders are available to use or not use, according to the author's discretion.

9) Fee: Will you be charging a fee for your audience to attend this event or activity? You have 4 fee boxes and titles to work with in this area. The TOP boxes are text boxes only. The top boxes would be where you place information like: Adult Ticket, Child Ticket, Sr Citizen Ticket, or; Student, Fac-Staff, Public, or; use the first top box to enter FREE or Please Register. BOTTOM boxes are for NUMBERS ONLY. If the admission fee is 5.00, just enter the numerals and the decimal point. If you place any words or symbols in the bottom field other than numbers, you will likely get an error when you try to save your event.

10) Note: Check box if the event you are posting is suited for a more mature audience. Some events such as lectures, movies or exhibits that have mature themes or are more designed for a collegiate or professional audience can utilize this box. This is left to the discretion of the author and associated department or unit area.

11) Event's Sponsor Information: It is important that you complete each section of this part. Sponsor Name will be your department, college, RSO, etc and you can enter the name of who can be reached as well. Example: Gamma Gamma Rho: Deb Smith. Phone and Email contact should be filled in so that interested audiences and media can contact you for more event information. The final field can either be your event website (if you have created one), or minimally, your department, unit or RSO homepage. This will give readers a chance to view your site!

Calendar URL

View the calendar at
www.calendar.ilstu.edu

Contact Info

Deb Wylie
University Calendar Coordinator
Phone: (309) 438-2937
Alt Phone: (309) 438-5288
FAX: (309) 438-5069
E-mail: dkwylie@ilstu.edu

Campus Address

University Calendar
Illinois State University
4090 Extended University
Normal, IL 61790-4090

Street Address

Extended University
Attn: University Calendar
305 S. Linden St., Ste. 201
Normal, IL 61761

History

The Illinois State University Calendar began in 1997 as a collaborative project that involved Conference Services, Extended University (EU), Administrative Information Systems (AIS) and Instructional Technology Services (now known as Instructional Web Support Services IWSS). It was developed in-house by Ray Smock and fellow programmers within AIS and given its design look and web integration through IWSS. The first coordinator of the University Calendar, from 1997-1999 was Anita Revelle, who now administers the Senior Professionals Program.

Jason Van Heuklon held the coordinator position for the University Calendar through 2002 and was instrumental in the process of a calendar redesign during the summer of 2002. Jason serves currently as the contact in Illinois State University's Conference Services for non-academic space scheduling.

From 2002 to the present, Deb Wylie has served as the University Calendar coordinator as part of the Public Service and Outreach support services within Extended University.

The Present

This year, calendar growth has surpassed all previous years in numbers for events posted. Over 3400 events for 2006 have been entered by approximately 150 campus authors. The number of colleges, departments and centers on campus utilizing the University Calendar RSS feed to their respective home pages has risen significantly from 2004-2006. The newly designed Illinois State University home page has included a sampling of each day's events on the main site for visitors to see.

The Future

In the coming years, the goal of the University Calendar is not only to serve as a resource for promoting University events and activities, but to also to communicate to campus and to the community-at-large a broader reflection of the outreach work performed in service and community engagement. Developing the University Calendar to a fuller potential as an outreach medium will serve to increase awareness of the University's commitment to engagement and scholarship through events and service.

We are in the process of evaluating calendar systems that will provide for growth in current capacities and services to calendar authors and visitors. Various authors from campus will be asked to participate in the testing process before a final selection is made. A general announcement will be made to the campus community when a calendar transition is imminent and inform authors of when new training sessions will be available.

FY2006
Calendar Authors	272
Events Posted	3087
Visitors	229,686
Visits	364,517