New University Events Calendar Is Now in Service
A new online events calendar is now in production at http://events.msu.edu.
The calendar is powered by software known as vtCalendar. Developed at Virginia Tech, the software is an “open source” tool designed specifically to meet the needs of a university. Features of the new calendar include:
- The calendar provides Day, Week, or Month views.
- You can search for events using a variety of filters, such as “Academic” or “Athletic” or “Training.” Major academic dates have been loaded into the calendar.
- You can subscribe to events by category and load events information to Apple’s iCal or Mozilla’s calendar (Microsoft Outlook is not yet supported). Alternatively, you can download individual events in ICS format for loading into your portable digital assistant or other local calendar.
The main events calendar will include events that are of interest to the entire university or a substantial segment of the campus community and/or the public. For details, please click on “About Events Calendar” while visiting events.msu.edu
The software was selected by the MSU Web Team, a joint effort of University Relations and Libraries, Computing, and Technology, after extensive consultation with calendar content providers. Loriane Hodack of University Relations edits the new calendar. “The calendar is an effective tool for campus units to reference when making decisions to schedule their own events,” says Hodack.
The software allows colleges, departments, or registered affinity groups on campus to create their own “sub-calendars.” If you wish to explore this option, please visit http://events.msu.edu and select the Contact Us link.
The Libraries, Computing & Technology Training Program will offer a series of Events Calendar classes. In order to help members of the MSU community take advantage of this new tool, the Office of Vice Provost for Libraries, Computing & Technology will provide funding for the initial set of classes so that there is no charge to departments. Further information regarding the class schedule is located at http://train.msu.edu with online enrollment available at http://lcttpenroll.msu.edu. The course number is ECA 100 and classes are currently scheduled for September 7th, October 3rd, November 1st, and December 5th.
The new events calendar is also linked from the main MSU home page at www.msu.edu, along with a variety of other calendars that serve specialized purposes at the university.
