The Student Government Association moved forward with its plan to address the shortage of working microwaves on campus at their Feb. 23 meeting.

Jennifer Reichert, international studies sophomore and SGA senator, and Matt Owen, political studies junior and SGA senate chair, introduced a bill that would allocate SGA budget money for the purchase of three new microwaves.

The bill would set aside $500 for the purchase of the microwaves, including $250 originally intended to be spent on the Homecoming bonfire.

Stephon Moore, journalism and political science freshman and SGA press secretary, also presented his report from a survey the SGA conducted during the fall 2011 semester about the modes of communication available to students and the modes of communication students prefer to be notified on about campus events.

These survey results were used by Hunter Luthi, informatics senior and Gay Straight Alliance president, to design the new Organization Management System in order to better serve the needs of students and organizations on campus.

“The decision there was based on personal frustration with the old system, along with various comments from many student organization representatives who weren’t pleased with the old system,” Luthi said.

A modified version of OMS has already been launched and has replaced the old system of reporting iCHIPs and volunteer hours.
“The paper system was outdated and used Excel databases, which really didn’t do the job properly,” Luthi said.

Members of campus organizations agreed the old system did not meet their needs.

“The old system was a hassle,” Sean Welch, political science senior and president of the Civil Liberties Union, said. “Things got lost on paper, but now everything is done electronically.”

The OMS system will allow campus organizations to submit information about upcoming events to Student Life electronically.
Each event will then be assigned to one of eight categories — academics, arts, athletics, career development, dorms, Greek life, recreation and social issues.

Students will be able to log onto OMS and list their interests according to those categories and tags. They will then receive a weekly e-mail with all the upcoming events on campus that match their interests.

Because text messages can generally only contain enough characters to describe two events, Luthi said he is working on developing an algorithm that could determine which events would best fit a particular student’s interests.

The top two events that best match a student’s interests could then be texted to the student on a weekly basis.

“Think of interest-targeted advertising like Google, only less creepy because you’ll be selecting your interests yourself,” Luthi said.

Luthi said by April the categorization and tagging scheme should be in place.

The university will launch the system as a trial run during the summer months and by August events should be fully integrated.

“My principle goal for OMS is for it to revolutionize the way students get involved and share their events on campus,” Luthis said. “By integrating it with the social networking sites many students use today, I think it will make it easier for students to get the word out about their events and also make it easier for students on campus to become aware of upcoming events.”

Luthi said he welcomes any suggestions about how to improve the system.

“I can think it’s the easiest thing in the world to use,” Luthi said. “The goal is to get people trying it out and telling me what would work better.”

By AMANDA BROWN

Staff

anb4@umail.iu.edu