The new program OrgSync has brought an ease of communication and structure to on-campus organizations.
OrgSync provides administrators with demographic information on students to find out who is actually involved in organizations. It is mandatory for all organizations to have an OrgSync page.
“When I checked last week we had over 1,400 students registered in organizations through OrgSync,” Program Adviser Sara Ann Suwalski said. “We had no way to measure involvement in the past.”
A one-page student profile provides information on students, similar to Facebook. Students can easily navigate the site to find organizations they may be interested in and join by simply submitting their reason for wanting to join to the organization through OrgSync.
“We just ask that organizations have an updated profile, so a student can learn more about the organization,” Suwalski said.
A shared calendar for administrators and organizations creates a structured visual of when meetings and events will take place so that there will be fewer time conflicts. Students will also be able to view the calendar to see what time their organization or any other organization meets.
According to Office Manager of the Oshkosh Student Association Susan Jaeke, the program will present the ability for all organizations to easily build a Web site for their organization without the necessary Web knowledge and skills.
A student will be hired for the spring 2010 semester to build Web sites for all interested organizations.
“Our goal is for all student organizations to have a Web site by the end of the school year,” Jaeke said. “There were bigger organizations that could have a Web master to make their name known on campus, and then there were the little organizations that didn’t have that capability.
We wanted to even the playing field. OrgSync gives every student organization the ability to have some kind of Web presence and to be able to reach the greater campus community of students.”
President of the Society of Human Resource Management Jared Holewinski has been actively using OrgSync for his organization since the beginning of the school year.
“SHRM was looking for a new way to design our chapter Web site,” Holewinski said. “OrgSync has a built-in page creator that helped us create a site that was valuable for our organization. OrgSync also automatically updates our Web site when we make changes within our OrgSync account, so it has made it very easy for us.”
The program was awarded $16,500 from the student technology fee, which will cover the service for the next three years, according to Director of Academic Computing in Information Technology Laura Knaapen.
OSA Speaker Pro Tempore David Litman has been involved in the implementation of many features for OrgSync. He also used the program for his own organization where he is the Model United Nation’s representative for OSA.
“For my organization, Model UN, it has been a very useful tool in recruitment and communication,” Litman said. “Currently we have over 20 members on our portal who have easy access to information regarding meetings, events and other general information about our organization. It has also been popular with some members who wish to get credit for their extracurricular activities through the extracurricular transcript that is created through OrgSync.”
OrgSync has been so successful that other departments have shown interest in joining to better communicate with students.
This option is only being explored, since there are so many other steps to complete first.
“For only being on campus for about two months and to have about 12 percent of the student body actually involved in OrgSync, I think is a pretty good start for the year,” Suwalski said.
Not all organizations have become accustomed to OrgSync just yet. Anthropology club president Laura Leyh believes Facebook is a better outlet to reach students because OrgSync is only used for organizations.
“Because not many students use it, we as a club have to include and update other Web areas for students to access easier requiring more time,” Leyh said.
OrgSync came to campus at the beginning of the school year to train students and staff and will continue to offer training during the entire year.
“Its going to be a gradual education and training process throughout this whole school year,” Jaeke said. “And next year we will start all over again.”
In the UW System, UW-Eau Claire and UW-Stout also use OrgSync. UW-La Crosse and UW-Platteville use the program Collegiate Link, which was another program UW-Oshkosh had explored, according to Suwalski.
“It’s not unusual that this is the direction that student organizations are going,” Suwalski said. “Folks are starting to look at different ways that we can get to better outcomes through better practices.”
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