11-12-09: Stanford: Editorial:Campus information needs to be centralized

Opportunities abound here at Stanford. Students are inundated with e-mails regarding everything ranging from events and internship opportunities, to fellowship applications and classes being offered in the coming quarter. Navigating the volume of flyers that cover campus and the e-mails that fill our inboxes in order to find what is meaningful is a challenge all are faced with. Unfortunately, the discussion of how information is disseminated through the student population is rarely entertained.

Finding ourselves situated in the heart of the Silicon Valley, a deep understanding of the power of access to information surrounds us. However, on campus we face not explicit barriers to access, but a disorganized array of information channels that leaves many students unaware of enriching and potentially life-changing resources.

The mission of Google–the archetypal Valley company–is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Asking merely if all information regarding campus resources is easily accessible to students–and the resounding “no” that question must be answered with–begins to frame the state of affairs regarding information on campus.

Students search principally for academic, extra-curricular and professional resources and events on campus. Many events are advertised through peer e-mails and, to a lesser degree, paper flyers and word of mouth. We on the Editorial Board believe it is quite unfortunate that student’s knowledge of events, internships and fellowships stems largely from how much e-mail spam they expose themselves to. Students new to campus are the most observable examples of the inability many have in finding their bearings in our environment of disparate information. Too often, searches for jobs, programming or support begin and end with similarly unconnected peers.

Pockets of information–ranging from myGroups and Resource 25, to the Web sites of the Undergraduate Advising and Research and Haas Center–begin to organize and make available sought-after data. A calendar of events open to the public and Coursework are illustrations of University attempts to share information. Substantially more powerful endeavors include the ASSU Events Calendar and CourseRank.

Though the aforementioned sites, along with overzealous e-mail campaigns and intentional Facebooking, can be powerful and beneficial, the Editorial Board challenges our peers to conceive alternate models of sharing knowledge. Changing outcomes through increased opportunity–through models or tools that would demand less student initiative in order to more readily access relevant information–should be the aspiration.

One potential model for a tool that could enhance awareness of campus opportunities would be a Bloomberg software-type model. This business software aggregates countless news source streams, along with real-time market tracking and company- and executive-specific data. A Web site or tool built for campus could gather and organize date from e-flyers and published calendars, as well as content from campus publications and departments. Student group and resource center streams could be made available, along with a searchable tool for fellowships and other scarcely-known niche grants. Though difficult to engage and align, matching students who have received a grant or been a part of a program with that specific grant’s or program’s information would be greatly beneficial.

Though a difficult undertaking, the student and administrative knowledge-sharing that would occur, even in preliminary discussions of such a venture, would go a long way toward helping students understand all that is available to us on campus. Many university and student resources strive to help students develop themselves and build skills to be able to contribute to our campus and broader society. Through more powerful and effective forms of information distribution and communication, we believe these goals can be met more consistently and significantly.

http://www.stanforddaily.com/cgi-bin/?p=1035861