Out of 185 links to student group websites on the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students’ student group directory, 53 prompt error messages or blank pages. Dozens more have not been updated this year.
With the majority of listed student group websites defunct and many more groups without any website, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Thomas Dunne hoped that ODUS could spark a new wave of student group blogs by sponsoring Blogfest 2010, which offered students free design consultations and the opportunity to register blogs on the Princeton domain over seven-hour sessions on Friday and Saturday. Roughly 15 members of the Student Design Agency helped 43 student groups create headers and design color schemes for new blogs, said SDA executive manager Rose Nguyen ’12, who helped manage the event along with fellow executive manager Calvin Lee ’12.
Dunne said he came up with the idea for the event this year after realizing that many student organizations lacked a sufficient web presence.
“Our student organizations are a very dynamic part of the undergraduate experience and showcase the immense talents and varied interests of our students,” Dunne explained in an e-mail. “This wasn’t translating online, as many groups did not have websites or had sites which were outdated … I felt like we needed to make it easier for students to establish an identity online.”
Dunne said that ODUS approached SDA earlier this year about an event to help student organizations set up blogs.
“We felt like good design was critical for the success of these blogs, and that designers could efficiently develop headers and site concepts which would make the sites look professional and translate well on the web,” he said.
While some organizations attended the event with certain visuals and logos in mind, others had very little idea of what types of graphics they wanted. But “for the most part, everyone has been pretty generous in giving us artistic freedom and trusting us to do what they want,” Lee said, adding that SDA has been careful to include the student group leaders in the design process.
“We make sure we get a really good idea of what kind of message they want to convey and what kind of feel they want to give to their audience, so that in the end, the product is something they’re really happy with and really expresses the purpose of the organization,” he said.
Dunne said that the turnout for Blogfest exceeded his expectations.
“We were hoping to establish 25–30 sites, but we [were] very very busy in our last hour and we will exceed 50 blog headers designed,” he explained. “We have seen a myriad of student groups come in, and people seem pleased with this new opportunity.”
While the SDA is no stranger to web design, Blogfest was a new experience, Nguyen said.
“We do have a web division where we create and design websites for organizations, but this is the first time we’ve done design specifically for blogs,” she explained.
Nguyen did not disclose how much SDA was paid for the event.
“First and foremost, we are a student business, but it’s very important for us to give back to the community, and we feel this is one way we can do that — by helping student organizations and ODUS with this event,” Nguyen said.
Lee explained that the group made a “special arrangement [with ODUS] to make sure that everything was reasonable and that ODUS isn’t spending a ton of money on this … but we still want to make sure all student organizations get very high quality work that they’re happy with,” Lee said.
The Office of Information Technology’s Princeton University Blog Service will provide technical support for these new blogs, though student groups will be in charge of site maintainance.
Hao Lian ’11 is the service’s newly appointed blog manager, answering student groups’ questions and maintaining his own blog with tips on using technology to promote groups.
“In our work with OIT, it became clear that we needed some dedicated staff to manage the work related to creating these sites,” Dunne explained.
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