buzz gives the Duke community a new means of communicating to students about major events.

Durham, NC - For the first time, Duke undergraduates now have a central place to publicize their events and search for activities planned primarily for students. buzz, a new online events calendar, was launched by the university today.

"Students had long requested a university-wide calendar for student activities -- both formal and informal," said Steve Nowicki, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education. "This was a major investment but it fit with our commitment to improving communication."

Deborah Johnson, assistant vice provost, is leading the rollout of buzz <buzz.duke.edu>. It uses the same Bedework software and complements Events@Duke, the university's main calendar which launched this fall. Featured events on Events@Duke -- including photos and the listing of the day's events -- are available on the buzz calendar site as well.

"The students said they liked Events@Duke, but they needed something more ‘student-friendly' that filtered events relevant to students," said Johnson, who during the fall led a student focus group that advised a team of representatives from the Offices of Information Technology, Student Activities and Facilities, and Undergraduate Education. Students came up with the name and categories such as "free food," she said.

They also helped with initial promotion ideas. Sophomore Brian Pike recommended coffee jackets advertising buzz that are now in use at several campus eateries and sophomore Liz Liang of the Duke Innovative Design Agency (DiDA) created a buzz poster campaign.

Pike also served on the buzz student advisory team, after creating an unofficial Facebook events calendar last year. "I think that it will make it significantly easier for students to work together," Pike said. "There wasn't any one place to find student events at Duke and this calendar will hopefully fix that."

Junior Chelsea Goldstein, a DSG officer, said she was pleased that students now have a forum to learn about and advertise events. "The main way to find out about campus events has been in the hundreds of blast emails sent out per day and in flyers on the quad," Goldstein said. "If you don't pass the right bulletin board on campus, you could miss something that you might want to attend."

Student involvement in submitting events and going to the site will be crucial to the success of buzz, Johnson said. Any Duke undergraduate with a valid ID can submit events to be reviewed and published on the new calendar.

In addition, designated student officers from organizations registered with the Office of Student Activities and Facilities can add events for their groups as well as publish events submitted by their fellow members. At this time, graduate and professional students will continue to use the event calendar that is sponsored and maintained by GPSC.

Events on buzz can be downloaded to a personal calendar, such as iGoogle, Outlook or iCal. Events also can be pulled as RSS feeds either into or onto websites to allow users to receive automatic notification of events posted by specific groups. This calendar is not a personal calendar, however, and does not include campus room reservation scheduling.

"We will be seeking input this spring from members of the Duke community about how the event calendars are meeting their communication needs, and use that input to guide us as we make improvements," Johnson said.