Use new electronic form to send data to Reporter calendar

By ARTHUR PAGE
News Services Director

Maximizing the use of new technology, the Office of News Services has developed an electronic submission form located on the Reporter Web site to collect data for the weekly calendar that appears in the newspaper's print and electronic versions.

The form has been tested by a group of 10 campus users during the fall semester and with the next issue, the Reporter is opening use of the electronic submission form to all individuals who submit information for the calendar. The deadline for receiving calendar information remains noon on the Thursday prior to the issue in which the information is intended to appear.

Use of the form will be optional through the end of January.

Beginning with the Reporter issue of Feb. 5, the electronic form will become the only way to submit information for the calendar.

The form, as well as directions for using it, can be accessed at http://www.buffalo.edu/reporter/cgi/input.html

It was developed based on the recognition that all those who traditionally have submitted information for the calendar by campus mail, fax or e-mail have access to a computer and can access the form, either in their offices or in a nearby university computer lab.

While those submitting information traditionally have used their own formats-some clear, others more perplexing and difficult to decipher-the electronic submission form asks for consistent information in an orderly fashion. Users enter the information into fields, and have an opportunity to view their entries before being asked to make the submission final.

The entries, in turn, can be downloaded by the Reporter staff in the font and type size used in the calendar. While the staff still must proof the copy, the new process eliminates the need to sort large stacks of paper entries and to keyboard entries, freeing staff to handle other Reporter responsibilities.

Those submitting information for the calendar have the option of doing entries on a week-to-week basis, or submitting information for multiple weeks all at once.

The new form has proven to be efficient for users, as well as for the Reporter staff.

Among those participating in the pilot program has been Necia A. Black of Academic Services CIT, who has used the form to submit information for ASCIT workshops that are held weekly on campus. This semester alone, she estimates, there have been some 70 workshops.

Black admits that she was "dismayed" when, as a member of the test group, she realized she was being asked "to 'type in' all the separate workshops on a Web form.

"However, I soon learned that the form was very much to my benefit," she adds. "It would take me more than two full days to go through the contortions I did in the past to generate the letter with all the workshops in it, and then you had to retype everything I had already typed. But with this new form, it took approximately four hours."

One way in which the form saved her time, she noted, is that there was information common to all entries that she did not need to retype.

Like some others in the test group, Black has suggested modifications to the form that have been made. Similarly, the Reporter staff is interested in hearing other suggestions that would make the form more user-friendly.

The form was designed by Benjamin Edelman, a student assistant who works in News Services, with assistance from the UB Web Team, consisting of staff members from the Electronic Media Unit in the Office of Publications and CIT.

In addition to Black, others who have helped test the form are JudŽ Schwendler, alumni relations; Paul Vecchio, athletics; Ray Dannenhoffer, anatomical sciences; Rachel Costa, geology; Gemma DeVinney, library programs; Marie Bennett, mathematics; Sandi Wheaton, pharmaceutics; Eileen McNamara, philosophy, and Charles Wenner, biochemistry.