The Buzz has gone silent.
The Office of Undergraduate Education has taken down the online student calendar, Duke Buzz, due to a low rate of student use, administrators said. With the elimination of Buzz, the Office seeks to expand usage of the existing, though redesigned, Events@Duke online calendar. The new version of the calendar will be launched Sept. 7.
“Last [Fall], the Office of Student Activities and Facilities collected data from students about the use of the Buzz student calendar and concluded that there was not widespread awareness or use of Buzz among Duke students,” said Deborah Johnson, the assistant vice provost and director of student administrative services. “Thus, they recommended shutting down the Buzz calendar.”
The Buzz URL now redirects to Events@Duke.
Budget cuts were not the primary concern in ending Duke Buzz, said Susan Kauffman, director of communications for the office of undergraduate education. Kauffman also solicited student input for the new Events@Duke calendar.
The Buzz system’s software was free, she said, adding that the operators of the site were instead just concerned that student usage did not justify the site’s maintenance.
“Even the students who helped us design it didn’t use it,” Kauffman said. “Some people aren’t using it [in the age of social media].”
On average, there were about 400 visits per day to the Buzz calendar website, Johnson said. There is an average of about 1,200 visits per day to Events@Duke.
“I never knew about Duke Buzz,” sophomore Melanie Sperling said.“I do not think there was enough publicity done for this website.”
Sperling noted, however, that she would have used Duke Buzz if she had known about it.
“I used it once or twice,” junior Adrianna Oh said. “I felt that it was more like an independent site that no one checked.”
Developed in 2009 by Duke University Union and the Office of Undergraduate Education, Buzz was an offshoot of Duke’s main events calendar, Events@Duke. It aimed to highlight events happening on campus for the student body and to allow for groups small and large to post events on a single student calendar, Kauffman said.
“Duke Student Government came to Steve Nowicki, the dean and vice provost of undergraduate education and I, and said that a student-friendly calendar was needed,” she added.
The new form of Events@Duke will feature several interactive changes, Kauffman said. Anyone will be able to post an event on Events@Duke and connect the calendar to Facebook, Twitter and personal calendars by pressing on the “ShareThis” widgets. The redesigned site will also offer specialized search categories, such as events with free food.
The Duke University Union has adapted to the elimination of Duke Buzz by creating an online calendar at duuke.org that highlights DUU events.
“Ideally, the DUU calendar website will take up the void of the Duke Buzz calendar no longer existing and hopefully market our events,” DUU President Rachel Sussman, a senior, said.
Student involvement remains a determining factor in the ultimate success of Events@Duke, Kauffman noted.
“Mainly, what we’re hoping is that everyone—especially students—with a Duke event will post on Events@Duke, so that we have one centralized place to find out what’s going on,” she said. “A calendar is only as good as its content, which is why widespread participation is crucial.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.