What Type of Activity is Suitable for the Events Calendar?
An event is an activity that occurs at a specific time and place and that people attend in person or virtually.
The event calendar is provided to increase visibility and increase attendance. The Oregon State University Events Calendar lists only events advertised to the public that are organized, sponsored or co-sponsored by the university or by OSU-affiliated organizations. The calendar does not include non-university events and usually will not list events simply because they occur at a university facility.
Examples of well-written, and not-so-well-written events are available here.
Items to Reject or Discourage
- Items where directed communication such as email, is more appropriate
- Announcements (closures, construction, traffic diversions)
- General dates, deadlines and special days (exception: Academic Calendar)
- Birthday parties, retirement celebrations, personal events (exception: prominent figures/of widespread interest)
- Individual sessions requiring previous enrollment in a series (Chemistry 100 lab or “Yoga class tonight” events every Wednesday are only relevant to people enrolled in that class; open drop-in events are acceptable).
- Recurring/multi-day submissions will be given extra scrutiny (a six-week contest or challenge should not appear as an event every day).
- Small, greatly restricted or private meetings.
- Calls to action which do not involve an actual gathering (deadline to apply for programs, challenge to reduce waste, reminders to complete open enrollment)
- Items that should use external advertising or other web pages
- Promotional events, meetings, fundraisers or rallies/gathering in support or protest of something that are not sponsored by an OSU department.
- Routine/recurring operational activities (mobile medical van on campus every Monday, meatless Mondays in a cafeteria, Payroll department hours)
- Recruitment or job postings.
- Check with marketing before using vendor logos or branding.
Departments have found that utilizing a calendar widget allows for more posting opportunities.
- Defenses for masters or PhD accomplishments are great things to celebrate, but the audience for these are very specific. Restricting the posting to the department’s calendar widget allows departments to list lots of activities that are specific to their area in a professional calendar format.
- Seminars and department meetings, as well as specific time-related department activities are also great to display on a department or college’s calendar. Note that a presentation with a speaker from outside of OSU, or on a topic of wide community interest will be publicly displayed.
- Moderators will restrict the items listed above to the organizations identified if they fall into the above listed criteria. If you have questions about restrictions or how to more fully use your department widget please email events@oregonstate.edu.
Review content
Overall
All events should include basic facts and logistics
- What it is (lecture, type of activity, what to expect as a participant)
- Where (we'll meet on the front steps)
- When (date and time)
- Cost and any required prework (how to register, RSVP and/or reserve or purchase tickets)
- Who (name, phone, email to answer questions)
Title, description, location and photo
- Name (title) and description
- Should be understandable by a general audience
- Descriptive title (not just "meeting" or "lecture")
- Minimal jargon, acronyms explained
- Should explain what the event is (“Bard in the Quad” is an outside theatrical production)
- Check/correction of errors.
- Moderators correct minor errors that do not change meaning of content
- For significant errors, moderators will contact the user for clarification
- Links in the description
- Should point to a valid destination
- No misleading hyperlinks (e.g. a hyperlink to"google" should point to https://www.google.com/, not some other location; and a hyperlink that spells out a URL such as "https://www.google.com/" should point to that exact URL, not to a different destination)
- Locations
- Use a pre-configured place name when possible
- Use rooms for places-within-places (e.g. Java II should be entered as a room inside The Valley Library)
- Addresses/Maps
- Google maps can be finicky. Best bet is a format like "1234 Northeast Circle Boulevard, Corvallis, OR"
- Common issues
- Omitting city or state
- Entering a city without an address (contact event provider for clarification)
- Omitting commas between street address, city and state
- Commentary within an address ("520 S Pacific Hwy W (Hwy 99), Rickreall, OR"
- Other things to try
- Remove ZIP code
- Spell out abbreviations
- Community
- If the address is in Bend, Corvallis, Newport, Portland or Malheur County, select the appropriate community
- Selecting Malheur county establishes the event's time/date as Mountain Time
- Photo should be relevant and easy to view
Selectable fields
- Filters and Departments
- Verify selections are appropriate
- If events will be available online and in person, include “online” audience filter in addition to physical location information.
- If in doubt, confirm with the selected departments
- Tags/Filters
- Generally, leave blank. If desired enter free text.
- Tags: (generally, leave blank) used to group related events with common search terms use the drop down so that items are appropriately grouped.
- Keywords: (rarely used, mostly on the administrator level) used to address common misspellings (“knowledge” for “Nolij training”)
- The following tags/keywords should only be used for academic calendar events: Academic Calendar, AC Corv, AC Bend, AC [Term] (e.g. "AC Fall 2022")
- User Engagement
- Generally, leave blank to encourage user engagement.
- Make sure to check your event so that you can respond to comments.
- Visibility
- Generally, leave blank.
- Unlisted events are visible only to those who are given the direct URL (we do not track the identity of users accessing such events).
- Sponsored
- For use only by University Relations and Marketing (highlights events and makes them more visible in Trending list)
- Featured
- For use only by University Relations and Marketing (elevates events to display in the Featured carousel)
Academic calendar
The following selections are used for Academic calendar events.
- Keywords
- Tags
- AC [Fall, Winter, Summer or Spring] 2017 (enter appropriate year)
- AC Corv
- AC Bend
- Settings
- Visibility
- Commencement should include a location and should not have visibility restrictions
Assistance
For assistance, contact the Service Desk.