There will finally be one-stop
shopping for news and events at Memorial University. Memorial’s
Division of University Relations will launch a new Web site
for news and events next week. The site, dubbed MUN
Today, will complement the Gazette in providing
news and information on events at Memorial’s locations.
Launching Wednesday, July 30, the site will also replace
Newsline, Memorial’s e-mail bulletin service, as the
source for information about current events at the university.
It will also feature news updated on a regular basis. Newsline
will be reserved for important messages for the campus community,
said Ivan Muzychka, manager of Memorial’s News Service.
“Newsline has been quite a success and has, over the
last several years, helped us send a variety of messages
directly to the campus community,” he said. “It’s
an excellent service for urgent notices like snow closures
and other matters of interest to employees. Newsline will
continue to be used for those kinds of things, but we want
to provide a more efficient, more comprehensive service
to the campus, but Newsline – really only a simple
e-mail message – has its limitations.
MUN Today will provide the campus community and
the outside community with a central location, a central
repository of information on what is happening at Memorial
University, added Mr. Muzychka.
“People will be able to scan the Web site for upcoming
events, something they have not been able to do with Newsline,”
he said. “We hope to have news on there every day
and our aim is to have a content-rich dynamic site.”
Another feature will allow anyone on the campus to post
an event to the MUN Today site.
“These postings will be monitored, of course, before
they are put on the site, but we hope that everything happening
at MUN, whether it’s a music concert, a play or a
lecture or seminar will show up on this new information
channel,” said Mr. Muzychka. “We are going live
with MUN Today on July 30 and we expect it to evolve
– we’ll see what works and what doesn’t,
but we are confident the basic principle, a central news
and events location, is sound.
“There is a fundamental difference here between so
called push and pull technologies, but we hope to balance
the two for maximum benefit to our audiences. Newsline messages
will be shorter and will be less frequent but the Web site
will be there to keep people informed.”
The new site will be found at today.mun.ca.
