The first step in of our research was to seek out if the list of clubs and any information about these clubs was already being published by the school. The logical place to look was the City Tech’s school website. The school’s website (link here http://www.citytech.cuny.edu/students/activities/index.shtml) provides students with a list of clubs and places they meet but it soon became apparent that our website was out of date and was not being maintained properly. After doing some research we found out that Information on the City Tech’s student clubs can only be found in a binder which is held at Student Activities Office (room G515). The binder is not allowed out of the room so this makes it tough on students who do not have much time to stand around and flip through this binder. Because of this, we wanted to come up with a way to compile a list of all the clubs and make it organic.
The next step of the process involved doing some comparisons. It was important to see how other schools went about compiling their list of all the student clubs and how accessible this information was to their students. We looked at school websites of prominent universities around the country such as New York University and Harvard University
The first source we encountered was the NYC clubs and organizations webpage. Of all the sources that we looked at, this was the best organized and easiest to navigate. It broke down all the information by categories and sub categories that made it easy to find what you were looking for. Not only is the basic information for all the clubs provided, but it is evident that the information is maintained and modified whenever it is called for. Scheduling updates as well as a calendar for many of the events was provided on the main page of the club for all students and site visitors to see.
The second source was the Harvard University website. Like the NYU website, this resource provided users with all the basic information about the clubs. It also provided users with a constitution for every student club at the school. This constitution came with a list of articles that described the purpose of the group, membership requirements, as well as what is expected of the members of the clubs once they are accepted.
Once we had a good idea of how other schools deal with the sharing of this information, we had to come up with a way to implements some of these ideas and making it our own. We decided to go with a Wikia as the platform to share our research. This would allow us to create the basic template for the clubs and then we would invite the club presidents to edit their clubs information whenever need be. This would assure that our content would stay current and factual.
We then decided on the way we would organize the student clubs. Our team decided to divide all the clubs into main categories. By dividing the clubs into categories, other students will have an easier time finding the information that they are looking for and not feel overwhelmed by a complete list of all the clubs. Some examples of the categories we decided to use are:
Cultural: Any organization or group that promotes culture and the arts. Cultural clubs are a way for people to get to know other cultures as well as share a part of theirs.
Examples include: Salsa Club, Chinese Christian fellowship, and the Women in Islam club.
Academic: Any organization or group that promotes the Academics. Academic clubs are a way to engage in learning outside of the classroom environment.
Examples Include: Chemistry Club, Computer Club.
Social: Any Organization or group that promotes interactions between students. Social clubs are formed in order to bring people with similar interests.
Examples Include: Student Government Association, New Tech Times.
Our team divided the work evenly throughout the process. We gave ourselves assignments and deadlines that would help get the job done on time and without duplications.
We also needed an effective way in which to share our research. Since we all used Gmail as our primary email account, it made sense to use Google Drives as the place where we stored our presentation slides. This allowed us to edit our presentation from basically anywhere as long as we had an internet connection. This also avoided the dangers that come with using a thumb drive to store information which tend to get lost and also leaves the files unprotected from viruses which can kill an entire project.
