Resource 25, a new online reservation system for scheduling classes and booking rooms for student organization or University department events, is in the process of being developed, according to University Registrar Mark Hewitt.Student Union President Andy Hogan '11 explained in his State of the Union address last Thursday that the new system will also enable student organizations and University departments to check online what spaces are available for booking.

"The goal of the system is to ultimately make the booking of all spaces of the University into one reservations system," Hewitt told the Justice.

Director of Conference and Events Angela Garger explained that her department, the Office of the Registrar, Student Activities and Athletics currently use the software Event Management Systems to reserve spaces. Other University departments use different software, such as Corporate Calander, Garger said.

Student organizations can attend one of the weekly Jump Start meetings to see what rooms will be available, Hogan told the Justice. Organizations can also fill out a request form in the Conference and Events Service office or print out the form and fax it to the office, according to the Conference and Events Services Web site.

"Students have no way of knowing if a room is reserved without doing some work. The idea is to allow students to go on a Web site and just see for themselves when a room is available," Hogan said.

Resource 25 was purchased for approximately $25,000 three years ago, wrote Vice President of Campus Operations Mark Collins in an e-mail to the Justice.

He added that most of the upgrades to the new system are being done in-house by Library and Technology Services and current departments that use EMS.

"Resource 25 allows us to have more users on the system as opposed to EMS, which is a bit more restrictive in terms of costs and other reasons," Garger said. She explained that EMS allows a limited number of users to hold accounts on its system.

Collins wrote in his e-mail that a uniform reservation system will "be more efficient and provide for better space utilization data across campus."

"Our current system is outdated both from a technical perspective as well as . use in terms of availability of things like a Web viewer and online advantages," Garger said.

Resource 25 will have an initial rollout in January for the scheduling of classrooms and some spaces that are booked by Conference and Events, Hewitt said.

Garger added that all the current EMS users will be on Resource 25 in January.

Hewitt said that classes are currently scheduled with the help of sage and PeopleSoft softwares and then entered into EMS. He defined the process as "double data entering."

Garger said that the rollouts after January will be planned according to the success of the first rollout. "One of the huge advantages, obviously, would be to have something that would be available online where people could view space and see what's available themselves. They wouldn't necessarily have to call our office but that would be part of another rollout," she said.

-Alana Abramson contributed reporting.



























































































TRANSCRIPTS:



HEWITT

"The goal of the system is to ultimately make the booking of all spaces of the University into one reservations system" looking to go live in jan for use of classrooms and most of spaces booked by conference and events. Most of the work has been done in-house. Two ways- do it within sage, within peoplesoft-scheduling classrooms, enter that data into current system that conference and events has ems. "double data entering" sage and ems.



GARGER

Ems, allow us to do electronically, designed not to allowed to double book spaces, not used campuswide, it is used by conference and events, student activities, registrar, atheletics. Other spaces don't necessarily use it. Similar to ems "it works in a similar fashion. . there are multiple advantages. The hope is that more users will use this system so more spaces will be scheduled with resource 25." some use corporate calendar, maybe at some point they will all use the same so they can all be efficient. "if we can get more people scheduling within the same system then it would be more efficient all users.I mean if we're all using the same system it would be an easier process" "resource 25 always us to have more users on the system as opposed to ems which is a bit more restrictive in terms of costs and other reasons" [NUMBER OF USERS]. "all the current users on ems.will begin using resources in jan 2010"it has been heavily involved. "one of huge advantages obviously would be to have something that would be available online where people could view space and see whats available themselves they wouldn't necessarily have to call our office but that would be part of another roll out" dependent on first roll out, situations "our current system is outdated both from a technical perspective as well as you know use in terms of availability of things like a web viewer and online advantages and things like that" technical and user perspective





"i have an additional thing that is going to be rolled out next

semester. I tis called resource 25 and it is going ot make club life

significantly easier. It is an online reservation system that will

allow clubs to go on a website and see when different spaces are

available onc ampus"

clubs will reserve and request space online--will allow clubs that

meet late atnight to figure out the best time to hold an evet

people will be owrking on it all next semester to try and centralize

spaces on the system

goal to finish by next fall--"one stop online place where clubs can

view and reserve spaces"

"resource 25 is looking to be one of the best resources for club life

on this campus