TuftsLife.com, a new student group recognized by the Tufts Community Union Judiciary (TCUJ) last week, is launching a website meant to serve as a nexus of information about student life at Tufts. The organization's goal is to provide students, faculty, and alumni with information about events on campus, national and Tufts news, and easy access to Tufts' many websites.
The site is still under development, and will be officially launched within a few weeks. Because TuftsLife.com is an official student group, funds from the student activities fee will be used to defray some of the operation costs.
A main focus of the page is to make information on the Tufts-run websites easier for the Tufts community, especially students, to find. An extensive link selection directs visitors to websites of the offices of academic and student services as well as online services and news sources.
Founder and Chief Technology Officer of TuftsLife.com Mike Masterman explained that students are often confused by the many Internet addresses they have to remember in order to access Tufts' online resources. TuftsLife.com solves this problem by putting links to all of the sites most frequented in one location.
"This site fills a largely overlooked niche in the Internet services provided by Tufts University," Masterman said. "By presenting all the information that is found throughout Tufts' many servers in one easy-to-use step, students will become more informed about their university and the many activities it sponsors."
The site is an Internet portal site similar in format to Yahoo! and MSN. A campus life section displays announcements and notices, news and sports articles from the Daily and The Observer, a calendar of events taking place on campus, and dining menus, as well as transportation information and maps. Headlines from ABC News and CBS SportsLine scroll across a lower part of the screen, and a forecast by The Weather Channel is available.
TuftsLife.com also provides access to external Internet sites that are commonly used by Tufts students, such as search engines, a dictionary and a thesaurus, and entertainment information pages. It is designed to serve the entire Tufts community, and Masterman said that it is a great resource for students abroad and alumni who want to stay informed about University happenings.
The founding members of TuftsLife.com came up with the idea for their site last spring, and devoted the summer to developing it. They worked with administrators and student groups during this process, and will continue to rely on them to provide the information that will be published on the site.
"The Tufts websites cater to outside individuals looking for information about the schools," Masterman said. "While our site caters to the entire Tufts community, including faculty, undergraduates, graduate students, and even alums, it's still directed towards students."
TuftsLife.com presently has about 18 members who perform a variety of functions related to operating and maintaining the site, including the technical design, the process of posting information on the Internet, as well as finances and public relations. The group is hoping to expand its functions beyond solely the operation of the website, and participation in TuftsLife.com does not require any computer knowledge.
"TuftsLife.com is not limited to simply an Internet portal site. We are also in the process of developing various other projects dealing with information delivery," Masterman said. "As we come up with more projects, there's going to be a need for more manpower."
The group was approved by the TCUJ in a unanimous vote, with one member abstaining. TCUJ member Alison Clarke commented that there was no question that the organization is beneficial to Tufts. "I think it's a great website. It takes all of the resources about Tufts and puts them in one place," she said. "I think it's very wellorganized and everyone thought it was a good thing."
