URSU website nears full operation

Students’ union still working hard to improve web presence

Frank Elechi
Contributor

The University of Regina Students’ Union website will soon be in fully functional, according to URSU president Kyle Addison. 

Since the website was launched, it’s been plagued with technical errors. This resulted in some of the website’s features – like the executive blog and events calendar – being unusable.  

“Technical hiccups were responsible for the non-functioning features of the website. All that has now been fixed, and the website is set to face into full operation”.

The move to create a better website was born from URSU’s desire for more interactive communication with students. The old website left Addison wanting more.“ The previous website had nothing in it; it was not interactive or reliable, nor was it good-looking. So we decided to make a better one.”

Things didn’t quite work out as planned, however, due to delays with the website developers.

“We chose the cheapest contractor, which was OH! Media, since they offered similar services at a reduced price. Their bargain was $16,000 cheaper than the cheapest of the other contractors.” It wasn’t long after the website launched that URSU discovered they could not post comments on the executive blogs.

Now that these problems with the website have been corrected, the students’ union wants to use the executive blog to make their operations more transparent to others.

“The blog will be updated weekly by the executives, to increase transparency. And so that the students can know us better and get to ask us questions.”

There will also be an updated event calendar where the students’ union meetings will be posted, along with any other student-oriented event. 

Addison is encouraging students to use this feature to their advantage. “We can only post the events we get to hear of. The event calendar is the reason we are calling on anyone that has an event coming up to get in touch with us.

 “I see the relevance of the new blog in improving transparency because many people may not be comfortable with sending us an email or approaching us in the hallway – which they should because we are open to everyone. Through this blog, students can ask their questions. And – the fact they could ask questions based on the executive posts – makes it more interesting.”

While Addison regrets that the website was not up and running on time, he thinks he still would have stuck with the original contract – even if he had prior knowledge of the hiccups – because of the amount it ended up saving in comparison. “I [still] wouldn’t have gone with the more expensive $16,000 contract because it is a whole lot of money.”