The Queen’s community can post their upcoming events on a new and improved online calendar, which was launched earlier today.

The updated Events Calendar offers improved accessibility and a responsive mobile-friendly design. Each event also includes links for social media and email sharing, as well as a printable version of the event details.

Offering a new, more flexible tagging system to categorize and filter events by faculty/school or event type, and to create custom RSS feeds to display on other websites, the Events Calendar also has a special tag to highlight events related to the Queen's 175^th anniversary celebrations, which will automatically be displayed on the 175^th anniversary website, due to launch this fall.

“Queen’s 175^th anniversary celebrations were the impetus for enhancing and updating the Queen’s events calendar to launch in time for the fall semester,” Helena Debnam, Executive Director, University Marketing, explains. “Along with public lectures by our renowned faculty and invited guests form other institutions, Gaels games and recreational events, art exhibits, theatre and musical performances, and cultural activities that are at the core of our vibrant campus life, there will be an additional slew of events this year, organized and hosted by faculties, departments, and units across campus tied to the year-long 175th anniversary celebrations.”

Access to the calendar for posting events is based on Queen’s NetID credentials, meaning any faculty, staff or student with an active NetID can register and add events. Events posted to the calendar, which drew more than 325,000 pageviews in 2015, should be Queen’s events – organized, hosted and/or sponsored by Queen’s faculties, schools, departments, service and support units, administrative units, research units and governing bodies, including all sanctioned activities of student government bodies and official student clubs. Notices of community events happening on campus are also welcome.

“The Marketing team is pleased to be able to provide a one-stop platform where individuals in the Queen’s community can both share information about the events they are hosting, and also learn about all the activities that student, faculty, staff, and alumni, as well as members of the greater Kingston community, can be involved in over the year,” says Debnam.

First-time editors are required to register by submitting a form to request access and outline the kinds of events the user would be posting. Before any event is posted, editors need to confirm, by way of a checkbox, that the activities do not contravene, or encourage others to engage in activities that would be in violation of, the Student Code of Conduct, related Queen's policies, or laws.

If any posting seems inappropriate, an online reporting system is available. Flagged events will undergo an event moderation process, where they will be reviewed and either removed or reinstated. As part of the process, the individual who posted the event will also be contacted for follow-up.

Further details on what and how to post to the calendar are available on the Events Calendar’s ‘About’ page.