The beginning of every semester brings new meetings, special events, deadlines, and other important dates that faculty, staff, and students must keep track of throughout the semester. Some dates are tied to entities outside the program (e.g., federal, state, or host university deadlines pertaining to tuition, scholarships, visas, applications). Other dates pertain to program meetings, events, and activities. The result can be a busy list of social, academic, administrative, and personal events and reminders for faculty, staff ,and students to stay on top of throughout the semester. In the Intensive English Program at Western Carolina University, we recently discovered a helpful tool for staying on top of our many dates and deadlines: the electronic calendar.

The Problem With Paper

Before implementing an electronic calendar for communicating important semester dates and deadlines, our IEP relied exclusively on handing out paper calendars at orientations as well as throughout the semester as dates and deadlines were added or revised. While faculty and staff found the paper calendars adequate, students seemed to take little notice of them. In fact, students often lost their copies of the paper calendars, which sometimes caused them to miss important meetings and deadlines.

In addition to paper calendars being frequently lost, they were also time-consuming for the user (i.e., faculty, staff, students) to update. When events and activities were added or revised throughout the semester, it was necessary to update the program calendar with the new or revised dates. These updates necessitated faculty, staff, and students to manually update their personal calendars (whether they were electronic or paper) to reflect the new or revised date(s). Such calendar changes might also require the program to explain new details relevant to the event, which meant either conveying the details by email or in person since there was not enough space on the printed calendar itself to provide much information.

Similarly, paper calendars require filing either in a computer folder or a desk drawer. Such filing necessitated space to accommodate the growing number of calendars from semester to semester. Additionally, to find an old date or event details, the user had to search through these folders, which could also be cumbersome and time-consuming.

Moreover, paper calendars are static. They will not remind or alert their user of the important tasks and events that the user needs to act upon or remember. For that reason, faculty and staff often had to provide multiple reminders in class or by email of upcoming events and deadlines.

Finally, what happens to the many copies of calendars, semester after semester? In our program, I can hope that students have been recycling them. Paper calendars have a very short shelf life and quickly become irrelevant and out of date. Is paper really the best medium for relaying the calendar’s information? Can we justify using so much paper, ink, and time spent photocopying something that will be thrown into the recycling bin so soon?

Enter the iCalendar

Given the inefficiency as well as the ineffectiveness of paper calendars, our program sought a new tool for making students aware of important dates and deadlines. The tool we sought had been in front of us all along, glowing and beeping in the palms of our students—the built-in calendars on their electronic devices. Since nearly all of our students use some form of electronic calendaring or iCalendar files on their smartphones, tablets, and laptops, implementing an electronic version of the program calendar made sense. We instructors know the value of facilitating learning by being where the students are, so why had we overlooked this important aspect of their learning (i.e., learning how to manage dates and deadlines) by failing to use the tools that students are increasingly using—digital tools, not paper ones? We seemed to unknowingly be using a tool that was creating more work for both the creator and the end user.

Steps for Implementing an Electronic Calendar

Instead of creating calendars in a Word or Excel document (to be printed, copied, and emailed/distributed), for the past several semesters we have used the Calendar application, a standard feature on Mac devices (previously called iCal), to create an .ics file of important program dates and deadlines.

Using this application, we created a new calendar and called it IEP. The IEP calendar was then populated with the semester’s events—its events, activities, meetings, tasks, and deadlines. Moreover, for each of these events, we could assign a location, write notes, add an attachment and a URL, and even set an audio alarm reminding the user of the event!

Once all of the semester’s events were entered, we exported the file and sent it to faculty and staff, who then downloaded it to their personal devices and checked it for any bugs as well as accuracy. Once the calendar had been tested and approved, we announced to students at orientation that it could be downloaded through both email and Blackboard. Students then downloaded the file to the calendars on their electronic devices. After downloading the file, a new folder called IEP would appear in their device’s calendar.

Feedback About Electronic Calendars

Through anecdotal feedback, students have told us that the new electronic calendars are “cool” and “helpful.” Some have also said that they appreciate the IEP’s efforts to use less paper. Others have said that they appreciate that the IEP is making it easier for them to keep track of important dates and that the IEP is now where the students are in terms of communicating effectively. Moreover, faculty have also commented favorably, noting that the automatic alarm reminders of certain events were helpful and that, with the calendar downloaded to their smartphones, they no longer have to search through emails or files to find event dates and details.

Limitations and Suggestions

Although I mention the use of a Mac computer for the creation of an iCalendar file, it should be noted that the .ics file can be created by and shared among a number of popular electronic calendaring systems, including Google Calendar and Yahoo Calendar.

Additionally, before switching to an electronic format, it is necessary to poll students, faculty, and staff to find out whether they can access .ics files and to assess their preferences for the communication and tracking of dates and deadlines (i.e., electronic, paper, or both).

Further, because some students may not use smartphones or other electronic devices, it is advisable to create a PDF of the electronic calendar (by printing or saving the calendar as a PDF file) that can be printed as necessary.

In short, your program, like ours, may wish to offer both an electronic calendar and a printable PDF version of it for users who prefer a printed version. While the electronic calendar may not completely replace the paper calendar, it does make calendaring more efficient, effective, and perhaps even more green for both those who must create and manage the calendar and those who rely on it for important information.