Maclean's OnCampus Virtual Fair
The Maclean's OnCampus Virtual Fair promises to make "choosing a school easier than ever" through instant access and one-on-one communication "with faculty experts and reps from Canadian universities and colleges." Following the disclosure of rather significant amounts of personal information, visitors are permitted to enter the virtual fair campus, which consists of institutionally-inspired buildings, snow-capped mountains in the background and virtual people walking around or sitting on park benches. Upon entering, visitors are presented with a greeting from Joe Chidley, Editor and Associate Publisher, Special Projects, who welcomes visitors to the fair and provides them with an overview of the fair's offerings:
In order to navigate through the site, visitors can either select the Gym or Auditorium buttons located slightly below Joe Chidley's welcome, or expand the Map Tab located on the top left hand side of the screen:
Once in the Gymnasium, visitors are presented with 2 rows of booths and the option to view additional booths by using the black triangle located at the bottom right corner. When hovered, the booths present a sign inviting visitors to visit their booth. Visitors can also use the Exhibitors List - located below the Gym sign - which expands when clicked to present a complete listing of all participating institutions.
In contrast to last year, the booths look a little less ‘flat' and slightly better designed and organized. However, the avatars for the representatives still lack variety and remain static entities lacking movement or expression. In the OnCampus fair, all chat happens in instant messaging rather than verbally.
Aside from the AUCC and ACCC, the OnCampus fair consisted of 13 Canadian universities and 14 colleges. The participating universities included Algoma, Brescia, Redeemer, uSaskatchewan, uVictoria, uLethbridge, uRegina, Lakehead, Edwards School of Business at uSaskatchewan, Memorial, Mount Allison, Tyndale, and UOIT. The participating colleges consisted of: Fanshawe, George Brown, Humber, Lethbridge, SIAST, Sheridan, Cisco Networking Academy, Georgian - Canadian Automotive Institute, Algonquin, Mohawk, Conestoga, Loyalist, and KIAC School of Visual Arts.
I enjoyed taking the time to walk around the fair and discuss the fair with some of the representatives. Although I attended the fair early in the morning, all of the representatives I spoke with indicated that they had already received a fair amount of traffic, particularly from international students. In contrast to the GlobeCampus eFair that I attended a couple weeks ago, it was nice to see representatives actually at their booths and willing to speak with visitors. Aside from one West Coast institution, all of the 26 booths I visited had a representative available to answer questions.
Similar to last year, the exhibits were pretty static - information links were basically text pages that usually linked to the institutional website, and institutional representatives were motionless with an option to text message them to find out more information about the school. Most booths contained 60 to 180 second video clips welcoming visitors to the exhibit.
While most of the booths had the same look and feel, a few institutions went that added step and included unique features. Of particular note was the University of Lethbridge, which incorporated two actual students speaking about their experiences at uLethbridge, adding a unique and personal touch to the otherwise static booth.
In place of one of the generic avatars for school representatives, Lakehead University used their school mascot - Wolfie:
Several of the exhibits contained links to institutional social media offerings, particularly Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, providing additional means to link to, contact and find information about the institution.
The OnCampus fair also included a speaker series consisting of 4 presentations on topics related to the "Love of Art", "Lessons learned from Medical and MBA School", "Becoming a New Media Guru" and "Computer Networking." I sat in on the presentation by Elaine Chin, Chief Medical Officer and President of Scienta Health Centre, who spoke about her experiences at the University of Toronto Medical School. The presentation consisted of streaming audio, with Joe Chidley of Maclean's asking a series of questions. It lacked, however, visual stimulation. Below is a screen shot of the Auditorium and a list of the day's presentations.
The folks at Maclean's have offered us an early glimpse into the recruitment fair of the future. While the technology seems to have improved over last year, it does not appear that we are completely there yet. To echo Ken Steele's sentiments from last year's OnCampus fair, the features that are still missing, but which would make the fair significantly more impressive, usable and engaging are:
- Streaming audio and video of institutional liaison presentations
- Easy viewbook requests or PDF downloads
- Access to information, such as programs, directly from the site (rather than being redirected to the institutional page)
- Personalized avatars or video of booth reps
- Audio chat instead of text IM
If you attended the MVF, or worked a booth, please add your thoughts and observations below as comments. Thanks for reading!
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