NEW MONITORING SYSTEM. Student attendance was monitored in Recruitment Week through the ID scanning system, introduced this year for the first time. Photo by Ryan Y. Racca.
STUDENTS WERE not the only ones presented with an array of opportunities in this year’s Recruitment Week (RecWeek), which was held at the MVP Roof Deck last June 25 to 29.
RecWeek 2012, entitled “Blast Off!” served not only as a launch pad for students to participate in activities beyond the classroom walls, but also as an avenue for the Council of Organizations of the Ateneo (COA) to improve on RecWeek procedures.
Although RecWeek does not appear to change drastically in between its annual operations, RecWeek 2012 Head Kim Luces said, “Every year, the [RecWeek] team is really trying to do its best in executing [the plans].”
Extended programs, increased promotions, decorations and sponsors and an automated foot traffic system comprise some of the improvements implemented this year.
Step up
Luces pointed out three parts of the event that stood out this year: programs, promotions and marketing.
Aside from the usual opening parade, flash mobs and a finale show were also part of the Blast Off! program.
“[The flash mob] was started last year, but this year, we implemented it again so we could hype up the event outside,” said Luces in a mix of Filipino and English.
“The newest addition is the finale show, ‘Rocket Launch,’” she added. “We were aiming to make a culminating activity that would end RecWeek with a bang.”
Organization presidents, the RecWeek Core Team and the COA Central Board performed. A fashion show with cluster representatives was also held.
The closing time of the last day of RecWeek was extended to 6:00 PM to give time for last-minute sign-ups. Luces said that a countdown—in line with the outer space theme—was also conducted at this time.
Students have also exerted effort to promote the event. “We had a lot of online promotions… We did it in waves. Last year, it was only ‘one time, big time,’ but now, we promoted a lot,” Luces said.
“[For marketing], we got really good sponsors. We got a lot of freebies,” Luces added. Among the listed RecWeek sponsors were Kickers, Havaianas, Krispy Kreme and Nestlé Ice Cream.
ID scanning
This year’s RecWeek also introduced a new system in tracking the amount of people going to the event. As opposed to manually monitoring foot traffic with the use of counters, ID scanners were used to collect more specific data.
“We use it to know what school and what year the student is from,” Luces said. “That was helpful also because we knew how many people were just revisiting the roof deck and how many were unique visitors.”
Luces said that it was Vice President for Special Projects Lea San Juan who came up with the idea of automation. The Management of Information Systems Association created the software for the system.
An officer from one of the accredited student organizations, who requested anonymity, said that the ID scanning system was a good way of tracking foot traffic. The officer also said that it would be helpful to organizations if the record or analysis of the collected data was released.
“This is the first time we’re doing it, so it’s in the experimental stage. That’s why we have a five percent margin of error. We hope that it would help next year; that the process will be more ironed out so that the data will be more accurate,” Luces said.
COA Vice President for Organization Strategies and Research Eldridge Tan said that because it was a new system, they expected a lot of problems, mostly in data collection.
These problems, he noted, include the fact that students did not know that they had to get their ID scanned, so some of them often walked past the scanners.
Tan said that two years ago, 87% of Ateneans applied for organizations. Last year, it was 92.3%.
As of press time, 91.6% of Ateneans are members of organizations, based on the data gathered using the new ID scanning system.
