CD enables students to access campus info
Bruin-produced multimedia guide is first of its kind
By Tatiana Botton
Imagine looking at your computer screen, clicking on a UCLA building, then clicking again on a specific department and being able to get into the academic services of that department.
This will soon be possible with the new CD-ROM about UCLA where volumes of information will be available at the touch of a button.
"For the moment we call it the Multimedia Guide to UCLA, but it's still a working title," said James Pitts, the leadership advisor for the Bruin Interactive project, which is coordinating the CD with the undergraduate government representative office.
The disk will be tested next quarter but a final release date has not been set.
The CD-ROM divided into five different areas includes a guided tour, academics, sports, student life and student services. From each one of these areas anyone would be able to navigate to another one.
"It will be a great tool for UCLA. It will give you access to all the information available, and everything is in just one little CD," said Deana Morgan, one of the project's writers and a senior majoring in Russian and Spanish.
"CD-ROMs are very useful they can store as much information as at least four hundred computer disks in only one CD," said Kash Sen, a senior majoring in computer and engineering sciences.
As the coordinators explained, ideas for the project, the first of its kind to be entirely produced by students, began last summer.
"We started thinking about the project last summer. It was important for us to see how the student media is going to be ready to develop interactive things," said Pitts, also a member of the ASUCLA Communications Board.
Many UCLA students will be participating in the project as interns, specializing in video production, computer programming and writing.
"We have room in this project for all types. We have talented people working on the video project, and we also have people that love writing," said Michelle Bonner, the Bruin Interactive's content coordinator and undergraduate student government general representative.
"The project will allow UCLA students to get familiar with the production of CD-ROMs, which many say will become the software of the future.
"I think the project is great because it allows students to learn about this new multimedia technology," Morgan said.
Others agreed that participation in the program will prepare students for real world technology.
"This market is a multi-billion dollar business. The people that will get the skills here, are the ones that are going to survive out there," said Damon Seeley, the Bruin Interactive interface coordinator.
To help in speeding production, the team hired a Cornell University student who has already created various CD-ROMs, said interim Publications Director Arvli Ward.
To develop the CD-ROM, Bruin Interactive split the project into content (the information about UCLA) and interface (the graphic presentations). Both content and interface will be totally interconnected and will allow the user to take advantage of the information in a user-friendly way.
"USAC wants to make sure that all the students can get access to all the information on campus," Bonner said. "It is strange for the student media to be allied with the government, but this is really an ideal project."
In the process, the student body will benefit by having the information readily available to them.
"We will be donating the CD-ROM to libraries and if students don't have access to CD-ROM drives, we will tell them where they can access them," Bonner said.
All the coordinators expressed their enthusiasm in the idea and in the future perspectives of the project.
"We always want to be at the front of the technological advances as they relate to information. We want to create situations where students can participate and learn a lot," Ward said.