Communications ain’t what it used to be, to mis-quote John McCain. It’s a whole new ball game in 2008, with email, telephone, web conferences, instant messaging and those ubiquitous blogs. UBC is getting its act together and getting ready for the next generation of communications. Jennifer Burns of UBC IT looks at our progress so far…

Erin Creak of UBC knew she needed a new Content Management System for her department’s website, and she knew it wouldn’t be easy. But she jumped in with both feet, and the new site went up in October. Now Erin shares her experiences with e-Strategy readers, and points out a few pitfalls you may want to avoid…

It used to be Live@UBC, now it’s UBCevents. The difference is remarkable. Since it went live in September, UBCevents has proven to be one of the most successful new services on campus. Kent Fong was the Applications guy who helped steer the university’s new calendaring system through the hoops, and now he can tell us how it was done…

Learning online is teaching a few things to instructors as well as students. Listen to the anecdotes of the people at the other end of the computer, and you’ll see how ‘this new medium’ is actually making their classroom interactions better. In September, UBC hosted a Distance Education Course Showcase, and Michael Wong of OLT was there to record both the challenges and rewards of learning in a digital environment…

Every month we share a serindipitous collection of odds & ends and tips & tricks with our readers. This time around we learn how to colour code our email (it looks pretty and it keeps you organized)…we discover a new service that shows how your mailouts will render before you push the send button (and rate them for spamability)…and we find out how a new approach to teaching can change a university!