Bring the Campus App to Life with Clubs and Groups

What better way to draw students into campus life than connecting them with like-minded peers? Use the campus app to bring students together with Clubs and Groups.

Together, we will use Campus Cloud to add five clubs to the campus app. They will appear in the list of clubs. Students can interact with those clubs in many ways, bringing life and energy to the framework we will lay out here.  

There will be no shortage of clubs and groups to add, so let's start with a short list. What are the clubs no student can live without? Let's start by creating five (5) clubs. 

When you're done, why not delegate ownership for managing the clubs to the club owners? You can free yourself to build up other pieces of the campus app.

Here's how you bring the campus app to life with clubs and groups:

1. Create the clubs
2. Post a welcome message to the club wall
3. [Optional] Put people on the club member list
4. See the results!
5. Delegate ownership

TIME REQUIRED: 1-2 hours for five clubs

1. Create the Clubs

Creating a club is as easy as typing in the information. You'll need the name and contact info for each club, and images to represent them in the app. If there are short descriptions of the clubs (like on their web pages), copy the text into a document and save it to use later. Be sure to save the web addresses too. 

For each club you want to create, follow the steps in this FAQ:

• Create a Club

You'll use Campus Cloud to upload the image and type the club name for each club. You'll paste in the club description and put in the contact information. 

What about club membership? If you turn this on, the club will have a wall where students can post messages. And, students can join the club so their names appear in the member list (if they enable this in their privacy settings). Read more about club membership here:

• Club Wall and Membership

When you're done, click "Create Club." Your club appears in Campus Cloud in the list of clubs.

Do this for each club in your list. After a few short minutes, you will have created five clubs that will appear in the campus app, and done your students a valuable service.

2. Post a welcome message to the club wall

Who's first in the pool? Encourage students to dip their toes in by posting a welcome message and inviting others to do the same. 

Posts with images get the best response. Is there a photo or an image that could draw students into the conversation? Think about including up to four images with your welcome message.

Then follow the steps in this FAQ:

• Post to a Club Wall

If desired, you can restrict the campus wall so only designated people can post. This is done with the member list, which we'll set up in step 3.

3. [Optional] Put people on the member list

You may want the names of certain people to appear on the club member list. For example, each club may need to have a faculty advisor. You might want to set out the president and council members. Or you might want to simply add the names of the people you'll be delegating to in step 5.

Follow the steps in this FAQ:

• Add a Club Executive

You'll need the names you want to add, and each person's position within the club. These people do not need to have Campus Cloud accounts, but they do need campus app accounts. If they don't, see the article footnote.

Students can join a club for themselves, but only you can add executives.

If you want to restrict the club wall to executives only, follow the steps in this FAQ: 

• Manage who can Post to Walls

4. See the Results!

To see the results, open the campus app, go to the campus guide, and tap the Clubs & Groups tile. The clubs you created are listed there for students to discover. You can tap each club to learn more. 

If you posted a welcome message to the club wall, you'll find it here, as it appears to students. This is where students will respond and share messages of their own.

5. Delegate Ownership

There are many advantages to delegating ownership for the clubs you just created. Club owners can create events that appear automatically in the campus app -- saving you from having to do it yourself. You can encourage a club to use the campus app's Assessment feature. This makes it easy for students to give their feedback about the club, to learn together and improve. 

Most importantly, delegating ownership for managing clubs helps the campus app come to life. Let your students build the campus app for themselves by giving them ownership for their clubs and groups. 

To delegate ownership of the clubs you just created, you'll need the email addresses of each person you want to delegate to.

Follow the steps in this FAQ: Invite a Colleague to Help Administer a Club

BEST PRACTICE: You'll get the best results if you

• Delegate ownership.
• Send training materials (link below).
• Encourage club executives to post messages like we did in this example.
• In a couple weeks' time, use the campus app to check activity on the club walls, and if there is none -- follow up.

TRAINING MATERIALS for can be found in the Product Knowledge Database: https://support.readyeducation.com/hc/en-us/categories/115000433353. (You can send this link by email.)

FOOTNOTE: If you need someone to have an app account (so you can make them a club executive), follow the instructions here: ____

If you have comments or feedback about this "how-to" document, please leave them in the comments below. Thanks for reading!