Two thumbs up for Campus Checklist

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Campus Checklist online survey in March, which received 923 responses.

The initial objective of the Checklist email newsletter, launched in fall 2014, was to strengthen communications between faculty and staff in different areas, support UVic’s culture of collaboration, and build a sense of community across campus.

The survey results indicate that Checklist is hitting the mark and supporting these goals for our community—but of course there’s always room for improvement.

Since the newsletter started coming out, I have felt more up to date about things happening around campus that I would not have learned about by any other opportunity.
—Survey respondent

We received and read more than 650 comments and analyzed reader rankings on six different measures from layout, accessibility, and frequency to content quality, breadth and length. The majority of faculty and staff like the convenience, layout and frequency, and appreciate that the newsletter provides useful information that’s quick and easy to read. We also heard that Checklist contributes to a sense of connectedness and community among our on- and off-campus faculty and staff.

The most popular story types identified in the survey were campus service changes and disruptions; updates on policies and reports; art and culture events; and professional development opportunities. We’ll continue to provide updates on high-level, institutional initiatives. We'll also strive to make the blurbs as short and concise as possible, with links to additional information.

As long as the material is kept as relevant as it has been, the Campus Checklist will continue to be essential reading for me!
—Survey respondent

We appreciate your suggestions for additional content ideas—most notably academic dates, stories featuring staff and faculty, major events and significant lectures. To address feedback we heard about spam, we'll also be re-examining our newsletter service provider to see if there’s a better technical solution for email newsletters.

In response to several suggestions that we encourage more stories from different departments across campus, we've recently created an online form where faculty and staff can submit a suggestion. Item suggestions will still go through an approval process, and we'll let you know if you can expect to see your submission in an upcoming Checklist.

If a story isn't suitable for Checklist, there may still be opportunities to promote it through other internal communications channels such as My page, the Current faculty and staff page, UVic News and The Ring newspaper. Stay tuned for more information about a new university-wide events calendar.

Thank you again for your survey participation and helping us to improve the Campus Checklist. Keep an eye on your inbox—you'll be hearing from the Checklist team again soon!

Download a brief report that includes quotes (PDF)