TigerLink – the missing link

I am sure that at one point all of you have heard of TigerLink — that elusive, mysterious website that gets brought up at the beginning of the year, only to drop off the face of the earth by midterms. What you don’t know is how useful the site is.

Almost everyone uses Facebook to talk to his or her friends and stay informed. TigerLink is the same thing, but limited to Fort Hays State University people and events. If Fort Hays took Facebook and made it its own, TigerLink would be the result.

From the second you open the TigerLink homepage, you are flooded with a column of useful announcements, a board of the year’s upcoming events and links to all the other resources you may need. The events board is probably one of the coolest features, giving you the details of everything that is or will be happening on campus.

Many students are involved with an on-campus organization,.With TigerLink, you can stay updated within your organizations, find contact information for student leaders and officers and even participate in elections. For example, many of the residence halls use TigerLink to vote for hall council officers, and the Student Government Association does the same for electing its representatives.

TigerLink is the perfect place to learn about any organization or club you might be thinking about joining. Want to know more about the Sociology Club? Three clicks leads you to everything you need to know.

Why, then, is TigerLink so underrated and overlooked? For anyone even the slightest bit involved on campus, it is an amazing resource for information, administration and communication. It is relatively new, but I hope it grows in popularity. However, this demands that student organizations start using it as well.

Right now, TigerLink is an empty shell waiting to be filled with content. It has features for posting photos, news articles, documents and much more. After spending 20 minutes browsing through random clubs, two or three had uploaded pictures to their profile. No one is going to pause their Facebooking to visit TigerLink if there is nothing to look at.

I will say, the “Events and News” board is heavily used and a great way to see what is going on around campus. However, TigerLink offers so much more. If you have not joined TigerLink yet, hop on it. All you have to do is go to the page, log in with your TigerTracks credentials and you’re in. You will have instant access to a website dedicated to keeping you in the loop.

It has a long way to go before TigerLink is at the level of traffic and usage desired. Student organizations need to share their group with the web just like they do with their Facebook or Twitter — which, by the way, can be integrated into TigerLink. Students should log on every once in a while to check out what’s going on. The site has great potential, but like a garden, it needs a little time and attention — and manure — if it ever wants to grow.

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