Product Knowledge 2013, featuring a sneak peek at new ImSci recruitment materials!

Today was our annual Product Knowledge meeting with Undergraduate Admissions! A meeting takes place each year where representatives from Undergraduate Admissions assemble to hear more about academic programs, what types of students we are looking for, what interesting stories they can highlight to prospective students, et cetera. Typically these meetings are college-wide, but since we have always had to spend so much time explaining just what Imaging Science is, it made sense for us to break off and have our own session. Last year was the first time we tried that and it went very well, so this year we followed a similar agenda.

Everyone got together in the freshmen lab where we started off by discussing what Imaging Science is and how Admissions currently markets it. I then unveiled a new recruitment tool I have been developing this summer: USB drives! In the past, I would send prospective students and inquiries a folder containing multiple documents about Imaging Science: a booklet, a lenticular postcard, FAQ, a comparison chart, etc. These folders and materials were getting increasingly expensive to produce, and they did not even have long shelf lives since information gets updated so quickly. You may recall that this same issue brought about the development of a new online information booklet to replace the printed version. In addition to this, more and more of our recruitment materials are video-based. So, what better way to disseminate digital information than with some kind of computer peripheral?

CDs and DVDs are a thing of the past (some computers and laptops don't even come with drives anymore!) so the obvious answer was to go with USB drives. I had received one from RIT before that was actually integrated into a silicone wristband, so that seemed pretty cool. We got 4GB drives because, even though that's much more storage than our materials require, perhaps the recipient will actually use and appreciate it. We got our logo printed on them, so even if someone decides, "meh, who cares about this stuff that came on this drive, I'm going to delete it so I can use this for whatever I want," at least our logo is still there as a reminder.

Pretty snazzy, huh?

Instead of simply copying and pasting a bunch of files onto the drives, I thought it would be a good idea to create some kind of visually appealing navigation to lead the prospective student through the materials. To achieve this, I created local webpages (they are viewed in a browser, but only use files contained on the USB drive, so no network connection is required) that have pictures, links, and descriptions for each of the files contained on the drive. (Actually, there is a landing page that mimics the new tellmemore page before the page I just described, to act as a mini-intro.) The page is represented as a file with the name "Start Here!", and all other files on the drive are hidden.

So the idea is this: a prospective student plugs in the drive and double clicks "Start Here!" This opens up a page with the tellmemore images that directs them to "Click Here to start your adventure", after which they see the contents page:

Note, this is all kinds of zoomed out to fit here as an image.

They then click through the various materials contained on the drive to get more information about Imaging Science! Ta da!

This whole presentation seemed to go over very well, though I couldn't actually show the Freshmen Innovation at CIS video since it hasn't been completed yet; right now I just have a placeholder there. We did have the rough cut of the faculty version of the video available to show, but it's not really the correct video for prospective students; we just showed it to familiarize everyone with the freshmen class. Regardless, everyone seemed pretty impressed with the USB drives (if I do say so myself).

Anyways, later in the meeting we pulled in a bunch of freshmen who happened to be out in the hall to talk about their experiences so far and what got them into Imaging Science in the first place. This was very useful for the admissions counselors, as it helped provide a profile of the type of student we're looking for and what motivates them to want to get involved in a program such as Imaging Science.

After a few questions and answers, we headed down to the Bat Cave (the undergrad research lab) to take a look around and discuss various student projects taking place. And after that, we called it a day. By the end it really seemed like the Admissions group had a good understanding of what Imaging Science is and what type of student thrives in this program, so hopefully when they go out on recruiting trips they will be able to send some prospective students our way! It is a great feeling to know what we can work together to achieve our common goals.