Shared Authoring on the Collaborative Calendar adds quality ("Value Education") to the institution by increasing and improving communication, participation, and interactivity on its Web. It supports the numerous services which are publicized in the process.

It adds efficiency and effectiveness ("Value Responsibility") by saving employees time, and allowing more personal and specific accountability for the college’s web-based information. It saves the cost of finding, buying, and implementing a similar product from the commercial market to respond to the demand for this system (and for additional copies of the program).

The project has promoted the learning objective ("Value Students") by publicizing student-focused events and employee training opportunities. It has also led to the development of additional Shared Authoring programs to support student and employee web sites other than versions of the calendar.

The program was born of creativity ("Value Excellence"), consisting entirely of original scripts, new web designs, and unique functionality.

Its timeliness ("Value Excellence") is based both on recent demand – having proven its usefulness for just over a year – and on its dynamic nature, whereby the public view of the program continuously changes with current interests and participants.

Its maximum value to students and the community is based firmly on collaboration ("Value Excellence"), wherein the cooperation of multiple departments is required to make the Calendar an information-rich resource.

It has also seen plenty of replication ("Value Excellence"), having already been converted into four other department-specific calendar web sites, such as the Library Media Center Calendar at http://www.gc.maricopa.edu/calendar/library. The program has also been shared with Mesa Community College (http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/calendar). Variations such as categories of information and the heading of the web page are easy to customize, making the calendar program quite "portable."

Another important aspect of Maricopa’s Mission and Values which is not listed among the Innovation of the Year criteria is especially exemplified by Shared Authoring methods. It is the deeply valued diversity of our students, employees, and interests which the Collaborative Calendar most emphasizes in the broad extent of events and information sources that the program accommodates and brings together.

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