The University of Toledo

University of Toledo Physics & Astronomy Event Calendar

Quick Start:

There are two options for adding or editing events on our calendar:

1. Email your event details to the Grad Student Event Coordinator (currently Sean Tanny).
2. Read on to learn how to gain edit access and enter events for our various departmental feeds.

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General Background:

The Dept. of Physics and Astronomy has its own Google Event Calendar, from which event information is pulled for the home page event feed, as well as for the autogenerated colloquium list. Anyone can subscribe to this calendar in iCal format by clicking here.  To edit the calendar, you must obtain a Google Account, and also receive edit authorization from one of the maintainers.  If you do not see an option when viewing an event on the calendar to Edit Event Details, you do not have authorization.  If necessary please email the chair of the web committee for authorization (including your Google account details).  

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Seminars and other Events

Seminars and other events, whether one-time or a series, can be included on the event calendar, as long as they are of general interest for the department and its colleagues.  The next 5 upcoming events will be displayed on the home page event feed.  Except for colloquia (see below), there is no required format for the event title, but in practice a consistent format such as, e.g.:

Astronomy Seminar - Speaker, Affiliation; Title

could be used to make it recognizable. Don't forget to include information in the "Where" field, and take care to input the event time and date correctly.

 

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Non-Public Events

Since anyone can view or subscribe to the calendar, there are no truly private events.  However, any events which should not be shown on the front page feed should be indicated as such by de-selecting, in the event edit page, either of the last two checkboxes under "Guests can", e.g. invite others see guest list.  For example, this might include faculty meetings or other internal-only events.  They will remain on the Google Event Calendar page, itself, and can also be seen by anyone subscribed to it.  

Nota Bene: formerly the calendar contained both public and private events, but in Sep, 2011, Google discontinued embedding private calendars.  All events which should be available on either or both of the home page or event calendar should be marked Public.  Private events will only be visible to calendar owners.

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Colloquium Events

The colloquium schedule is generated automatically from the event feed.  To be recognized and properly decoded, colloquium events therefore require specific formatting.  

Easy Additions:

Adding colloquium events to the calendar is most easily accomplished by duplicating pre-existing events and editing to suit.  For example, navigate to an event in the current or a past year's colloquium series, click Edit Event Details, choose the More Actions dropdown, and select Duplicate Event.

Title:

The title of the event has special formatting, so that the script which parses the Google Event feed can recognize colloquia, etc.:

Colloquium - Francis McSpeaker, University of Somewhere; The Title of My Fantastic Colloquium

Please preserve this format, including the leading Colloquium - , the comma, and semi-colon. You can omit the title until it is available without any negative consequence.

Abstract/URL/Host:

In addition, further information — the speaker's URL, the local person hosting the speaker, and the abstract for the presentation — are separately encoded in the Description field for the event, which you see when editing it.  The format is simple:

URL: http://usomewhere.edu/fmcspeaker
Host:  U.T. Professor
Abstract:  I will present a fantastic colloquium sure to change your entire world view on all issues of importance in the modern world.  Please wear comfortable pants.  

The URL will be linked to the speaker's name on the colloquium page.  Any and all of the above information can be omitted, but the "tags" such as "URL: " should remain.  The abstract can contain line breaks, which will be preserved.

Special Colloquium Events

As a special consideration, any text on a line before the URL: tag will be set under the date in the colloquium table in red.  Use this to mark special colloquia, joint colloquia, etc.  If in doubt, reference the events from past years.

[JDS]