1.     Community Sites of CAU

A.    CAUin / https://cauin.cau.ac.kr

           CAUin is an official community site of CAU, which students are required to sign in with their portal IDs in order to access. The categories of boards are Announcements, Blue Dragon Square, Chung-ang LIFE, Job/Test/Career, Life Information, and Humor Board. Of these categories, the only ones that are well used are Announcement and Blue Dragon Square, and the rest of the boards are rarely used by students. In the case of Announcements, it is constantly being updated by the head of each department, but does not play a significant role as it is all uploaded in the portal site of CAU too. The Blue Dragon Square takes the form of a free board. Many students upload questions, and the authority or other students of CAU answer them. However, compared to a considerable number of students posting questions, there are very few replies. It means that even these two active boards are not functioning well. If we also consider other boards, the use of the site itself is therefore not serving as a smooth channel for communication with students.

B.     Everytime / https://everytime.kr

Everytime is a site used by all university students nationwide, and each student can access only one site that corresponds to their university after a thorough certification process. For all students, anonymity is guaranteed and nicknames can be shown if the writer wants. There are many times when anonymity becomes a big problem. Everytime is the most widely used community site in most universities, but the only important information provided is about lectures, and all other boards just seem like a free board where undergraduates can actively communicate. However, due to the nature of the site that only enrolled students can access, communication with graduates who know the information most related to careers and jobs is not working well. They cannot share that information since there are no community sites for it yet. In the end, Everytime is just a community site that provides communication among enrolled students.

C.     CAUlove / http://caulove.com

           CAUlove is a community site of CAU, which was made in January of 2017. This site was made by students of CAU in order to supplement CAUin, an official community site of CAU. However, due to the lack of promotion of the site, many students would never have heard of it. Until now, the site has not yet been active because of students’ poor activity on the site. The site is expected to disappear soon as there are no students currently using it, and system of signing up is also restricted.

           As such, the community sites of CAU are very limited, and seem insufficient for providing enrolled students a chance to communicate with graduates. Currently, community sites that have active exchanges among students of CAU are mostly used for entertainment tools. In other words, there is no such thing as information about career paths after graduation exchanged among them. What about communication sites of other schools?

2.     Community Sites of Korea University and Yonsei University

           The most actively used community site among students at Korea University is ‘Koreapas’. The main users of the site are undergraduate and graduate students of Korea University, and graduates as well are frequently using it. To strictly prevent students from other universities from accessing the site, the site allows people to sign up after an authentication procedure using the portal ID. With thousands of concurrent users every hour, all the boards are active, especially those related to graduation and employment. The same applies to Yonsei University’s community site, ‘Seiyonnet.’ ‘Seiyonnet’ is a community site similar to ‘Koreapas’, and also currently has active access by many students as well as graduates who share large amounts of information. Those are scenes that we can never see in the community sites of Chung-ang University. Regarding that employment and career are the main concerns of university students, it is certain that community sites of universities should be made active just like those two sites introduced above.

3.     Interview with Students of CAU

CAH: How often do you use community sites of CAU (Everytime, CAUin, CAUlove)?

KIM: I only use them when I need to find some information.

HEO: I use ‘Everytime’ the most among those three. I access ‘Everytime’ frequently in need, and access to CAUin only in particular situation.

CAH: For what information do you usually access to the site?

KIM: I use the community sites of CAU in order to get information about clubs or festivals held on campus.

HEO: I use ‘Everytime’ in order to get information about the class evaluation and exam styles of each class. Moreover, I search off-campus activities on it too. For CAUin, I only use it to find out if my lost things are uploaded in the lost and found board.

CAH: Do you have any experience sharing or getting information through community sites of CAU?

KIM: I wanted to search about what club to get into, and finally found one that really fits me, which is the sign language club.

HEO: I had experience getting information about off-campus activities. In addition, I once shared a message to find the owner of the lost property I had found on campus. Currently, what I usually get from ‘Everytime’ is the evaluation students did about the classes.

CAH: Are you satisfied with receiving useful information on the current community sites of CAU?

KIM: As for ‘Everytime’, which many students use the most, I'm not satisfied at all. This is because of the sites’ anonymity. I think there are increasing number of students who spread false information anonymously.

HEO: It is true that there is some information related to campus that helps students. I feel satisfied with that. However, at the same time, I think some needless information uploaded behind the anonymity should be eradicated.

           According to the two students of the interview which CAH had, they got some useful information in community sites of CAU, but still did not feel satisfied with them. The only information they were getting and sharing was about the class, festivals, clubs, and sometimes, lost things. They never mentioned communication with graduates nor information about careers. This obviously shows that the community sites of CAU lack that information.

           Chung-ang University still has no community site for active communication between its graduates and undergraduates, unlike Korea University and Yonsei University. Universities are not institutions that only offer degrees. As the highest educational institution, universities should offer students many opportunities to find their dreams. If there is no active exchange with graduates who will play the biggest role, students will not be able to receive enough useful information. Therefore, it seems necessary to encourage more activity in the community sites of CAU.