 "Photo: www.extra.ucfsga.com")
Staying true to campaign promises of transparency, Student Government Association President Matthew McCann and Vice President Adam Brock have launched SGA Extra, a website created to stream events hosted and sponsored by the SGA.
Launched for the State of the University Address last month, the website is a sister site to UCF's SGA website and includes press releases and newsletters in addition to streaming video events.
"It is a great way to educate and build awareness in these local communities," McCann said.
The site will also stream weekly SGA Senate meetings. These meetings are open to the UCF community, but having the meeting streamed live online makes it more convenient for students who may not be on campus Thursday nights.
SGA Public Relations Coordinator Ashley Tinstman oversees the content for the website and has been trying to push it through social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter.
"We want it to be something students go to immediately when they want to know something," Tinstman said.
Tinstman said the website is continuing to grow, and plans for the site include adding recaps of senate meetings, messages from the executive cabinet and features on student organizations.
According to SGA Web Coordinator Steve Della-Valentina, the site averages anywhere from 20 to 150 page views a day, but that number increases to more than 1,000 during special-event coverage such as Spirit Splash, when the site received 1,410 page views and 541 unique visitors to the site.
The highest amount of traffic, Della-Valentina said, was during the Zeta Lip Sync event last month. The site received 5,108 hits and 462 unique visitors.
The site is not new, however, but a revamped version of a site launched during former President Michael Kilbride's term. Before it was exclusively for videos, but now the website has a blog-like feel and additional content.
Della-Valentina said that Brock approached him with the idea.
"He wanted to see it as a blog that made SGA more approachable among being more informative," Della Valentina said.
Cameras used to film events and stream them online are supplied by the Office of Student Involvement Productions organization. Director of OSI Productions Sean McLaughlin said he and other staff members man the cameras and film the events for SGA.
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