RRC WORKS WITH STUDENTS TO LAUNCH HELPFUL APP

BY CAITLYN GOWRILUK

Dylan Murray, a Business Administration student, uses the RRC Life events feature on his phone at the Roblin Centre./CAITLYN GOWRILUK

What you need to know about Red River College can now be found in one place.

Red River College recently launched a new web app that features school social media feeds, campus events, job postings and more for students to easily access.

The RRC Life app is available on all devices and browsers. It officially launched on Aug. 31. The product came from a partnership between RRC and students in the college’s Business Information Technology (BIT) program.

Christian Robin, RRC’s Director of Marketing and Web Presence, said the six-month partnership with the BIT program is what ensured that RRC Life would have features that are useful for students.

“What was great about working with those students is that we did a lot of the research [with them], because the target audience was students,” Robin said.

RRC Life compiles several features that already exist on the RRC website, including social media feeds, campus security information, and the job postings page. The app also has several new components, including a campus events page and an updated maps feature for all RRC campuses.

Dylan Murray, a student at RRC, is one of the app’s early users.

“I like to be involved socially with the college. I think making friends is a huge part of the college experience,” Murray said.

As a Business Administration student, he said the ability to share events with other students through the app is helpful.

“We are expected to do so much networking,” Murray said. “There couldn’t be a better app for that.”

Since its launch, there have already been several updates to the app based on user feedback and analytics. These changes include new options for target audiences on events, an updated vetting process for user posts, and keyword search functionality within the app’s job search feature.

“A web application is exceptionally easy to change, as opposed to a native application where you actually have to push out a download,” Robin said.

There are still other updates that developers plan to add to RRC Life, including 360-degree visuals on its campus maps feature.

“It’ll open up a new web page which will show you a 360 [degree] movable photo of that space, where you can navigate through and learn more,” Robin said.

While there are plans to eventually create native RRC Life apps for iOS and Android devices, Robin said this will likely not happen for at least another year.

For now, the RRC Life web app is available to use on all devices at rrclife.ca.