Student Government relaunches RITpedia

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Student Government will be hosting a “Wikithon” from 4 to 10 p.m. today in the Student Innovation Center to celebrate the relaunch of the online RIT encyclopedia RITpedia.

“Wikithon” attendees will be asked to edit and contribute new articles to RITpedia. Free food will be provided and prizes will be given away throughout the night, including Barnes & Noble gift cards, a FitBit Charge and an HP Stream 7 tablet. Contributors must bring their own computer.

“RITpedia depends on strong student involvement, so that means students need to know about it,” said Tyler Pierce, vice president of Student Government. “RIT has changed a lot since the wiki was created, and there is a lot of content on there that needs to be updated.”

The online RIT encyclopedia was created by the First-Year Enrichment department in 2009. However, with the website’s former administrator leaving this semester, FYE made the decision to transfer the service to Student Government. The website was redesigned by Student Government Production Manager Colum McGaley and updated for compatibility with mobile devices and consistency with other Student Government Web services.

“When we saw the opportunity to enhance the availability of RIT history and information through student, staff and faculty input, we jumped at it,” said Student Government President Ashley Carrington. “We have a lot of resources that we can use to relay information to students, but we’ve never offered something like this that students can update themselves.”

An RIT computer account is required to make edits or contributions to RITpedia, which will help protect against potential misuse, according to Castle.

RITpedia is the third Web service introduced by Student Government this academic year. Other efforts include PawPrints, an online petitioning service, and BikeShare, RIT’s online bike rental system.