The Center for Civic Engagement has implemented a new software system that will allow West Virginia University students to volunteer and track their community service hours online.
Brett White, operations coordinator for the Center for Civic Engagement, said the new program, called iServe, is a state-of-the-art software system that allows students to search for hundreds of opportunities and place themselves with local agencies.
The program will not only benefit community projects and charitable organizations, but will allow students to keep a personalized history of their work.
"We have been looking for years for a system that would allow students to be able to access their records online and do it themselves," White said.
The CCE is partnered with more than 120 non-profit organizations. Students can also enter into an agreement with a non-profit organization from their hometown or native city to log hours during the summer months.
"As an effort to meet the growing demands of students, we have designed a format to place, track, record and organize civic engagement activities," said Kristi Wood, interim director of the Center for Civic Engagement.
"With the addition of iServe, WVU remains one of the top innovators in civic engagement."
WVU is ranked in the top 6 percent of schools for excellence in civic engagement, and the University has been actively seeking a way to automate its student volunteer
service system since 2004.
The iServe software system was designed by Samaritan Technologies, which has been designing software for 14 years, and was recently voted first in the nation for volunteer service software by TechSoup.org and Idealware.org.
The system created for WVU took eight months to develop and was officially launched on Aug. 19.
"Samaritan Technologies is honored to provide West Virginia University with a state-of-the-art Volunteer recruiting, management, scheduling and tracking system," said Todd McMullin, co-founder of Samaritan Technologies.
"This technology assures that WVU has joined the latest generation of social networking and community engagement," he said.
When hours are completed for a mandatory requirement, the system automatically notifies the University office responsible for the requirement.
The system also give WVU the ability to cite hundreds of reports for grant writing, University requirements and national awards.
"iServe will enhance the ability for students to make a solid connection between what they are doing in the classroom and what they do in the community," Wood said.
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