Collegiate Christian A Cappella

Complete name of school(s)

The full, "official" name of the school(s) with which your group is directly associated; examples are "Massachusetts Institute of Technology" and "Carnegie Mellon University / University of Pittsburgh". Currently, this "complete name" isn't published anywhere on the CCAC site, but it's still useful & important.

Abbreviated but unique name of school(s)

A shorter, commonly-used name for the school(s) with which your group is directly associated. This "common name" is used in many places on the CCAC site; consequently it's important that the particular institution(s) of higher learning to which this name refers be clear & unmistakable. For example, it's clear which schools are "Wellesley" and "Pepperdine", but to how many different universities does "OSU" refer? In general, use the name you'd give for your school if you were talking to a college-familiar person from another part of the country; effectively, that's exactly what you're doing!

Also, please spell out words like "University of " rather than using "U. of"... it's just easier on the eye; when in doubt, make this common name as much like the full name of your school(s) as possible, as long as the total length is 35 characters or less.

Group name

Obviously, the name of your group. If there's different names for your group (e.g. abbreviations ("MaJ'N" or "Jube!"), pick the one that you want used most often, but settle on just one, please (not "Jubilation! (a.k.a. Jube!)"). This group name is going to be used just about everywhere your group is mentioned on the CCAC site, so get it right!

Group is relatively new

Setting this "is relatively new" value to "true" means that your group is new; new groups currently get a little "new" graphic next to their names on the CCAC "List of Groups" page, to draw the attention of site users. Once your group has been listed as "new" for a couple of months, you should uncheck this flag; we don't have time to automatically uncheck it for you, so you'll have to self-police on this one.

This value is a "boolean" type, meaning you'll typically see it displayed with a "checkbox" (checked means "true" or "yes", unchecked means "false" or "no").

URL of group web page

If your group has a home page on the World Wide Web, put its "Universal Resource Locator" (URL) here; an example is "http://www.mit.edu/~crossp/". Your group's URL is used in several places on the CCAC site, including as a hypertext link on the "List of Groups" page, so it's important that you get your URL entered correctly (or else such links will be un-navigable for users of the CCAC site).

Group web page is relatively new

Setting this value to "true" means that your group's web page is new; new web pages currently get a little "new site" graphic next to their names on the CCAC "List of Groups" page, to draw the attention of site users. Once your group's page has been listed as a "new site" for a month or so, you should uncheck this flag; we don't have time to automatically uncheck it for you, so you'll have to self-police on this one.

This value is a "boolean" type, meaning you'll typically see it displayed with a "checkbox" (checked means "true" or "yes", unchecked means "false" or "no").

Group web page contains some new major content or renovation

Setting this value to "true" means that your group's web page contains some major new content; web pages with such new content currently get a little "new stuff" graphic next to their names on the CCAC "List of Groups" page, to draw the attention of site users. Please use this option judiciously only when your site offers some neat new, major stuff (like an album release or a new "photos" section, but not like a new logo or a new color of "hit counter" on the front page). If this option is overused, it will become meaningless to the CCAC site users, so let's save it for special stuff.

Once your group's new web page has been listed as "new stuff" for one to two weeks, you should uncheck this flag; we don't have time to automatically uncheck it for you, so you'll have to self-police on this one.

This value is a "boolean" type, meaning you'll typically see it displayed with a "checkbox" (checked means "true" or "yes", unchecked means "false" or "no").

Group geographic location

Believe it or not, the latitude and longitude of the city your group calls "home". A great place to look up the latitude and longitude of a city is the U.S. Census Bureau's "Gazetteer" service. This information has been used to produce the "National Map of CCAC Groups" image, which is now defunct but may eventually be resurrected (depending on interest), so please take the necessary two minutes to fill in these values at some point.

This particular value is actually composed of several sub-pieces of information, described below.

Latitude

The latitude of your group's "home city"; enter as a positive number (north of the equator), as provided by the U.S. Census Bureau's "Gazetteer" service. For example, Chicago, IL, is at 41.84N by 87.68W, so enter "41.84" for the latitude.

Longitude

The longitude of your group's "home city"; enter as a positive number (west of Greenwich, England), as provided by the U.S. Census Bureau's "Gazetteer" service. For example, Chicago, IL, is at 41.84N by 87.68W, so enter "87.68" for the longitude.

Group contact

A person or resource (e.g. a group email address) that serves as an official contact for your group. Since CCAC site users will use this address to contact your group about official stuff, it's important that you put some thought into who/what the contact should be and that you get the information entered correctly (especially the email addresses).

Currently, the email addresses of the contacts for a group are published next to the group's name on the CCAC "List of Groups" page; the actual names of contacts are not currently published, and will probably be limited to private pages that only other CCAC groups can access (in the future).

You can enter multiple instances of this value. To remove an existing instance of this value, check the "delete" checkbox next to it. To add a new instance of this value, fill in the blank instance entry that is at the end of all the instances for this value; once you save your new instance, another blank instance entry will be created (for any additional instances).

This particular value is actually composed of several sub-pieces of information, described below.

Name

The actual name of this contact person or resource. Examples are "Josephine Jones" (person) and "Group email account" (non-person, or else a person with very cruel parents).

Email address

The email address of this contact person or resource. Examples are "Jo-Jo.Jones@my_machine.my_school.my_domain" and "cross-products@example.com".

This value must be in the format of a "standard" email address: a series of "identifiers" (consisting of alphanumerics, underscores, and hyphens) separated by decimal points (.), with one and only one "at" character (@) preceded by at least one identifier and followed by at least two decimal-separated identifiers (don't sweat it; most addresses should work).

Phone number

A phone number for this contact person or resource; this phone number is not currently used anywhere on the site, but it's a good idea to go ahead and enter it now so we can use it later (for a private "detailed contact info" page or something). This phone number will never be published on a public page in the site.

Mailing address

A mailing address for this contact person or resource; this mailing address is not currently used anywhere on the site, but it's a good idea to go ahead and enter it now so we can use it later (for a private "detailed contact info" page or something). This mailing address will never be published on a public page in the site.

Group event

Information about upcoming events that your group is planning; events described here will automatically be published on the "Events Calendar" on the CCAC site. Among the events you might list here are concerts and other performances, Gospel Jams, pitches' retreats, informal sing-a-longs, auditions, etc.--basically, anything that you want to let your audience/guests know that they can attend.

At the very least, the date and name of the event are required, but make sure you also provide enough information that CCAC site users can understand what your event is and can get to it if they're interested.

It is highly recommended that, having published changes to your group events, you go to the various places the events are published (such as the aforementioned "Events Calendar") to make sure your information looks okay.

You can enter multiple instances of this value. To remove an existing instance of this value, check the "delete" checkbox next to it. To add a new instance of this value, fill in the blank instance entry that is at the end of all the instances for this value; once you save your new instance, another blank instance entry will be created (for any additional instances).

This particular value is actually composed of several sub-pieces of information, described below.

Date

The date upon which this event is to take place or is to start (if it's a multi-day event).

This value is a "date" and must be in the format "MM/DD/YYYY". Some examples are "02/03/1999" (which is "Feb. 3rd, 1999") and "12/24/2003" (which is "Christmas Eve, 2003"). Also, non-existent dates (e.g. "14/01/1999" or "02/29/1999") will be rejected.

Name

The name of this event, just as you might put on a poster. It can be anything as mundane as "Fall Concert" (hey, call it what is) to something as wacked as "Muppet Jam" (hey, you're from Harvard). Remember that your group name will be posted with the event name, too (unless you choose otherwise; see below), so don't go naming the event "Cross Products Auditions" when it really should just be "Auditions".

Time

The time (on the given date) for this event; typically a starting time is given, but there are no real restrictions on what you provide here, so you might give a range of time, or several times, or something like "Performances start every half hour". Or you may even list no time at all, as appropriate.

Location

The location of this event, such as "MIT, Room 10-250". Remember that CCAC site users (your potential audience) may not know your local area, so they may need more detail than you'd otherwise provide; for example, a concert by "Jubilation!" at "Barnard College" might need to be listed as "Columbia University, Barnard College", or else some poor out-of-towner from, say, the other side of Manhattan who doesn't know that Barnard is at Columbia might think that the concert is at a whole different school and get very confused. You may even want to mention the city and state you're in, (some Christian-a cappella-starved Staten Islander may not realize that Columbia's in his own back yard). Just give it some thought, anyway.

Also, you can include HTML tags in your location information, so you could, for example, include a link to a "detailed directions" page on your group's web site or perhaps a graphical "how to get here" map on your school's web page.

Description

A description of this event. Obviously you want the CCAC site user to understand roughly what the event is, and perhaps you even want to give them a feel for what it will be like; the goal is for them to be able to decide whether they should come to the event. Sometimes the event name alone is plenty, but most of the time you need to provide more detailan "Auditions" event, for example, almost certainly needs some "contact" information so your audience (auditionees, in this case) can schedule their auditions, and you probably want to give them an idea how to prepare, or a pointer to more detailed information elsewhere on the web (you can use HTML in the description to provide such a pointer, via a hypertext link).

Hide the school name & group name for this entry on events calendar

Setting this value to "true" means that your group's name will not be displayed for this event on the events calendar. You should probably hide your school & group name for those events that don't really belong ~exclusively to your group (even though your group is publicizin them); for example, a post for a pitches' retreat would probably be better labeled "Midwest Pitches' Retreat" (hidden group name) than "University of Chicago MaJ'N Midwest Pitches' Retreat" (visible group name). As always, use your best judgement.

This value is a "boolean" type, meaning you'll typically see it displayed with a "checkbox" (checked means "true" or "yes", unchecked means "false" or "no").