Athens, Ga. – The University of Georgia Career Center has received a national award for its newly created Digital Career Guide for iPad.
The Chevron Corp. and the National Association of Colleges and Employers gave the UGA Career Center the Outstanding Achievement Award for Innovative Programs in the College Career Services Field.
The Chevron Award recognizes and honors a university for the development of a groundbreaking program in career services. It is considered the most prestigious of all program awards bestowed by NACE, according to Scott Williams, executive director of the UGA Career Center.
Created to meet the needs of today’s tech-savvy student and stay ahead of technology curve, the Digital Career Guide for iPad is an interactive version of the printed UGA Career Guide. It provides a range of career-related information and resources that have been enhanced with instructional videos, multimedia features and interactive learning activities. The iPad Digital Career Guide, which was launched in December, includes videos on student internship experiences, an interactive résumé builder, tips for how to dress for an interview, a business correspondence fact or fiction quiz and an interactive graduate school application timeline.
In addition to typical e-book functions like highlighting text, adding notes, bookmarking pages and conducting keyword searches, the e-book also has hyperlinks to UGA and Web resources including UGA’s Intern For a Day Program, career assessments, a UGA majors listing and graduate school testing sites.
“The Digital Career Guide for iPad provides our office with the ability to ‘virtually teach’ UGA students,” said Williams. “Research shows that students think tablets makes learning more fun, and this is exactly what we were striving to achieve. We wanted to create something that students would use, something that would enhance the college learning experience.”
The e-book has been met with student praise.
“The e-book is amazing. It provides a ton of information about the job search and career planning that can be used wherever you go,” said Nicole Peterson, a senior majoring in mass media arts. “The interactive activities were the best part because it really tested my knowledge and the answers were explained in a clear and relatable manner.”
Danny Coradazzi, a senior majoring in Spanish and linguistics, called the e-book interesting and informative.
“The e-book is incredibly interactive and had strong visual appeal,” he said. “This would be a perfect resource to pull up when I’m in between classes or a quick review right before a big interview.”
UGA is the only university to ever receive the Chevron Award two consecutive years and one of three institutions to have received it twice. UGA was recognized in 2012 for its “Wherever, Whenever and Whatever” mobile Web system.
“The UGA Career Center puts students first,” said Tom Landrum, senior vice president for external affairs. “They are thinking ahead, constantly reinventing themselves and never satisfied with the status quo. They figure what technology would be useful to students and make it happen. They are early adapters in the e-book trend, and I can’t wait to see what products they’re going to roll out next.”
The award will be presented at the NACE annual conference in June in Orlando, Fla. For more information about the NACE Chevron Award, see http://www.naceweb.org/Awards/Chevron/NACE_Chevron.aspx.
To view the iPad Career guide, see http://youtu.be/fNJdzEuriN0 or https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/university-georgia-career/id589894122?mt=11.
