Classification Categories and Terms
The Events Calendar system has an extensive, flexible system for classifying your events. In addition to the breakdown below, we’ve created a Best Practices for Classification guide that will help you use this system to its best effect.
Using classifications for curation
The Events Calendar team put a significant amount of work into offering broad choices for the predefined lists and we are committed to keeping them limited. Additions to these lists will therefore be rare. Rather than requesting the addition of a new Subject, for instance, you can use Localist’s multifaceted classifications to narrow your event’s focus.
An example: Kevin works at the Graduate School of Business and would like to promote events related to entrepreneurship. He chose Business as the subject for the event, then tagged it with Entrepreneurship. See Tags, below.
The digests and widget builder can use both the subject and that tag to offer a tailored list of entrepreneurship-related events. Testing this with the Widget Builder, Kevin selected Business for the subject and entered entrepreneurship in the Keywords and Tags field, with this being the result (note: as this is a live example, the display will vary as events come and go).
If Kevin wants to narrow the result, he can work with his colleagues in the GSB and across campus to agree upon a unique keyword. It’s important to note that keywords are not displayed publicly anywhere, but are available for widget queries. So he could add something like gsb-entrepreneur-digest to every event he wants to display and he’d ask others to do the same if they’d like to be in the GSB entrepreneurship event feed.
Categories that describe the event
Event Type
A predefined list of terms that describe the format of the event.
Best Practice: Use the terms provided in this category as a means to describe the style or format of the event.
- What type of “experience” does this event provide for the attendee?
- What will the attendee be doing at the event?
Examples:
This event is a lecture
You will be attending an educational talk. You will listen to subject matter expert(s).
This event is a workshop
You will be participating in activities during the event. You will gain new skills.
Terms for Event Type
Note: changes from the classification system used in the legacy system are noted in italics below.
Academic Dates
Best Practice: Use this term exclusively for dates related to the academic calendar published by the Registrar’s Office
Class/Seminar
Best Practice: Use this term if the event has multiple occurrences/cadence
Conference/Symposium
Exhibition
Best Practice: use tags to elaborate on the type of Exhibition. i.e. photography, still life
Film/Screening
Fitness/Recreation Sports
Information Session
This has been incorporated into Meeting or Social Event
Lecture/Reading/Presentation/Talk
Best Practice: Use this term if the event is a single occurrence. See the example below, under Event Subject.
Meeting
Best Practice: Use tags to elaborate on the type of Meeting. i.e. information session, board meeting
Performance
PhD Defense
Religious/Spiritual
Social Event/Reception
Student Billing Dates
Best Practice: Used exclusively for dates related to tuition and bursar charges
Tour
Workshop
University Event
All events are university events. Use the “sponsored by” field to promote events like graduation, and alumni weekend.
Event Subject
A predefined list of terms that define the general focus, subject of an event. The terms in this category are designed to be broad, predictable, and “free of jargon.”
Best Practice: Use the terms provided in this category to communicate the general subject area of the event.
Is the event related to a school or a long-range initiative?
Examples:
This event is a lecture in Science
You will be attending an educational talk in the field of science.
Best Practice: Use Tags (see next section, below) to elaborate on the subject/type of Science.
This event is a workshop in Law/Public Policy/Politics
You will be participating in activities that support better advocating for law or public policy.
Terms for Event Subject
Note: changes from the classification system used in the legacy system are noted in italics below.
Arts/Media
Business
Career Development
Diversity/Identity
Education
Engineering/Technology
Environment/Sustainability
Health/Wellness
Humanities
International Affairs
Law/Public Policy/Politics
Medicine
Music
Public Service/Government
Religion/Spirituality
Science
Social Justice/Human Rights
Theater/Dance/Drama*
Arts – Literary Arts*
Arts – Visual Arts*
Women/Gender*
* This can be incorporated into Diversity/Identity or Social Justice/Human Rights
Working at Stanford
Tags
A free-form text field that allows for multiple entries. Create terms that are descriptors and provide more specifics on the subject or format.
Best Practice: Use terms that narrow down the scope of the subject term you selected; terms that are alternative theme(s) or hashtags that promote the event.
Examples:
This event is a lecture on Science
You will be attending an educational talk in the field of science. Specifically…
Tags: human biology, life science, TEDx
This event is a workshop in Law/Public Policy
You will be participating in activities that support better advocating for law or public policy. Specifically…
Tags: criminal justice, juvenile court, rehabilitation
Free-form terms
Note: field will auto-fill based on already created terms. Use this feature to avoid creating multiple versions of a tag when using an existing version would work just as well. At times auto-fill can be a little slow because we have thousands of tags, so give the system a second or two to catch up.
Keywords
A free-form text field that allows for multiple entries. Keyword terms are used to support SEO and import/export of events on other websites; they are not visible to the end-users. Create terms that are alternative search terms, misspellings of commonly used terms, narrowly-focused terms for curation (see above), and terms that will increase SEO.
Best Practice: Create terms that are alternative search terms, misspellings of commonly used terms, and terms that will help curate a list of events for your website.
Example:
This event is a lecture on Science
Tags: human biology, life science, TEDx
Keywords: HumBio, scientific research
Free-form terms
Note: field will auto-fill based on already created terms. Use this feature to avoid creating multiple versions of a tag when using an existing version would work just as well. At times auto-fill can be a little slow because we have thousands of keywords, so give the system a second or two to catch up.
Event Audience
Audience Type
Multi-select from a predefined list of terms.
End-user display:
This event is open to: selected terms
Optional Custom field Restricted to:
Use this field to indicate any attendee restrictions. Appears to Event Seekers as a red box with white type.
Example:
Restricted to: Individuals that bring a banana
Best Practice: Setting Visibility for your event to Unlisted will prevent your event from being listed on the main calendar. Share your event’s link with your exclusive audience.
Terms for Audience
Affiliates
Alumni
Everyone
Faculty
General Public
Members
Postdocs
Staff
Staff – Academic
Staff – Managers
Students
Students – Graduates
Students – Undergraduates
Event Location and Experience
Event Location
A predefined list of over 200 locations on Historic Campus, Redwood City Campus, Stanford Affiliate Campus, and Off-Campus.
Every location in the system has a landing page with information including a Google Map.
At times auto-fill can be a little slow because we have hundreds of locations, so give the system a second or two to catch up.
Best Practice: if the location of your event is not included in our list, you have two options:
- If this is a one-off event or at a rarely used venue, enter the name. You will be presented a field to enter the address.
- If this is a new venue, or one that you expect will be used in the future, contact the Events Calendar team to have the venue added to the system.
Event Experience
A predefined list of how attendees will participate in the event.
Terms for Event Experience
In-Person
Virtual
Hybrid
Event Host, Sponsor, and Co-sponsor
Event Host
Multi-select from a predefined list of terms.
Departments
Only for university/academic departments, centers, labs, schools, institutes, administrative units
- School of Medicine, University IT, Stanford Web Services
Groups
ASSU approved student groups; faculty and staff organizations
- Animal Rights on the Farm, User Experience CoP
A note on co-sponsors
Event Admins are granted the ability to create events for only the Groups and Departments they designate when they request Publisher access.
Because of this, you will find that the select menus for Groups and Departments will be limited to only those selections.
If your Group or Department regularly sponsors events in partnership with others and you would like to have the ability to add them as co-sponsors, contact the Events Calendar team and request they be added to your account access. Note that we cannot assign access by department, e.g., connect Taube Center and Department of Religious Studies. Rather, that assignment is made at the individual level, e.g., Michelle Smith can post for both Taube Center and Religious Studies.
We’ve configured the system this way because there are over 900 Groups and Departments in the system. That makes for a very large list to scroll through!