It’s been some months since the brand new website for the student association was launched, and it’s been fantastic to see it develop. Many of you have contacted us with kind messages about how much you like the new site - we really appreciate you taking the time to get in touch! We know that not everyone will yet have had the chance to discover everything the website has to offer, so we thought we’d write a short post to highlight some of its great features.
Signing up as a Site Member
Making this site safe and secure for OCA students is one of the fundamentals. To ensure that it's only for people in the OCA a number of the website's pages are only accessible to site members. This ensures that things like student groups, event signups and committee minutes are protected.
Signing up to the website is really easy, and you only have to give a minimum of information to do so. What is essential is that you must use your OCA email to sign up. Every new signup is manually checked, and we only accept those with an OCA email. We do try and reach out to the few people who have tried to sign up with a personal email account in order to help you onboard.
Events
If you don’t already, it’s worth checking out the Events page on a regular basis to keep in touch with what’s happening across OCA. There are all kinds of events scheduled, from study groups and workshops about designing accessible content to sessions on managing anxiety during your studies. You can sign up and register your place directly on the page for the event. You will need to be logged into the OCASA site with your OCA email address.
Groups
This area of the website is the place to create and join groups, connecting together students with shared interests. This includes regional groups, subject-specific groups, and cross-discipline groups – it’s your area to do what you like with! We'd love to see some extra-curricular groups emerge, so if you have a shared hobby or passion then think about starting a group for that too.
The website provides a message board to help you keep in touch with other people in the group, and the ability to upload photos and videos. Note that you’ll need to log in to the website first using your OCA email account to access this area which can be found here.
Social Media Links
There is a large number of social media groups run by OCA students, and we have started to put together a list on the External Groups page. If you run a group that isn’t already listed there, please get in touch and we’ll add a link to it!
Member Profiles
Everyone has a member profile that you can view and edit when you log in to the website. You can put whatever you like about yourself in your profile – one suggestion is to include a link to your online learning log if you have one. From your profile you can also keep track of the events you have registered for, and manage subscription settings (for instance you can opt to subscribe to emails about new blog posts).
Blog
If you have a story you would like to share, we’d love to feature it on the blog. Send it to blog@oca.ac.uk, preferably with an image to go along with it.
For Students, Featuring Students
Finally, we would really love for the website to showcase some of the amazing work being created by OCA students. To get the ball rolling, we’ve come up with a list of pages on the site which are in need of some original artwork. But if you can think of a place where a photo, artwork, illustration or graphic might help then feel free to upload your work and send us a message with your suggestion!
To submit your work, please visit the Submissions page and add your media to the gallery (you’ll need to be logged in using your OCA email address).
That’s all for now! We’re really looking forward to seeing your submissions.