Study abroad database to track UNC students abroad

UNC administrators and members of student government are collaborating to create a centralized database that would keep track of students, staff and faculty travelling abroad.

Former Student Body President Jasmin Jones plans to propose the system to Chancellor Holden Thorp in May.

This centralized database is intended to help UNC and the Study Abroad Office “do a better job of keeping track of everyone traveling abroad at all times so that we are able to locate them in case of emergency,” Jones said.

“It would contain basic information such as the traveler’s address, location, contact information and emergency contacts.”

The problem the database should solve, Jones added, is that currently there is no single place to see where everyone from UNC is traveling abroad.

Her goal is to have the database ready and implemented by the 2010-11 school year.

A task force composed of the Study Abroad Office, University Counsel and student government’s global university committee was recently set up to blueprint the details of how this database would be implemented and what it would entail.

Although the department has been using a similar database for the last seven years, it only includes students through the Study Abroad Office and a few other professional schools, such as the Kenan-Flagler Business School and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said Mark Nielsen, information systems manager for the Study Abroad Office.

But students also participate in independent programs, travel sponsored by other schools and other avenues not monitored by the Study Abroad Office.

“After the earthquake in Haiti, the Study Abroad Office had no record of any UNC students in Haiti when in fact there were several students there through departments or organizations unaffiliated with the current Study Abroad Office database,” Nielsen said.

“There are a lot of programs with people abroad that could be doing research, volunteer work or independent exchanges that (the Study Abroad Office) does not know about.

“In the event that there is a natural disaster, political upheaval or any other sort of emergency, then there could potentially be one mutual, organized place to know where everyone at UNC is.”

The plans for setting up such a centralized database are still in development, Nielsen said, but this “global travel database,” as the task force has been calling it, should be proposed to the chancellor by the end of May.



Contact the University Editor at udesk@unc.edu.