The Student Panther Information Network is new to Eastern this year and is available free to all students, faculty and staff.

Not many on campus, however, are taking advantage of the network’s amenities.

“It’s one of those things that if it’s working, (users) are happy, and if it’s not, they’re upset,” said Vicki Phillips, the Web Services technician for Information Technology Services. “But, other than that, we haven’t really received any feedback about SPIN at all.”

When users go to the site, spin.eiu.edu, many different options are available.

Users have the choice to click on the tabs New at EIU, Surveys, Boards, Market, Guide, News or Groups.

Phillips said the above modules are active, but ITS is having problems activating the Registration, Briefcase and Movies modules.

The modules give users the availability to check what local movies are playing under the Movies module, develop their own group that can have its own calendar of events or message board under the Groups module or share files under the Briefcase module.

“There is just a lot of functions for groups that want to get information out to other students who don’t have the time or expertise to make their own Web site,” Phillips said. “Users get to enjoy the benefits without managing the software.”

SPIN was implemented this year with the open-source program SINAPSE, which was added as part of Eastern’s network upgrade this year.

“We felt we needed a cyber utility for students at Eastern,” said Chat Chatterji, vice president for ITS. “While SPIN is not yet a full blown campus portal, it does provide some features that students seem to enjoy.”

Though ITS realized students would enjoy SPIN, the idea of bringing SPIN to Eastern came from a student.

“The idea developed about a year ago when a girl running for student body president came to us and proposed the idea for SPIN,” Phillips said. “She had seen it at different conferences she’d been to. We thought it was a great idea, and it especially appealed to us because it was free, which is always a good thing.”

Phillips said ITS has been continually working on getting the entire SPIN site up and running, but the process is slow.

“It’s mainly just a time issue,” Phillips said. “We’ve been rolling it slow, starting with the new students at orientation and hopefully soon the entire site will be ready for and known to all of campus.”