This month, the University of Idaho Housing and Residence Life office announced plans to go fully digital with all the campus partner signage in the residence halls. Instead of flyers on bulletin boards, televisions are being installed as “digital boards.”
This change is a part of UI’s Sustainability Initiative, according to Nicolas Cress, Outreach and Engagement Coordinator for Housing and Residence Life.
“We’ve been working for the past couple of years to get some new digital signage boards up in the residence halls,” Cress said. “We’re using [the digital boards] to help with the university’s sustainability initiatives so that we can help reduce the amount of paper waste that happens as a result of the paper signage.”
“When you count the number of flyers that go out to every floor and whatnot, we had 7700 flyers last year alone,” Cress said.
Currently, there are fourteen digital boards installed in areas deemed as high traffic. Notably, there are three digital boards in the Wallace Residence Hall, posted at the entries near The Eatery.
According to John Kosh, the Director of Business Development, Marketing, and Communications for Auxiliary Services, the digital boards were implemented in housing after seeing good results from the digital boards that have been put up in the Vandal Store and ISUB.
“The ISUB is a great example [of the benefits of the digital boards]. We used to just have those bulletin boards, and they are still available, but there is just this sea of 8.5 x 11-inch sheets of paper, and the messages get lost,” Kosh said. “When we consolidated everything onto the digital board, it gave more front and center focus to those individual flyers or events that were coming up.”
With the digital boards, the flyer submissions can be simple, and animated and can even be videos to promote upcoming events or important messages. The boards can also be vital in relaying information quickly, such as sudden school closures.
According to Cress, the digital boards in the residence halls have been in a pilot period since the Fall 2023 semester. Now that the digital boards have been officially launched, paper flyers in the dorms are discouraged.
The digital signage boards consist of a 4K pixel television and a computer unit that totals around $1200 for each setup, with additional ongoing fees for the software maintenance.
“We are not the vanguard of this [implementation of digital boards]. We are seeing that this is what other universities are doing. So, we are just bringing ourselves up to speed, and really, we are just trying to stop this senseless paper going into the recycling stream or trash,” Kosh said. “I hope that we are effective.”
“I think making the change from bulletin boards to the digital TV boards is a great step forward for sustainability and efficiency on our campus. I think bulletin boards serve as an essential communication tool but often result in an excessive use of paper for flyers, but by going digital I think that we will be able to reduce paper waste and have a more dynamic way of sharing information about campus updates and events,” said Abbi Connell, the ASUI Director of Sustainability.
“These digital displays offer greater flexibility in managing the content compared to traditional bulletin boards, but overall, the transition to digital displays aligns with the broader sustainability goal of reducing energy consumption and promoting technological innovation,” Connell said.
Submissions to the Housing and Residence Life digital displays can be made here.
Georgia Swanson can be reached at [email protected]