From DuckSync to DuckLink

This school year, Stevens made a change in its online hub for Student Life, switching from using DuckSync to DuckLink. This unexpected and sudden change in online systems came as a shock to Stevens students, many of whom had no idea that DuckSync had any problems worth addressing.

The change was announced on August 4, 2017 through an email sent out by Assistant Director of Undergraduate Student Life Chris Shemanski. He wrote in a message that on August 7, DuckSync would be deactivated and by August 8, Student Life would be operating under DuckLink. The transition was swift, and student data previously stored on DuckSync transferred over to the new platform, including portals, users, organization rosters, upcoming events, and involvement history.

Shemanski also offered insight about the change, stating that the sudden change was due to complaints by students. Shemanski said, “Despite the features offered with DuckSync, many students continuously expressed frustrations with the interface and overall user experience as a student leader.” Student Life had been planning this transition since the spring of 2017, when OrgSync (the previous system) was bought out by Campus Labs and offered OrgSync users the chance to use their platform Engage. The new system has an improved interface but allowed Stevens to keep their current support staff.

DuckLink, while it has most if not all of the previous benefits of DuckSync, also has some new and very different features. Shemanski stated that one of those new features is called Paths, which is a way for clubs to monitor a student’s service hours for it. There also is an app, called Corq, that syncs with DuckLink so students can access these services while they are on the go.

Shemanski hopes that DuckLink will help enable students to showcase their events for their respective organizations. While it will take some time to work out the bugs for the new system, Shemanski believes that the students will be better off “given the capabilities of this robust system.”

Students can access the website by going to stevens.campuslabs.com/engage or right from their myStevens account. Anyone from the Stevens community can access it by entering their Stevens credentials.