[civsa] BEWARE! Virtual tour request

[La Dawn C. DUVALL]

Thanks Brandi,

We received that message as well and chose to ignore!

Best,
La Dawn

*L A   D A W N   D U V A L L  *|  Executive Director, Visitor & Parent
Services

Communications & Public Affairs

101 Sproul Hall, Berkeley CA 94720

office: 510.643.8888  |  mobile: 510.915.3099

lduvall at berkeley.edu <huldanelson at berkeley.edu>

<hulda.nelson at gmail.com>

On Mon, May 23, 2016 at 9:54 AM, Brandi Underwood <bunderw3 at mail.wvu.edu>
wrote:

> Hi, all:
>
>
>
> I just wanted to make everyone aware of a company, Georama, who recently
> submitted a request with us to do a virtual group tour of our campus. They
> indicated that the virtual tour would be a way to connect out-of-state and
> international students to our campus who do not have the means to travel to
> campus themselves, but neglected to mention that Georama was a tech company
> who currently has patent-pending software and a business model to charge
> for the “virtual campus tour” experience. Essentially, they want to send
> college Visitor Centers video technology they created (the rep I spoke to
> one the phone said that the college campus would be able to keep the
> technology ‘for free’ after the first tour) and use our tour guides to
> provide a virtual tour experience to prospective students who would in turn
> PAY GEORAMA for providing the virtual tour.
>
>
>
> Here’s the text they used in their request:
>
>
>
> I would like to set up a tour for 10-12 out-of-state and international
> students interested in WVU that cannot physically visit the campus due to
> financial and visa reasons. The tour would be done via live video where the
> students can interact with the tour guide. We will provide the technology
> to you free of charge so the student guide can deliver the tour.
>
> We would like to schedule the tour in early/mid June based on your
> availability. Please let me know when you have a chance to talk to your
> team so we can discuss to coordinate.
>
> Thank you for your help!
>
>
>
> I’m sure that most of you would agree that allowing others to use our tour
> guides and campus to profit for “virtual campus tours” is an unfair
> business model and a risky road to go down. Also, their language in the
> request was very innocuously worded and certainly wasn’t a fair explanation
> of what the company was ultimately trying to accomplish. I just wanted to
> make everyone aware of it to be on the lookout for future requests from
> Georama.
>
>
>
> */ **Brandi Underwood *
>
> Admissions Counselor, University Relations
> West Virginia University
> (304) 293-8446 office
> (304) 573-3609 mobile
>
> Brandi.underwood at mail.wvu.edu
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> listserv mailing list
> listserv at civsa.org
> http://civsa.org/mailman/listinfo/listserv_civsa.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://civsa.org/pipermail/listserv_civsa.org/attachments/20160523/fd6118ef/attachment.html>