KAMLOOPS – Twenty local businesses can get a marketing boost this spring from Computer Systems Operations & Management (CSOM) students at Thompson Rivers University.

For the past few years, CSOM students in their second semester of study have created websites for non-profit organizations and small businesses at no charge.

“The average value of the service if a business were to charge for doing the same work would be about a couple of thousand dollars,” said the students’ instructor, Mohd A., who explained that 20 per cent of the students’ final mark is based on this project.

Once the original design work is done, Mohd suggests that businesses can maintain their sites by either hiring a student to maintain the site after the initial creation, or ask the student who created the initial design how to maintain it thereafter. “If the firm is capable, why not?” he asked.

Business owners and non-profit managers wishing to take advantage of this offer may contact Mohd at mabdullah@tru.ca by Feb. 9, 2007.