After activity was restored to a once dormant group, one University of Wisconsin student organization received a national award for its community outreach programs and high level of student involvement, UW announced Friday.

The University of Wisconsin chapter of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society won the silver-level Outstanding Student Chapter award at the annual meeting held in late September in San Francisco.

Groups were judged on a variety of categories, such as community service, fundraising and increasing membership, said group officer Shannon Roberts, a UW graduate student.

About 20 groups competed for recognition, each receiving points based on their progress in each category, Roberts said.

For community service activities, Roberts said the group hosted middle school students on campus and did engineering activities with them. They also volunteered at a local Special Olympic competition, she said.

The UW chapter recently reformed after it lapsed into a brief hiatus because many students focused on human factors were interested in health care and formed their own group, Roberts said.

The group started again to serve students interested in human factors in general, Roberts said.

Human factors focuses on the way things are designed to ensure people use technology effectively, she said.

“[One example is] an airplane cockpit: the way you design all the dials and alerts to make sure the human understands what the computer is trying to tell them,” Roberts said.

UW engineering professor and adviser to the group Enid Montague said the students worked to bring the group back, but the growth of the human factors program at UW through more faculty members and better laboratories also contributed to the group’s growth.

“More additions equal more students,” Montague said. “The students did a great job of reinventing the organization after the hiatus and creating new infrastructure.”

Montague said she felt strongly that UW’s chapter should make a comeback because of her experience with a chapter as a graduate student at Virginia Tech.

“At Virginia, we had an award winning chapter and thought it was a very useful experience which I wanted UW to have,” Montague said.

Montague said UW’s chapter was one of the largest and strongest human factors chapters in the country.

Roberts added the organization welcomes all students who are interested in becoming members. Currently, Roberts said the chapter consists of more than 20 active members.

The award not only recognized UW, but Montague said it will also help the group collaborate with other organizations and departments on campus.

Montague also said the recognition will draw visitors from other organizations to campus. For example, they had already had a speaker from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute come to UW.

“The students in the organization have a chance to have fun, attend conferences, and prepare for their future careers.” Montague said.

Roberts said she believes the award demonstrates the amount of interest on campus for human factors.

“It shows to everyone that the organization is back and we’re trying to make it…more fun and make more people interested in human factors,” she said.