Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Five University of Kansas journalism students are working on creating new ideas that could shape the ways of digital media in the near future.
The five students; graduate students Chris Raine, Nate Martin and Courtney Farr, and seniors Brian Lewis-Jones and Sam Knowlton, are part of the Knight Brothers 21st Century News Challenge.
In the challenge, students from various universities work together to create and develop ideas that would help improve the global community through digital media.
Raine and Farr are former University Daily Kansan staff members, and Lewis-Jones is a current staff member.
The students will each receive two credit hours of coursework for participating in the challenge.
Each member of the team was asked to come up with 10 ideas for digital media, and then narrow them down to one idea to present to bring during a meeting at Ithaca College in New York in early August. Some of the original ideas on the list included everything from a Web site that would allow people to get medical advice from doctors without having to schedule an appointment to a database that would track the luxurious items purchased by elected public officials.
On Tuesday, the team met to narrow down their list of ideas. One of the ideas that was discussed in detail was a “local wiki,” a site similar to wikipedia.com where the residents of a community could post anything from news stories to restaurant reviews to crime statistics.
“I think it can develop into a site where people share personal stories, sort of a virtual block party,” Raine, Lawrence graduate student, said.
The site could be incorporated with a Google map, making it easy for users to find information about buildings or businesses in a particular area.
The team is still in the process of deciding on their final idea.
There are six other universities participating in the challenge. They are Kansas State, Michigan State, Nevada-Las Vegas, Western Kentucky, Ithaca College and St. Michael’s College
Patrick Lafferty, multimedia newsroom coordinator at the William Allen White School of Journalism, is the coordinator for the school’s project.
“It will be valuable for the team members to think outside of their comfort zones while developing the idea,” Lafferty said.
Knowlton said that he initially became interested in participating in the challenge because he felt it had great potential.
“It looked like it could be a different, new and interesting experience,” Knowlton said.
At the meeting in Ithaca, the KU team and students from the other participating universities will incorporate their ideas into one proposal that they will present to an online board association in Toronto in October.
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