Students at a German university are getting firsthand experience of crossmedia publishing with an upgrade to the latest newsroom software.
A cooperation between Jade University of Applied Sciences in Wilhelmshaven and Koblenz software company red.web has given students access to new red.web crossmedia modules.
Internet-based layout design tools have been in use at the university’s media management and journalism department for five years, and students get hands-on experience producing the JadeImpuls student newspaper. Now red.web-Crossmedia is to be used as a platform for media-neutral content management.
Media informatics lecturer Knut Barghorn says the aim is to give students practical training within a publishing environment. “This means that also they have to deal with
the rapidly changing requirements of the media world and react properly to them,” he says.
“It is of course extremely useful if they have professional tools available to do this."
Graduate journalist and research assistant Katrin Busch says the upgrade will mean new media can be incorporated in future work and networked more consistently.
Three of the Lower Saxony students are currently working with Barhorn, Busch, graduate industrial engineer Gabriele Ernstorfer, project officer Blandyna Bogdol and red.web product manager Sebastian Eiden to establish working procedures. A central theme in a two-day workshop has been output channels to be served by the web application.
Says student Tobias Hoiten, “We are all very active ourselves on the web, especially in the social networks. Now we won't just be recipients any more.”
Bogdol says it “really was fun” to work out a workflow with the trainee journalists in such a confident and unerring manner.
The state university offers around 35 courses in six departments, including media management and journalism within the management information technology department. Graduates can take over management functions for media projects including planning, organisation, management, support, implementation and also inspection of media projects. The training publishing house is a student project within the course.
Pictured: Knut Barghorn and Katrin Busch look at issues of Jade.Impuls
Homepage: Blandyna Bogdol (left) plans workflow with students Tobias Hoiten and Sabrina Lütkebohle