Abstract

This proposal will provide the human and capital resources to place JRN 384 Feature Writing—which is now offered through the Indiana Higher Education Telecommunications System as a correspondence/Internet course—fully into a digital environment. The course will be offered on compact disks (CDs) which will include hyperlinks to the World Wide Web, video/audio interviews and on-site enhancements, forms to be completed electronically, all assignments, professor’s notes, and audio/text "help" screens. Feature Writing enjoys wide acceptability and is indeed within the curriculum of most journalism and professional writing programs. Professionals needing to strengthen their marketing and writing skills also seek it. As a correspondence course, this university’s Feature Writing course is the only course of its kind offered in Indiana; as a multi-media course connecting the Web and the home computer, the course will remain one of a kind and be exceptionally accessible throughout the state. Providing a match of $6,978, the University of Southern Indiana is seeking $7,090 from the Indiana Partnership for Statewide Education Course Development Grant Program.

 

Narrative

Needs Addressed and Learners to be Served

JRN 384 Feature Writing serves many audiences: First, of course, it is an essential course in journalism curriculums, including the program at the University of Southern Indiana. Second, it is a means for writers in many fields – political science, agriculture, medicine, health care, business, and so on – to acquire the knowledge and skills to package and market written materials for the mass media, chiefly magazines and newspapers. Third, this course is an option in the curriculum for journalism teacher certification, a growing field in education. Last, it attracts students from many backgrounds and from various distances who want to write. Generally, JRN 384:

• Provides traditional students with the "clippings" necessary to get part-time or full-time employment later.
• Enables writers to work in the extensive, national market.
• Helps professionals to develop skills to "merchandize" their companies.
• Enables people working full time to expand their potential and acquire useful, saleable skills.
• Kindles marketing skills.
• Is central to professional print journalism and state teacher certification programs.
• Is crucial to students who are home-bound and time-bound.
• Hones competitive edge.

Course choice rationale

USI selects this course because Department of Communications and the Office of Extended Services are familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of offering it in an asynchronous learning environment. We are confident that it can be taught with rigor through technologies which strengthen and amplify the instructor’s capacity to explain the course content and which enable the student to regularly and rapidly communicate with the instructor. Feature Writing has been offered traditionally through correspondence course formats by many universities.

Further, the course attracts potential writers from various fields who need to learn how to create, package, and market feature stories, opinion pieces, and fiction. For example, a licensed physician is now completing the course through correspondence as a means to expand her credentials and influence. She has produced excellent articles on how the Internet is altering the delivery and availability of medical assistance. We expect to see her work in print in national publications soon.

 

Technologies rationale

The project is designed to take this traditional correspondence course from text and paper to the various digital communication environments which expand the course’s potential, while also augmenting the instructor’s and student’s knowledge of the Internet. Students must have a viable e-mail account and access to a Windows-based multi-media Pentium computer with:

• CD-ROM and enough memory to run short digital video segments
• Sound card and speakers
• Modem and software access to the World Wide Web.
• Software to write and format feature stories (we recommend Microsoft Word)
• Software to edit and crop photographs for print and Web use (to be recommended)

The technologies this course will utilize are intended to give the traditional course – based on texts, a manual, and regular mail – a depth and breadth unequalled today. Not only will the technologies present the course more completely but each student will discover and master the technology by completing the course. That is the two-fold strategy of this Department of Communications. Therefore, the technologies to be used include:

• Digital video and audio (instructor’s "help" comments, a real interview and critique, video segments about the magazine field, etc.)
• Hypertext-based manual text (linked to other parts of the manual as well as Web sites the world wide), enabling the course to be continually amended and refined
• Research on the World Wide Web not only for material in the stories but for potential publications as well
• The USI Web site pages, which can be updated daily as required
• Digital graphics and photography for examination, evaluation, and accessories with feature stories (examples on the CD for student evaluation, testing)
• Software which weaves all of the above into a CD-based course which can be mailed anywhere in the State of Indiana, or the world.

Institution’s Capacity and Commitment to the Project

In a regular classroom setting, this course already is taught each spring. The Department of Communications offers this course at least once annually as a distance education course. The university has adequate staff to offer the course. Indeed, the department perceives this course and its technology as indispensable for the digital mass communication environment we prepare students for today.

The University of Southern Indiana is prepared to provide $6,978 in matching commitment. This includes reassigned time and all of the instructor’s annual travel money.

Please see the Appendix for supporting documents.

 

Instructional Design Plan

This is the sequence students now follow in this course. We would expect a similar plan extensively expanded by modern digital technologies. (As this proposal is being written, students in this class have been asked – as a final project – to construct this course in a digital format and advise us about what needs to be accomplished.) The present course proceeds this way:

• Texts required: We would require a modern feature writing text (we now use The Complete Guide to Magazine Article Writing: A Guide to Powerful, Salable Writing, by John Wilson), 1998 Writer’s Market: Where and How to Sell What you Write, and The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual (required in all journalism writing classes).
• Manual: Currently we use a 40-page manual written more than three years ago by the USI instructor who now teaches the course. We would replace this with a file version on the CD which the student could choose to print. It would be enhanced by connections to the Web, audio and video segments, forms to be electronically completed by the student and sent electronically to the instructor, and so on.
• Market analysis: Initially students perform market analyses of existing feature markets by examining magazines and Writer’s Market. The instructor examines this work and offers help and criticism.
• Develop ideas: Students then develop their own story ideas and work with the instructor to bring at least two of them.
• Short, initial assignments: Students write feature story leads, anecdotes, and short feature stories to prepare themselves for the style the markets eventually require.
• Query letters: Students begin to focus their work toward specific markets, writing practice query letters and then query letters which will, in fact, be used to introduce their work to publications.
• Feature stories: Ultimately students write at least two drafts of two or three feature stories (depending on their length and complexity) and attempt to sell them.
• Examinations: Students take two examinations during the course. That might be altered to more frequent but less demanding quizzes.

Course Evaluation Plan

It is understandably difficult to survey students who are geographically spread throughout dozens of counties, but in the past we have used a simple evaluation instrument for the course asking questions about course rigor, syllabus, and schedule. The results were frequently helpful and spawned refinements (and clearer passages) in the manual. We will develop a more complex instrument and require every student to complete it as part of the course requirement.

However, given the technologies on which this project is based, the instrument will be available through the Web and delivered electronically. Also, we will publish the results electronically and elsewhere if requested to do so.

 

Peer Review/Strategies to Strengthen Quality and Interinstitutional Acceptance

We will seek the review of a minimum of three professors now teaching at two Indiana universities, and we will seek that review at two places in the process. Professors will be asked to review:

• The initial plan for the course development. We will seek their guidance about what might improve the course. There is no substitute for the advice of others in the same field.
• The final product will be reviewed electronically by the same institutions.

If the above process is handled correctly, interinstitutional acceptance will follow directly. As we understand it, JRN 384 Feature Writing at the University of Southern Indiana is now indeed accepted in journalism programs throughout Indiana.

We will prepare an advertising brochure – supplemented with Web connections – to advertise the course to universities, colleges, libraries, and major employers throughout the state.

Project Schedule

• Obtain the necessary web authoring software and training by June 1, 1998.
• Hardware to be purchased/installed by June 30, 1998.
• Faculty member to be reassigned three credit hours in the Fall 1998 semester to complete this project.
• Distant video segments to start in August and be complete by October 15, 1998. These are to include but not be limited to:

• Professional interview by professor, critique by professor and Dr. Dal Herring
• Interview of editors of two regional magazines
• Interview of editors at Writer’s Digest Books, Cincinnati, Ohio
• Examination of Barnes & Noble bookstore magazine section
• How-to segments on photograph taking, selection, cropping
• How-to session on understanding today’s digital photography.

• Text for CD and Web complete by November 1, 1998
• First Peer Review November 1, 1998
• Prepare text, graphics, for brochure to advertise the class November 15, 1998
• CD, Web pages complete by December 1, 1998
• Course offered either Spring 1999 (January-May) or First Summer Session 1999 (May-June)

 

Key Course Development Personnel

• Mr. Ronald C. Roat, leading faculty member, coordinator of the journalism and computer publishing programs in the Department of Communications, assistant professor of journalism.
• Dr. Dal M. Herring, chair, Department of Communications, professor of journalism.
• Dr. Karen Bonnell, manager of Distance Education Programming, associate professor of communications
• Mrs. Renee Tanner, Distance Education producer/director
• Mr. Philip Bolenbaugh, Distance Education production assistant

 

4. Budget Narrative

The University of Southern Indiana will contribute reassigned time during the Fall 1998 semester. With benefits, that commitment totals $6,778. We are adding at least $200 in 1997-98 travel money, bringing the total to $6,978 (see budget page for breakdown). This proposal seeks $7,090 from the Indiana Partnership.

This proposal aims to put a principal journalism writing course into digital technology, enabling students not only to complete the course through digital technology but to also learn to use much of that technology as they take the course. This also will challenge the instructor, who may be experienced in writing, photography, publication design, and Web page generation, but who needs considerable training in multi-media "authoring" to realize this goal.

This is how we see the itemized expenditures helping this department to accomplish this goal:

• Purchase the hardware to build a multi-media computer system to be the focal point of the 384 Feature Writing project.
• Acquire the software – particularly the multi-media authoring program.
• Obtain the necessary training (probably that offered by the makers of Toolbook II, Asymetrix) in a three-day or four-day intensive seminar and pay for the airline fare, lodging, per diem expenses.
• Purchase a high quality digital camera to take high resolution photographs for use in the course materials and for the students to manipulate through software. This needs to be continually updated through the USI Web site.
• Pay travel expenses for distant interviews (such as Indianapolis and Cincinnati)
• Conduct two actual interviews on video so student can learn how to acquire information for their feature stories. We’ll provide a two-man digital video critique of that interview process (Roat and Herring). No identifiable costs; USI has equipment.
• Rewrite manual, insert art and graphics (photos and created graphics), and place on CD using re-write CD equipment.
• Write and produce dozens of audio segments (USI already has equipment for this task) and place on CD.
• Acquire production assistance through Mrs. Renee Tanner and Mr. Philip Bolenbaugh, Distance Education production personnel.

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Appendix

Leading Faculty Member

Mr. Ronald C. Roat is in his 12^th year of teaching journalism at the University of Southern Indiana. He also serves as coordinator of the journalism and computer publishing sequences. He regularly teaches three journalism writing and reporting classes, including Feature Writing. He is the webmaster of the department Web pages.

Mr. Roat has considerable experience in two courses presented through IHETS: First, he has offered a Distance Education version (correspondence) of Feature Writing at least twice a year since it was created in August 1994. Second, he taught COMM 192 Introduction to Mass Communication (previously JRN 181) which is broadcast regularly throughout Indiana via IHETS.

He is an experienced and award-winning journalist. Mr. Roat has about 15 years experience in newspaper reporting and editing, and he is the author of three published mystery novels. He has a bachelor of arts degree from Michigan State University and a master of arts degree from Oregon State University, and he did graduate work at both Michigan State and West Virginia University.

A biography is available through: http://www.usi.edu/libarts/comm/jrn/rroat.htm