Educating Colorado
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Project Final Report
Educating Colorado Group Project Feedback
Title of the project and URL
Educating Colorado. http://educatingcolorado.coloradodjlabs.org/index.html
Members, classifications and emails
Sarah Horn 971-570-7315, sarahmhorn@gmail.com
Kristen Painter 651-500-9230, Kristen.Painter@Colorado.Edu
Keith Moore 303-886-8181, keith.moore@colorado.edu,
Division of Labor (who did what?)
Sarah: Wrote a feature article. Researched funding and figures. Created a number of graphs using the figures she found. Helped with Web design. Edited stories.
Kristen: Wrote a feature article. Produced a slideshow. Researched and then created a timeline of a history of education in Colorado. Took the lead designing and modifying the website, as well as the banner and navigation bar.
Keith: Wrote a feature article. Produced two slideshows. Edited stories. Gathered budget information from the relevant government agencies. Helped with Web and banner design.
Resources (a list of sources with contact information, research materials, major electronic resources used, etc.)
Kati Dugan: 303-249-6673.
Chad Marturano: 303-866-3174
John Karakoulakis: 303-866-4742
Brad Bohlander: 970-491-1545
• Ashton Harper:
malevolentpixie93@yahoo.com
720-934-8514
• “The Incremental Marketization and Centralization of State Control of Public Higher Education: A Hermeneutic Interpretation of Legislative and Administrative Text” Harbour, Clifford. International Journal of Qualitative Methods; 2006, Vol. 5 Issue 3, p1-14, 14p
“History of Funding for Higher Education.” http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/1988/Federal-Funds-Higher-Education.html
Daily Camera coverage of CU Budget Cuts
Denver Post coverage of the CU Budget Cuts
Bronson Hilliard – Communications officer at CU 303-735-6183
Amy Beckstrom – Director of Dining Services - 303-492-6325
University of Colorado system: "https://www.cu.edu/" https://www.cu.edu/
FY 2010-2011 Summary of Budget Balancing Measures
University of Colorado Boulder website:
Flagship 2030 Plan - "http://colorado.edu/flagship2030/" http://colorado.edu/flagship2030/
Chancellor Distefano’s Budget Updates
Colorado Community College System: www.cccs.edu
Colorado Higher Education Strategic Planning: http://highered.colorado.gov/Publications/General/StrategicPlanning/default.html
2010-2011 Budget Package: http://www.state.co.us/gov_dir/leg_dir/jbc/10LBNarrative.pdf
http://www.denverpost.com/localpolitics/ci_14856621
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14386418
http://www.dailycamera.com/cu-news/ci_14423024#axzz0mQmSal3J
http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_14933064
Colorado Resident Undergraduate Fees: http://highered.colorado.gov/Publications/Reports/Budget/FY2010/201001_tf_30hrsresundergrad.pdf
Colorado Higher Education Overview: http://highered.colorado.gov/Publications/General/StrategicPlanning/Meetings/Resources/Background/HigherEd_Overview_Jan2010.pdf
V. Strengths of the Project
As for strengths, this project’s topic was rich with content possibilities, which allowed ample options as far as directions to go. Since the issue is extremely timely, there were several current media sources as well as a heightened awareness among many of our interviewees. We definitely were not short of ideas.
Because the topic is rather data heavy, we had several opportunities to visualize our content in graphs, charts, and timelines. This definitely gave our project visual enhancement.
Also, the bureaucratic nature of education gave Keith several expert sources. With any news story, this factor is always helpful for verifying and credibility purposes.
Lastly, because we ourselves are direct subjects of the issue, we were able to do our own opinion piece on what our education has meant to us and for it to actually be relevant to our story.
VI. Weaknesses of the Project
Because our project was so meaty, we had to be careful not to make the website overly wordy and we had to be somewhat creative with the multimedia components. The soundslide presentations turned out well, but we really didn’t have a ton of video options.
Just as the data was a strength in one sense, it also was a bit of a weakness. It is always good to have solid numbers to work with, but the tricky part was to make them understandable and interesting for our users.
If we would have had more time, we would have liked to have had more feature articles to contextualize a wider scope of the issue, such as historical, national, state-by-state analysis, etc. However, with the time constraints, the background research and interviewing that those stories would’ve required was not a feasible endeavor.
VII. Lessons Learned (positive and negative)
In designing and creating our site our group learned that planning and preparation should never be underestimated. There were steps in the process that looking back were extremely important to staying on track:
Mapping out early the different aspects of the site each of us would be responsible
Drawing out the pages, media, stories and links for our site before we even started building it
Documenting problems as they arose so we could consult with Rick all at once
Have a timeline of deadlines and keep each group member accountable
Budget more time than you think you need
Get started on content before completely designing and creating the website because the content is bound to shift around and evolve
There were certain aspects that we did not anticipate that without the assistance of Rick, it would have added hours on to our website development. We hit walls during the second stage of our website design, which we had to remedy when Rick was available to help us. We expected to have problems, but did not realize the degree to which little things could stall the progress of our site. Open discussion, communication and constant testing is a must.
1 Comments:
1. Quality of Journalistic contribution (20pts) – Did the project contribute some journalistic content of significance (original reporting, issue summary, analysis, etc.)? Was the journalistic content produced with the appropriate editing, style and presentation practices consistent with professional journalism?
18/20
This package certainly was the best about presenting original reporting and journalistic contribution. The mix of information to journalism was good, and I though you generally did a good job.
The only reason you didn’t get all the points were the problems I found in the “CU’s Budget cuts” story. Within the text, the writer points out that some of the quotations are from various stories in the Boulder Daily Camera (although this is where linking to the course material would be essential), but some of the quotes do not appear properly attributed to previously published stories. It was unclear whether original reporting for this story had occurred at all, until I Googled the quotes and found them in stories. So this is a synthesis (analysis) piece, not original reporting. Which is allowable, but MUST be clearly identified as such.
The segment on the third page also contains some material taken from the Daily Camera, and unfortunately shoveled many of the errors concerning the discussion of the SJMC case directly from the paper. First, the Camera incorrectly linked the curriculum reform with the School of Information Task Force with the impending “bridge” between SJMC and ATLAS. Those were three separate events and even a cursory discussion with a SJMC faculty member would have cleared that up (the faculty listserve was abuzz with criticisms of the Camera article in question).
But more egregious was the interpretation of elements of the Camera story. The story was correct that 25 schools of information exist nationwide, but even they came up short of stating that these 25 programs were converted journalism programs. These 25 programs are NOT formed from journalism schools. In most of those cases, those programs grew out of library science programs, and only a few have media faculty of any kind at all. A quick discussion with almost any of our faculty would have proven sufficient fact-checking to avoid this error.
2. Quality of Informational contribution (20pts) – Did the project contribute some informational content of significance (background, supporting links, etc.)?
20/20 – I thought your use of information was great.
3. Appropriate use of multimedia (15pts) – Did the project utilize appropriate media formats to best tell the stories/present the information within the package?
14/15 – You were text-heavy, but I found that appropriate for the subject. Good use of interactives. I do think omitting the links from the rolling graphics script on the index page created an odd effect.
4. Protocol and File Management (10pts) – Was the site well-organized into meaningful file and folder structures? Did the site make appropriate use of Web server conventions (e.g. naming the homepage index.html or default.htm)?
10/10 – no major problems here
5. Design/Execution (20pts) – Did the site contain evidence of thoughtful design? Did the project feature its attributes in an appropriate way with appropriate visual hierarchies?
18/20 – You had some small execution issues on presentation day, (missing title to the Budget Cuts graphic, lack of popups on some multimedia pieces, a template break, etc.), but most of these were minor. I still think the perspectives pieces need a white background or a better aligned content window.
6. Deadline (10pts) – Was the site presentable by the assigned deadline?
10/10
7. Project team culture (5pts) – Did the team presentation go well? Did the team appear to work well together?
5/5
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