Tag Team Match
Feb.-March 2009"This is the best thing we ever could do for our students and for our educational programs..."
Keith Politte of the RJI Technology Testing Center and Dale Musser, director of the computer science department's Information Technology Program, talk about their collaboration with Apple and AT&T.
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Politte and Musser compare notes after a roadtrip to Cupertino with 19 students.
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A Model for other partnership projects
Mike McKean, Director of the Futures Lab.
Mike McKean sees the Reynolds Journalism Institute's iPhone Student Competition as the first step toward a greater cross-discipline curriculum at MU.
McKean, director of RJI’s Futures Lab, said the contest not only provides an opportunity for journalism students to engage in "entrepreneurial journalism," but also serves a positive example for advancing an interdisciplinary curriculum.
"It certainly has sped up our efforts to work with companies like Apple and Adobe down the road and about trying to create interdisciplinary courses," he said.
This year's RJI iPhone contest isn't the only interdisciplinary effort of its kind taking place at MU.
McKean said there are four other competitions or projects taking place that emphasize cooperation across diverse fields of study. He said that RJI's contest is serving as proof that such ventures can be possible and is funded, along with the other projects, by a $100,000 allocation by the campus Information Technology committee and the MU Provost Office.
So far, the evidence suggests that there might be a future for such efforts in the form of course work for credit.
For journalism students, it's a chance to change how news and advertising are delivered to consumers. In the process, the students — not necessarily their teachers — are guiding the ship.
"I think we're going to have fine applications that can change the way we do news and advertising distribution," McKean said. "And faculty are just sort of there for the ride to point our students in the right direction.
And as the media business changes, finding solutions for problems facing it and its practitioners will require collaboration. McKean said he thinks that RJI and contests such as the one being put on this year can help generate this collective action.
The point of collaboration
Dale Musser, Director of the computer science department's Information Technology Program.
The Department of Computer Science at MU sees the Reynolds Journalism Institute’s iPhone Student Competition as another step toward fostering a collaborative environment on the MU campus.
Dale Musser, an assistant professor of computer science, said academic collaboration is a goal that has often been mentioned but is being made a reality through organized events like the RJI iPhone contest.
"It's fostering collaboration between academic departments and a multitude of disciplines, which typically hasn't been easy to do in the past," Musser said.
The biggest benefit for students majoring in computer science is applying the lessons they learn in classrooms and labs to real-world problems in consort with students from different disciplines.
As a result, it mimics the very conditions that students will face when they're hired for their first job.
"It creates a togetherness that is desirable for all parties involved," Musser said. "Sometimes when you try to force collaboration, you don't always get the type of outcomes you want."
Finally, it allows computer science students, particularly those interested in information technology, the chance to further their relationship with the MU School of Journalism.
What’s important, it allows this relationship to be fostered in a setting that is devoid of traditional labels.
"If we simply put the word 'class' on top of this exercise," Musser said, "then it would simply fall flat in terms of the feeling that our students get when they are creating something that has tangible value."