Knight News Challenge Entry: Sensor Networks for News

Posted March 10, 2012
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When I was administering the Knight News Challenge, I thought we did a pretty good job of making the application short, easily understandable, and written in concrete language, not foundation-speak. But the current version of the Knight News Challenge contest takes this to new levels. The application form is so simple, so easy to use and so quick to fill out, there is just no reason not to submit even your wildest ideas.

It takes about as much time to complete this application as it does to fill in the circles on a lottery ticket. Winning either could improve your life, but winning the Knight News Challenge will also help you improve the lives of others.

So, below is the entry from Prof. Matt Waite, College of Journalism and Mass Communications, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Sensor networks for news

1. What do you propose to do? [20 words]

Develop a network of sensors distributed around a city to report data into a real-time visualization.

2. Is anyone doing something like this now and how is your project different? [30 words]

Advances in sensors and microcomputers have made the idea of sensor networks for news possible. While many industries have experimented, no one is looking at applying this to news.

3. Describe the network with which you intend to build or work. [50 words]

The idea is to build a network of sensors out of inexpensive parts that would be distributed around a city and connected to wi-fi hotspots. The sensors could gather data on temperature or noise or other conditions. The data would be sent to a central data store and visualized.

4. Why will it work? [100 words]

The maker movement has been building small systems out of cheap sensors and posting the plans online under Creative Commons licenses. This project would chain together existing ideas and run them at a larger scale for a specific purpose to show the possibility and reality of sensor networks for news. And, in the end, we’d contribute our plans and microcontroller software back to the community where it could evolve further.

5. Who is working on it? [100 words]

The sensor project would be the work of undergraduate student researchers at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications under the direction of Professor Matt Waite. Waite founded the college’s Drone Journalism Lab and teaches courses in data journalism and digital development.

6. What part of the project have you already built? [100 words]

We’re already working with Arduino microcontroller boards and sensors on small scale experiments to provide proofs of concepts. What we learn now directly transfers into the large scale project. At the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at UNL, we’re also working on classes in data visualization scheduled for next academic year. And we’re building relationships with other departments on campus who would be interested in this research.

7. How would you sustain the project after the funding expires? [50 words]

If the project proves successful and interesting to news organizations, a small company could be spun off to manufacture the sensor nodes and provide installation expertise. There are significant local angel-stage investment funds interested in technology such as this.

Requested amount from Knight News Challenge: $150,000
Expected amount of time required to complete project: 2 years
Total Project Cost: $200,000

Name: Matt Waite
Twitter: @mattwaite
Organization: The College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Country: USA
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Creating a Center for Mobile Media

Posted January 29, 2012
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In November we created the first Drone Journalism Lab, described by founder and Prof. Matt Waite here. Now we’re creating the first Center for Mobile Media, and we’re looking for someone who wants to help lead it.

We’re advertising for an experienced academic administrator who wants his or her portfolio to include the creation of the UNL iPadCenter for Mobile Media at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. (At the UNL jobs site, access the Faculty Tenure/Tenure Leading positions then Associate Dean requisition # 120045.)

The Center for Mobile Media will be a center of practice and research, unifying efforts across disciplines. Professors of practice will create practical research questions whose answers will help them use mobile devices to inform and engage more people. Research professors will help answer those questions and then use the feedback from those in the field to create further research questions.

We’ve already started building the core of a Center for Mobile Media.

  • We teach mobile application development, mobile application design, new product development and mobile multimedia journalism.
  • Our Drone Journalism Lab will be a cool part of a Center for Mobile Media.
  • We’re just finishing interviews for a social media researcher whose agenda will include mobile media.
  • We have been promised a $200,000 matching grant (for a total of $400,00) for digital development.
  • Our faculty is committed to the importance of mobile communication for our future.
  • We’re creating a mobile product with the students at the Raikes School of Computer Science and Management.
  • We’re partnering with the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources in teaching the new product development class.
  • We’re partnering with the colleges of law, business administration, fine arts and arts and sciences in the creation of a law class called “The Legal and Business Aspects of Creative Activity.”

The first challenge of this position will be to scan all the mobile development efforts across the UNL campus, and bring them together in a common purpose with greater combined impact than any project would have individually. We want to encourage, and eventually fund, researchers to use their expertise in their fields of journalism, advertising, public relations, marketing, sociology, psychology, design, politics and others.

Here’s a sample research project that would be great for the Center to undertake: Does the credibility we associate with a video news message vary according to the size of the device on which we view the message? For instance, is greater credibility associated with a message on a 72-inch screen than a 2-inch mobile screen? If there’s a difference, does it vary by age, with young people perhaps giving the smaller screen greater credibility? Should this affect the types of messages we use to reach different audiences on different devices? What’s the best device to use if you want to get political information to a 20-year-old?

The College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln is at the cutting edge of digital experimentation and innovation. We’re looking forward to our next big step in the creation of a Center for Mobile Media.

Dean Gary Kebbel

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Can a good journalist be a good capitalist?

Posted January 27, 2012
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It seems funny to be asking can a good journalist be a good capitalist? What other field would be asking do we have the right or the desire to survive?

But, in this very disrupted field of news and information, it’s a great question, posed by Michael Rosenblum for this month’s Carnival of Journalism.

My take on this question is what are the entrepreneurial skills journalists in the future will need? And I’ll accept as a given that journalists should either be or work for good capitalists, so they can continue to be good and paid journalists.

At the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln we are creating something that for now, anyway, we’re calling the Center for Mobile Media. We want this to be a fresh start that simultaneously teaches journalism and entrepreneurial skills. In fact, we’re looking for an associate dean to head the project. (Here’s the job ad. Access the Faculty Tenure/Tenure Leading positions then Associate Dean requisition # 120045.)

We want the center to be a model for how to teach entrepreneurial skills like audience analysis, market analysis, business planning, multidisciplinary cooperation, teamwork and evaluation.

We’ll teach that you can’t just do journalism by looking at the supply side of the equation. You also have to look at the demand side. In other words, just because I think this idea for a new communications product (or reporting project) is great, doesn’t mean the audience will agree — particularly if we haven’t studied the audience. One of the things we will teach is what our advertising and public relations students already know: You must study the audience, study the marketplace, find your niche, and then market the heck out of your product or company.

The center will be a multidisciplinary cooperative teaching students to work in teams where individuals have significantly different skills and approach problems from different directions. Some will even speak in the unique dialects of the Django people of the J-Query people.  Journalists, marketers, advertisers, sociologists, psychologists, developers and others will work together as researchers and practitioners to study and improve mobile communication. Practitioners will create research questions and, and research studies will improve the practice.

Ultimately, this would become a public-private partnership with a Verizon or a Nokia working with the center.

So, yes, we can and should teach business skills, entrepreneurial skills and profit-making skills to journalists because the days of working for one big media company for your life are over, and the days of working for yourself or in small teams or at small companies are here.

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We couldn’t have planned the reach of our Native Daughters project

Posted January 22, 2012
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There was a time when grant makers hoped their money had an effect. Now they want to know that it does.

They want to know not only what their grant started, but also what it produced and does it endure? Did it have tentacles that affected areas beyond the immediate grant? Did it change behavior or processes or systems? Did it generate other funding or revenue?

All fair questions if you’re giving away money.

We leverage first grant for 150% more

Here’s the story of a $125,000 grant to the UNL College of Journalism and Mass Communications from the Carnegie-Knight Initiative on the Future of Journalism Education – funding that triggered a $13,120 grant from the Nebraska Humanities Council, an $11,900 grant from the Nebraska Department of Education, a $12,000 grant from the Lincoln Kiwanis Club and a $150,000 individual gift that soon will be signed on the dotted line.

More than that, however, is the reach of Native Daughters, a three-semester project that showcased the complex role that Native American women traditionally have played in maintaining their history and culture.

From magazine and website to curriculum guide

From a class in 2009 that reported on the topic, then another that compiled the information and photos into a 142-page color magazine with a press run of 4,000 copies, to a curriculum teaching guide completed in November 2011 and put on the State of Nebraska’s education department website in January 2012, the Native Daughters message has flowed from our college to Lincoln school districts, then Nebraska school districts, then school districts across the West and to Native American communities.

Native Daughters magazine cover

Native Daughters magazine cover

Last February the National Congress of American Indians ordered 700 copies of the magazine for gift bags to all tribal leaders attending the congress’s winter meeting in Washington, D.C.

From March to September 2011 a variety of schools throughout Nebraska – in Lincoln, Omaha, Gordon-Rushville, Neligh and Scottsbluff ordered “Native Daughters” magazines for their classrooms. In addition, the Omaha, Winnebago, Santee, Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations also placed orders for hundreds of the magazines.

In October the National Museum of the American Indian, a part of the Smithsonian Institution, placed orders for the magazine and now is considering hosting an event to celebrate the magazine and use it as an educational tool in the museum.

In November the companion curriculum teaching guide was completed and put online.

From Lincoln to Denver, Portland and Honolulu

Since November, “Native Daughters” magazine orders have arrived from Indian Education departments in Portland, Ore.; Denver, Colo.; Minneapolis; Bismarck, N.D., and Honolulu and from reservation schools in Wisconsin, Arizona, Washington, Oregon, Wyoming, Oklahoma and Nebraska.

This month, Lincoln Public Schools purchased 1,630 “Native Daughters” magazines – via a $12,000 grant from the Kiwanis Club – and the magazines are now in every school (K-12) in Lincoln and are being partnered with the online curriculum guide in many of the classrooms.

Native Daughters II

The $150,000 gift came from a reader who said, “It’s the first publication I’ve ever picked up in my life that I could clearly see myself in, that I felt was written for me.”

Ginette Overall, a Creek/Muskogee CEO of a power generator company in Tulsa, Okla., called UNL’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications to say she got a copy of the magazine from her tribal chairman, began leafing through it and started weeping halfway through. She then offered to write a personal check for $150,000 if the college would agree to do a second Native Daughters focused exclusively on the Native Women of Oklahoma.

The class producing Native Daughters II begins in the fall.

And there are now several Native women in New Mexico, who want to start fundraising for a Native Daughters III – a project that would focus on the Native women of the Southwest, principally the Navajo, Pueblo, Hopi and Apache.

Gary Kebbel

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A comment on proposed FCC regulations for broadcasters

Posted January 16, 2012
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I write in support of the FCC’s proposed regulations to 1) require broadcasters to publish online in a commonly searchable format their already required log of political advertisers, and 2) to also require broadcasters to publish online in a commonly searchable format their already required compilation of who sponsors portions of their newscasts.

To function optimally, democracies need a free-flow of information. We generally believe that an informed electorate has the best chance of making the best decision for the public good. Our political system is premised on the idea that more information is better than less information.

The First Amendment creates and protects our rights of speech, particularly political speech, so that there is free-flowing information, good and bad, pro and con, to help citizens make the best self-governing choices. Though stating that the right of speech is not absolute, the Supreme Court has historically allowed fewer restrictions on political speech, which supports the political process, than commercial speech, which supports a business or its interests. There is maximum value to the political system of allowing maximum information into that system.

Recently, when the limits of commercial speech and political speech seemed to collide, in the case  Citizens United vs. the Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court extended the rights of commercial speech in the political arena. The extension of commercial speech was in the form of less-restricted campaign spending by corporations. This includes political broadcast advertising. Less-restricted campaign spending would work best if, in Justice Anthony Kennedy’s opinion for the majority, there is prompt disclosure of expenditures which

“can provide shareholders and citizens with the information needed to hold corporations and elected officials accountable for their positions and supporters. Shareholders can determine whether their corporation’s political speech advances the corporation’s interest in making profits, and citizens can see whether elected officials are ‘in the pocket’ of so-called moneyed interests…The First Amendment protects political speech; and disclosure permits citizens and shareholders to react to the speech of corporate entities in a proper way. This transparency enables the electorate to make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.”

Using similar reasoning to support transparency in the use of political speech, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in Doe v. Reed,

“Requiring people to stand up in public for their political acts fosters civic courage, without which democracy is doomed. For my part, I do not look forward to a society which, thanks to the Supreme Court, campaigns anonymously and even exercises the direct democracy of initiative and referendum hidden from public scrutiny and protected from the accountability of criticism. This does not resemble the Home of the Brave.”

In other words, Justices Kennedy and Scalia support openness and transparency in political speech and acts. Spending money to influence or participate in the political process is political speech. Buying ads on broadcast stations to influence an election is political speech that should be transparent so that our other value of a free marketplace of ideas can work. It’s an important piece of information to know who is supporting which candidate or which cause.

This transparency should be extended to allow the public to easily use the tools of the Internet to search and find who is sponsoring a political ad or a video report. Often knowing the source of the communication changes the nature of the message, and the public has a right to receive all of this information – the messages AND knowledge of the source – before making its decisions.

The benefit of the Internet is that people can serve the watchdog role that our democracy allows from their armchairs at home, if they want, without having to travel miles to inspect in person a broadcast station’s files. The tools of the Internet allow searching and sorting so that people easily can learn who is paying for statements that support which candidates.

As beneficiaries of the public airwaves, broadcasters should be required to serve the public interest by helping, not blocking, citizens from exercising their political rights and gaining additional political knowledge. Such rights are merely theoretical and will wither if they cannot easily be used.

NOTE: The FCC’s recommendations come from its report Information Needs of Communities, which was spurred by a report from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation called Informing Communities: Sustaining Democracy in the Digital Age.

 

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What I’ll be telling job candidates

Part 3: Great college

Posted January 2, 2012
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The obvious reason that job candidates should think UNL’s College of Journalism and Mass Communications is a great place to be is that we are growing. We’re adding faculty, not just replacing them. This year’s freshman class is 25% larger than last year’s.

We’re working hard to help lead the journalism and mass communications industry during these times of disruption and upheaval.

Gary Kebbel                                                                                                           Dean

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What I’ll be telling job candidates

Part 2: Great time to be at UNL

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Entering the Big Ten Conference in 2011 presented the University of Nebraska-Lincoln with a wonderful opportunity to re-evaluate what kind of university it is and what it wants to be. Chancellor Harvey Perlman has made it clear that we have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to make a great Research 1 University even better.

Perlman has set extraordinary new goals that have captivated and energized everyone on campus. The goals are nothing short of an astonishing challenge to all of us on campus, and they have created an atmosphere of excitement and energy.

By 2017 we plan to

  • Increase annual enrollment growth from 2.25% to 3%, resulting in a goal of 30,000 students
  • Add 160 tenure-track faculty to make a total of 1,300
  • Increase our six-year graduation rate from 64% to 70%
  • Graduate students after 120-hours of credits
  • More than double our research expenditures to $300 million a year, and
  • Double the number of faculty receiving national recognition and awards

Taken together, these goals translate into a tight, intense focus on recruitment and retention. We’re evaluating old methods and experimenting with new ones. And the focus always is the student. How do we attract the best students and keep them? How do we improve their academic and campus life experiences?

That’s why it’s a great time to be at UNL. Everyone is looking at the entire university experience and seeking ways to improve it. We are adding students and faculty and increasing research support. In an era of cutbacks, we’re growing.

Gary Kebbel                                                                                                           Dean

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What I’ll be telling job candidates

Part 1: Great local economy

Posted January 1, 2012
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During the holiday break, the chair of a faculty search committee, my assistant and I have been lining up interviews for two new assistant professor of public relations positions. It’s made me think about how good it is to be at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in a city and a state where the economy is so much better than in the rest of the country.

Things I’ll be telling our job candidates:

Gary Kebbel                                                                                                           Dean

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Create your own degree

Posted December 24, 2011
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The past semester showed how bold and forward-thinking the advertising and public relations faculty are at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. They revised the curriculum to focus on skills that cut across all their professions, and moved away from the traditional “advertising” curricula.

But, best of all, they created a track that I’ll call “create your own specialty.”

Before explaining this, I need to give a lot of credit to the faculty for stepping into the unknown. For the new plan of three skills tracks and a create-your-own track to work, about five faculty had to agree to change their formerly required courses to be electives. That’s a pretty bold and selfless move, and I applaud them. The new tracks are

1) Account services

2) Creative services

3) Public relations

4) Create you own

The tracks are formed from courses required of all students in the college, courses required of all advertising and public relations majors, and then electives, which make up more than half of a student’s options.

The idea behind the tracks is to point students to the jobs in which they are interested while guiding them with a selection of courses that help fulfill that goal. The tracks focus on skills all students should have, such as storytelling and multimedia creation and distribution.

These changes follow the recommendations of our college’s Advisory Board, which strongly suggested teaching the same basic skills courses to everyone, then letting students learn to use those skills in the service of their interests or profession.

The Advisory Board’s specific recommendations were to have everyone be taught:

  • Researching, gathering and analyzing information
  • Writing a story with that information
  • Telling that story in audio
  • Telling that story in video
  • Studying your audience to most effectively communicate with them, and
  • Learning entrepreneurial skills that include knowledge of business models and sustainability


The next task is to rewrite our course descriptions to include how this course helps a student achieve her or his job goals. And then we have to make sure students know they can create their own specialty.

Gary Kebbel                                                                                                           Dean

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What I’ll do for breakfast in bed

Posted December 22, 2011
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Although tendons, particularly those in your feet, allow you to move in all sorts of ways, they are not supposed to move themselves. The one at my right ankle didn’t know that. So, five days before Christmas, shortly after graduation commencement ceremonies, I had it nailed down or something. Also had some bone spurs cut off. As I was being prepped for surgery and was talking with the prep nurse about her fiance’s not helping with Christmas tasks, she slips in, “By the way, did the surgeon talk to you about this operation?” Yeah, why? “Did he talk to you about the pain and the shot? The what and the what? “Well this operation has the most painful recovery period of any we do here, and they don’t usually tell you that.” Really. “He’s prescribing two Percocets every three hours, around the clock. Don’t miss any dosing. Set your alarm to wake yourself up every three hours. But it still won’t help that much.” Really.

Resting after foot surgery

How long can I milk this to keep getting waited on?

The only good thing about foot surgery is having someone around to bring your meals in bed.
And what’s this about the shot? By now, she’s shoved the oxygen thingy up my nose, the anesthesiologist has checked to see if my throat is big enough to easily get the tube down it, and he just finished asking me if I had any loose teeth or cracked crowns – yet. “Well, to reduce the risk of a blood clot, you have to give yourself a shot once a day.” Really? And how do I do that? “Just pinch your stomach and stick it in.” Really. Now she’s taking my blood pressure (Hmm, it just spiked.), and looking for a vein in my wrist for the “knockout drops.”

So, here are the instructions on the box of syringes I brought home for how to administer this shot: Pinch stomach and “Administer in Standard Way.” That’s it. Since they capitalized Standard Way, I assumed it was a very specific way, probably invented either by Dr. Standard or Dr. Way. To calm myself, I kept thinking that the needle will be very short and thin, like the flu-shot needle, because I have to push it “all the way in.” It looked like a half-length Cross pen. Here’s where I found out what kind of helpmate and caregiver I have. He’s great at elevating my foot, filling the ice bag, fixing dinner, spotting me as I hobble to the bathroom. But now he says, “You’re on your own. I can’t even watch.” Well, it was not difficult to pinch some skin on my stomach. I had plenty of that. So for about five minutes I stared at the needle hovering over my stomach and finally took the plunge. I’m sure that was not the Standard Way. I hope blood thinner works, even when administered in the Nonstandard Way.

So, I have set up camp on and around the bed and nightstand, with my computer, iPad, iPhone, Kindle, Mad Men subscription to Season 1, radio and three book books. Ken looked at all that, got disgusted, and brought me People’s year-end issue and some caramel popcorn. I wish the Percocets created a sleepy haze, but instead, they make me acutely alert to the slightly deadened pain. So I look for things to distract myself. Colleagues gave me books to read, and I’m starting with The College Administrator’s Survival Guide by C.K Gunsalus. I see why they recommend it. Its advice is practical, yet caring.

After about two minutes I realized I really like this breakfast, lunch and dinner in bed thing. I’m wondering how long I can keep Ken from figuring out when I feel better and don’t have to elevate my leg.

Anyway, all is actually quite well, and I’d like to take one more opportunity to thank the faculty at the College of Journalism and Mass Communications at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for a great semester. We accomplished a lot, and have some wonderful opportunities ahead of us with developing our election coverage, starting Native Daughters 2, developing a Drone Journalism Lab, kicking the student ad club into high gear, creating another winning National Student Advertising Competition team, putting recruitment and retention measures against our strategy document, examining our academic structure in light of our strategy document, continuing curriculum reform, hiring two new PR professors and adding an assistant dean for finance. Lots to do, but I’m excited about it.

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