The Intercollegiate Online News Network (ICONN) is an association of campus news websites, academic programs, individuals and professional organization that have come together to encourage and promote web journalism education and to assist in the practice of online journalism on campus.
ICONN is the only organization devoted solely to the practice of collegiate online journalism.
Major activities of ICONN include
- Assisting the startup of campus news websites by providing a turnkey system – at no costs – for those who want to start news websites for their courses, departments or campuses;
- Providing server space and support – at no cost – for those sites;
- Offering training through in-person and online workshops to faculty and students who start or work on campus news web sites;
- Giving those interested in web journalism education an independent organization to work with;
- Conducting an annual conference for those interested in collegiate web journalism;
- Providing a news service of collegiate news based on the content of the member sites;
- Developing an advertising system for those sites within the network to provide for long term sustainability
ICONN began in 2008 as an outgrowth of a grant and conference supported by the Scripps Howard Foundation. Conversations among academics revealed the need to rethink journalism education and the basic curriculum that we use to teach our students. One approach that was heavily discussed was to create campus news websites that would be owned and operated by faculty and academic programs rather than falling under the purview of student media. The availability of the technology to build news websites for programs and campuses was also a topic in these discussions. Finding a content management system that was inexpensive and easy to use emerged as a major problem to be solved.
ICONN set about solving this problem and now has a technical network and a WordPress-based content management system called JeffersonNet with which it provides start-up support for campus news websites. A faculty member, academic unit or campus organization that seeks to create a campus news website simply needs to declare itself in agreement with the basic goals of ICONN to become part of the network. ICONN does not charge a membership or any service fee for what it provides.
With the possibility of campus news websites starting up at various places around the country came the idea of tying those sites together in a news network. An ICONN news website needs to agree to share its originally produced content with other members of the network. With that agreement in place, ICONN sites have been informally sharing stories, photos, audio and video since 2009 through an individual copy and paste system. In 2011 with many new websites joining as members, we decided to take the next step in this concept and develop a news service we call the ICONN NewsStream. We are currently in the middle of both the technical and conceptual development of the NewsStream idea.
Another logical outgrowth of the network idea was to develop an advertising service for the network. Such a service would be designed to sell national advertising to sites throughout the network; regional advertising to selected sites within the network; and local advertising to individual websites. Revenue from this service would be based on page views and would be divided among the advertising service handling these operations, ICONN, and the individual sites. The ICONN advertising service is also under technical and conceptual development.
ICONN held its first annual conference in January 2009 in Knoxville with about 50 students and faculty in attendance and more than a dozen colleges and universities represented. A second annual conference was held in January 2010 also in Knoxville, and our third annual conference was in March 2011 in Athens, GA. We tentatively plan to hold our fourth annual conference in Nashville, TN, in April 2012.
At the end of the academic year of 2010-2011, there were more than 30 campus news websites that are part of the network. Some are within ICONN’s JeffersonNet technical system, and some exist on their own and participate in ICONN’s membership and news services.
ICONN has developed a scholastic arm, the Interscholastic Online News Network (ISONN), that offers many of these same services to high schools and high school journalism teachers. Currently, there are more than 20 high school news websites that are a part of the ISONN JeffersonNet system.
ICONN is a recognized non-profit organization by the State of Tennessee and is preparing application for 501-c-3 status from the U.S. government. ICONN is housed at School of Journalism and Electronic Media at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. It works closely with the School, which provides administrative and logistical support.
Posted May 2011
Jim Stovall
