What future for Combined Studies?

As we all know the acadeic structure working party is continuing to review the existing structures in the university - calendar, terms, etc. But one quite likely consequence which may be confirmed before the end of the year is a radical pruning of combined options and a switch to particular 'named' degree combinations which become in effect single honours pathways e.g. film and english to be treated as if it was a s/h programme. We may well be asked to nominate our preferred combinations before the endof the year. What do we think of this development. there are some very good 'rational' reasons for doing this and, indeed, most of the sector has already embarked on this approach. But before I left DMU in 2004 numerous s/h programmes folded through the 'unintended consequence' of this. Not that history always repeats itself!

Spam

Sorry - I should not have used the term spam in the post below this - even jokingly. Seriously we must not spam, evcer. It doesn;t work for us and it could get us penalised by the search engines who can detect it now.

Just spamming these links to the new journalism sub-domain. Every little bit of back-linking I have discovered helps raise page rank. If you transfer these links on to your Blog Roll Paul then that is even better because everytime the blog is updated the the links are republished and are recounted as Page Rank.

Have have been in darlkened room for a month doing Search Engone Optimisation (great results will post later) so that journalism courses (experiment) return much higher on search engines. I have dioscoverd that relatively small groups of croiss linking bloggers (so long as the crosss links are or a proper purpose and not just hype) can have a dramatic impact on the rank of page to which those blogs point, especially viz-a-viz our rivals.

Anyway this probably sound like gobble-degook if you could post any or all of the attached links to the front page or blogrill of this page, or any other blogs colleagues might have, then that will help.

As I say I will explain late if you like.

THE LINKS
Winchester Journalism

Winchester MA Journalism

Winchester BA Journalism

Winchester International Journalism

BJTC

Winchester Studios and Facilities

Winchester Lecturers



Post hem whereever you legitimately can (Do not spam them on sites created just for the purpose of creating links - that is a waste of time and can be penalised by Google.

New Promo Video for Winchester

This is up on YouTube let me know if anyone wants to use it. All images and music cleared. I am very excited that search terms like "where can I do a magazine journalism course" are returning on the first page of the Yahoo and MSN search engines now. Still waiting for Google to index the pages, then we should be much more visible for journalism at least. I can show others how to do the same. Blogging is a key part of it though, and if we have active blogs (it doesn't matter if on Google or your own server) and these are updated regularly then this really helps direct searchers to our courses and to our research. 

I think it would be a very good idea to have a Film and Media School day in the studio making a load of little video clips which we can put on YouTube for the time being, waiting for the day when we will be able to put them on the university site or on course level CMS

I think admin should do this too - with briefings that can be there over the summer about various things... the regultions, plagiarism regulations... whatever. We just get people to read these things to the camera and everything becomes more student-friendly and modern-looking.

The Tyranny of PowerPoint is over and" it is all about Video now" as they say.

Here's the YouTube thing anyway:

Lnks and web visibility

I have added some content to the new journalism website and the main point of this post is to add a link to it. The university has only 160 links in to the whole university site - so every link counts. If you have a blog or a facebook account or anything at all please link both to the university main site and to the journalism sub-domain. It all makes a difference. If we coud get all staff and students to link to the site(s) then that would male a big difference to web visibility = number of applicants = quality of what we do.

500 hit aweek for Basingstoke Bison

Flipping heck the student coverage if Basingstoke Ice Hockey is getting 500 hits a week, per item. That's 10s of thousands hits a year with our name on it and bringing traffic to our site.

SEE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ejdePsm

Note the hit counter - 500 in a week.

The point is that we just need to do similar with the Bishop of Winchester on a regular basis and put it on youtube (if we can't put it on the university site).

Any ideas about how to progress the religious broadcasting issue. Paul are you saying you are going to organise this - your last post not very clear - talked about selling DVDs of wedding at the Cathedral or something, wrong end of the swtick, If Basingstoke Bison has got 500 fans a week, Bushop of winchester has far more (difficult though it is for non believer such as myself to understand!).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0ejdePsm

We are bleeding to death because we are invisible

I am having a boring and frustrating easter doing SEO. Everywhere you turn on the internet we are completely invisible and yet all our rivals are there like a rash. The lastest example is Digg. I found there were NO REFERENCES AT ALL TO Winchester on Digg! let alone the more obscure things. I have now put up our first link from Digg. It will help speed up the indexing of the new journalism sub-domain. Please visit it. I also suggest that everyone uses Digg to distribute their lectures or video or whatever you are putting on your blog. If it is any good (ie of interest to other academics, students) then it will get searched and linked to. This will increase the total links to the site (we have only 160 links to the entire Winchester Website - compared to 1,000 for say portsmouth; 10,000 for City University; 50,000 for MIT). It is not surprising that no body has heard of us and that we have such tiny numbers of applicants from anywhere not in passing trade distance of Southampton. Every link got for any subjects - film studies, media production - raises the page ranking for everything else so this is pre-eminently a case for concerted action at the level of the department and school. At the next departmental meeting can we get Keithetr there because I think he is taking on a link role. Also maybe sort out a strategy for the department as well. I don't ebven have the URLs of everyone's personal blogs or websites (apart from Angus at Setanta and Brian at the BBC). If everyone just linked their blogs in a systematic fashion, that would be a start.

Thoughts about Programme Structures and Stuff

One of the advantages of this kind of blog is that it is located in a kind of liminal no-man's land which is not quite 'official' and therefore allows a bit of speculative thinking which might not be so appropriate in an official forum. So here are some thoughts that come from nowhere except my speculative hunches about where the institution is likely to be heading. As we know, there is a cross university working group currently examining programme structures and the curriculum. My guess is that when it eventually reports, it will suggest a radical overhaul of the existing frameworks.

Several things may happen. Firstly, I reckon the 30 credit double module will become standard currency. Would that allow us to offer "double double" 60 credit modules in some instances? Secondly, I reckon there will be a strong push to reduce the number of combined permutations currently offered as 'pick and mix'. We may well be asked to identify specified combinations which in effect are treated as single honours degrees (eg. English and Media Studies, Journalism and Film Studies, etc.) with a clear rationale and sense of programme identity. And thirdly, we may well be encouraged to use this 'opportunity' to make adjustments to assessment in order to free up more staff time for other things such as research. Fourthly, we might see 'de-semesterisation' coming along and a return to the traditional 3 term year which is where I started in 1852.

So three distinct developments may mesh together to produce a rather new environment with some potential dangers but also perhaps some good opportunities. Over-assessment is a problem across the sector and if we avoided the temptation to double up assessments as we switch to 30 credit modules we might really save some more time for other staff activities such as research. Big double modules running through the academic year might encourage students to actually read for their disciplilne rather than just for assessments? But, on the other hand, all this was introduced at my old university back in the early 2000s and the dismantling of the combined pick and mix structure triggered a series of programme closures because certain programmes depended very heavily upon recruiting small numbers of students across a very wide range of permutations.

It might be an idea for programme teams to begin to think about what they would like their programmes to look like in a new 30 credit regime. And would you want to lighten the assessment loads to free up staff time?

Angus Scott and new studio - Promo Film made by Brian Thornton - now added to youtube Winchester Journalism

Welcome Eylem

Welcome Eylem - it's good that it's not just the four of us now. But where are the others? Perhaps blogging isn't the way forward for them? Perhaps we could use Facebook?



or Twitter?

"Twouble with Twitter" sous-titré
Uploaded by LePostfr

The Screening Room - continuing saga

the story of the Film Studies / FCT screening room continues. Thanks to the tightfistedness of your HoS there is probably enough money in the School budget to fit out a basic screening room in terms of sound and blackout. However, there is no way that we would have enough alone to pay for tiered seating and the creation of a cinema style environment. But the Dean has recently taken this cause up and seems to want to bid for this project in the coming captital bids round and he has asked me to come up with some suggestions for alternative rooms to TAB 116 because he thinks the sound leaking through the walls into other rooms is a probelem. this leaves us with some dilemmas. Do we try to find an alternative room? I can't think of anything really suitable except possibly the lecture theatre in HJB. This is a horrible room but it does have tiered seats and would be easy to black out. Secondly, while it would be great to successfully bid for a capital sum to fund the project fully leaving the School budget looking slightly more healthy, if the bid fails then we are back to square one with less time to get anything done before the next recruitment round. any views or suggestions for alternatives to TAB 116?

REligious Broadcasting (practical)

Given the research specialism in religion and the cathedral (being our logo, etc). We should launch a course (MA?) in religious broadcasting. The output of this would be activity from the Cathedral plus other faiths. We could webcast that and it would bring a lof of traffic to the site, and therefore links and therefore recruits.

I looked and some of the video about the cathedral gets 10,000s of hits. A Songs of Praise from the Cathedral got 100,000 hits in a year;l (but it was dsone as a very clasy BBC outside broacast).

I thyink the religious material is a goldmine and could at last make us visible on the interemt. I mentioned it to Alasdair Spark and he seemed interested.

Any ideas.

How to correct our very low web visibility - get links to religious programmes. Its a niche market, but a good one and very international

Excellent L+T event this week can be springboard to create more give away content which will build links. Follow up with target for content creation (eg 'career tips' videos filmed nicely in the studio for each subject) and target for gertting links in. Must overtake Portsmouth on number of links (1,000) asap.

Trump card could be web-casting Cathedral services - possible massive traffic and links in for Xmas, Easter services and talks from the Bishop. Would get thousands of links-in possibly. Premium sites like BBC and churches and embassies around the world would link to that.

This bit of video done at the cathedral has already got ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND VIEWS:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3mKkLMzLpc

Its a winner. RE department staff students could easily be trained up to film and upload to something like mogulous. We could start with the actual Easter service, if we can get filming rights. I would be happy to do the first one. I am not a believer meself like, but I imagine Easter service in catherdral v.interesting premium cultural event with nice music, triffic costumes, etc.

Seriously we would get tons of links and traffic for that.

Desmond Tutu would watch it.

Let's do it.

Also - a case for Don's OB truck, eventually. In the meantime we could film it very low-fi and upload it later (not live) because religious people and music fans will search for this type of material out of real time.

I probably have not spotted the downside, but it coudl give us huge traffic for little effort and has other institutional, education benefits.

Yrs Chris Horrie

Screen South Education Hub Meeting

I went to the SS Education hub on Wednesday. Alison Dilnutt (SS) provided a useful update on various sources of funding that we might tap. In particular the next round of Mediabox bids could be of interest. Mediabox funds projects involving 13-19 year olds. But there could be opportunities for our students to work with the 'yoof' in developing projects. Last time around film was favoured but significantly the next round of bids will prioritise multimedia ideas so there could be possibilities for students on both MP and DDM. Our students might get quite a lot out of working with 13-19 year olds on mm projects particularly if they are thinking about teaching etc.

Other key 'tings include 'On the Lot' - a fund for six apprenticeships in sound recording, camera craft, studio liaison, motion capture, and editing at Pinewood /Shepperton. Candidates must have HE or FE qualification. We should promote this with our students asap as the closing date is very soon.

there's other stuff too so get in touch if you want more info.

Ian Anderson - (ex) Editor of BBC Breakfast

I have just been to the pub with Ian Anderson who for many years was the editor of BBC Breakfast. He's very keen to do one off lecturer about TV news. We can use him a bit on Journalism next year. Is he any ghood on media courses, or other courses as a guest lecture. The funny thing is that there is not really much of a slot other than 'graduate careers' where we could plug him in.

Who's it for?

I have a little cartoon comment on my office door about blogs... but I'm not unsupportive. I think this is a good idea if people get involved. I tried this with Media Production staff ( it's at http://mpstaff.blogspot.com/?zx=27b5b579d9f1ffe9 ) but no-one looked at it so it remains with two posts on it and has lain dormant since August.

But who is this for? Is it staff or students? (just so we don't put any real nude photos of ourselves on it ).


Media Studies 2.0 sound s fun but we should be up to about 3.6 by now and Jill won't allow an order for Lego.

This blog is a good idea

This blog is an excellent idea. I will tell all the students in journalism to link to it. It should be easy to get them to look at it since there is a clearly non-faked picture of the great leader in the nude. I also attach a video for the 'postmodernism' theory course we will be running on the new journalism course next year in the hope that people might want to do one or two of these lectures, so that it does not become just a course in contemporary Horrism-Thorntonism and that this can at least be converted into something like Radical Mortimerist Multiple-Episimologicalism. It uses a non-copyright promo of a geoffrey reggio movie and has a spelling mistake in it.

Film Festival

For more than eighteen months a shadowy group has been meeting in hidden away parts of the campus, such as John Pett's office, to develop the idea of the Winchester International Film Festival: the City as a Screen. We now have some money from the Creative Campus (Cultural Olympiad) fund and strong support, warm words, (and as yet no money) from Screen South. The idea is that we invite short film submissions to competitive categories including 'documentary', 'drama', 'experimental', 'animation' and '14-19 young film makers'. However, we want to engage the public of Winchester by screening the entries ahead of mainstream films in places around the city where there is some kind of connection between the film and the location ( I Confess at the Cathedral, Walk the Line at the prison, Brief Encounter at the station, etc. - just exemplars). We have most of the locations 'signed up' which actually do include the Cathedral, the open spaces around the Westgate and the City Museum, the Discovery Centre, the Great Hall, a couple of pubs and wine bars, etc.

Suggestions for judges, master class celebs, offers of help, etc. warmly welcomed.

So finally ... what's going on? Programmes

The BA Journalism was recently re-written to better cater for single honours and joint students and has now been approved. The MA Digital Media Practice is brought to validation on 23rd April and the MA Journalism on May 20th. Next year there are plans to write a single honours BA FCT, an MA Radio Production, possibly an MA Television Studio Production, and for the planning to be undertaken for an MA route for BA Media Studies students. Anyone interested n these developments - get in touch!

BA Media Studies and BA Film Studies are due for re-approval next year. We need to start meeting and planning for these programme re-writes. Whose interested in the Media Studies 2.0 debate? Is Gauntlett a genius or a ... er ... not a genius?

Staffing - the story so far

Difficult to encapsulate everything that has happened that everyone should know about since the beginning of the year in just one blog. However, one thing that has been playing on my mind is the point that we have appointed more new staff in 2008-09 than ever before but have not really had a chance to introduce them all because not all staff attend School meetings and one member of staff joined in mid-semester. So although most of you will have met most of these new members of staff and, indeed, taught with them, sat in meetings with them, wept with them and shed blood with them, for the record out nerw members of staff are:

Brian Thornton: Lecturer in Journalism (joined in September from BBC Newsnight)
Anthony Greenbank: Lecturer in Television Studio Production (joined in September fresh from the industry)
Tony Leigh: Programme Leader for FCT (joined in November from Reigate School of Art)
Corin Pritchard: Media Technician (joined in December from freelance work including music video production in Liverpool)

And in addition Dr Marcus Leeming (Trinity College Wales) will join us in September 09 to lead the BA Media Studies programme.

Why a School Blog?

Ever thought your HoD was a remote figure who never darkened your office or classroom door? Ever wondered what was going on in the School of Media and Film because departmental meetings only ever get called twice or three times a year and the School Committee doesn't filter information down very effectively? Ever wondered what was happening on a weekly basis or suspected that stuff was happening that you might be interested in but was not being consulted about? Ever thought that there was a gap in your life where a wise and benevolent leader could explain the meaning of life to you?

Then think again. Here is a School of Media and Film blog that aims to try to bridge the communication and information gap in the School. For a long time I've been thinking that we should either have a School newsletter for staff (and perhaps students) or more whole School meetings. But then I thought it might be easier to have a blog where issues and developments can be posted as they emerge.

The only probelm is that there is quite a lot to catch up...next post.