Masters Degree Practicum: Implementation Report

About This Project

Currently at the university, student research and projects that are not moving forward to journal publication, are being archived upon completion. This growing archive of student work is not easily accessible by students and faculty outside the classroom without having prior knowledge of the project or class. As a result, the idea of having a central location to feature student work has been a common topic in conversations across campus.

In an effort to help solve this need, I composed a report that discussed a plan for implementing a social media-like interface for our undergraduate research network, The Madison Parlor. The Madison Parlor was a pilot project that was created to generate a “cross-disciplinary academic conversation” among faculty and students at JMU (About Us).

The report was composed from a survey of literature, librarian interviews, and personal experience in working for the Center for Instructional Technology (CIT) and as a member of WRTC 565, Digital Rhetoric course. My full report addresses the following key points,

1) a brief overview of the two publishing platforms (bepress and WordPress) that have different capabilities, but together can help us create this “social media layer” for this project

2) a description of what we are calling a “social media layer”

3) the importance of digital storytelling

4) the benefits and challenges of implementing this social media-like layer at the university level

5) the departments and individuals at JMU that play a major role in this storytelling process

6) the steps for moving forward with this project