The mysterious and frustrating neovox continues to motor along. Last year we published some 400 articles, so that’s an accomplishment. However, it seems to me that the idea has a tremendous amount of potential (this is like a curse word around these parts). Student-citizen journalism. All the tools are there for students to write, design, podcast, vlog, whatever.

I see neovox as a site where we "should" easily be able to produce a daily podcast, including a weekly vlog, along with multiple informal daily posts. Then we can also produce some more polished work, some more complex multimedia and so forth.

I feel like I’ve been waiting for students to just take up the tools and claim a voice for themselves. But it just seems like they are collectively lost. Now this relates to my last post about intellectual climate. I think this type of activity is the pedagogical/cultural answer. I don’t want to shape what neovox is going to become in terms of content. I just hope its interesting. I know that it can be. Obviously though, it is not enough to hold the door open.

And this is not about blaming students. Thinking creatively and taking risks are probably not habits that have been nurtured in their education. On the contrary, most students have been adequately rewarded for playing it safe and putting forth minimal effort. Arguably these are the cultural habits that are desirable in a compliant corporate professional (despite all the hype to the contrary).

So perhaps I will give some shape to our these activities. For example

• Daily podcasts (M-F) with recurring themes. Mon: students read creative work. Tues: local music scene. Wed: pop culture (sports/movies/tv). Thurs: "serious" news/issue student roundtable. Fri: video (question of the week/"man on the street" interviews).
• Daily blogs: three blog posts every day. One on our monthly theme, one on a top news event of the day, and one on one of our other sections (rotating through the week). It’s primarily a matter of sifting through the news and blog sites and reporting back (of course with some style thrown in).
• Monthly magazine: with more complex multimedia and more in-depth articles and creative work. The idea is that the daily work will feed into the more sustained pieces.

How many students do you need to make it run assuming that each student is getting three credits for participating (about 9 hours of work/week)? Well, you need 3-4 students doing the podcasting, assuming the podcasts are in the 3-5 minute range. Another 3-4 students doing the daily blogs. And just to keep it symmetrical, 3-4 students concentrating on the multimedia for the monthly magazine.

In addition to this, we’ve got around 50-60 students writing 2-3 articles each in various courses that will be contributed in the various sections and in the monthly magazine. We also have contributors from our international partners. We can add 2-3 student editors to coordinate that business, including our lead designer.

All told, the core staff of the magazine would be 10-15. I think if it got much beyond 20 it would be too large. That said, many students could potentially submit work for publication. We could start to extend beyond this format, but right now this is ambitious enough.

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