This year as Pulse EIC, I have worked hard to integrate our new web system. Each week, a group of staffers are led by a web manager who helps them develop, write and produce content for Pulse. What I love about Pulse week is that it gives our web managers an opportunity to lead!
While the results have been mostly positive, keeping everything on track has been a labor of love. Because Pulse Week is new this year, web managers and staffers have a lot of questions, and having meetings with the entire web team has been crucial. I'm always impressed with the feedback web managers share with me individually and during our team meetings. Open, honest and constructive communication with them has allowed us to refine Pulse Week throughout the year. I'm pleased with the amount of quality content staffers have been able to post on Pulse this year. I think its a huge improvement and has made Pulse a bigger part of Tower as a whole. |
Weekly Pulse Schedule Pulse Week follows our print schedule, as it minimizes confusion for staffers.
We also keep a whiteboard in the computer lab updated with a posting schedule. This calendar allows me to balance out content and spread it through the entire week. It also has information about copy editing and social media coverage. This board is updated each Friday, once web week groups have signed up for stories. |
Monday:
-Accept/make edits -Work on next issue's stories -Monday stories posted |
Tuesday:
-Notify upcoming web week group -Edge (adviser) mini lesson -Presentation by 2nd or 3rd year staffer -Tuesday stories posted |
Wednesday:
-Work on next weeks stories (Due Thursday) -Story pitch -Remind upcoming web week group -Wednesday stories posted |
Thursday:
-Signup for next web week -Stories due at 3:05 pm -Copy editing begins -Thursday stories posted |
Friday:
-Copy editing continues -New web group begins work on stories -Pulse white board schedule is updated -Friday stories posted |
At the beginning of each quarter, I make up a calendar listing due dates, publishing dates and groups for each week. It's important to me to get to know each staffer, because I like to put them with people they enjoy working with, have similar interests with or groups I feel could come up with some really amazing content together.
Organization is key to our web operation. In an effort to avoid confusion, I color code the schedule as the quarter progresses. Grey fill means that week is over, black means there's no Pulse sign up that week, and no fill means that week is still to come. I also have posted a printed version of the schedule and taped it on the blackboard in the computer lab. I use this hard copy to keep track of what content is edited, late or has an extension by highlighting names on the hard copy. Although I do my best to let staffers know about their web week ahead of time, I think its important that anyone can reference the schedule at any time since I cant be in the classroom during every hour. Everyone benefits when staffers are prepared. |
As an editor on any level, I feel that it's very important to give staffers feedback on the work their doing in a constructive manner that will help not only them, but the publication as a whole. It can be hard to sit down and work on this for a few hours on a weekend, but the stories are always stronger and it allows me to form a connection with other people on staff. I like to use suggesting mode on Google docs because it allows the writer to interact with my comments and easily see where in their story I'm referencing.
|
Pulse Story Sign-ups Pulse week offers a lot of freedom to staffers, allowing them to chose what kind of story they want to write, what kind of multimedia they want to produce, and what kind of social media platform they'd like to utilize.
Not being able to operate using a preplan the way print does has been a challenge with the new system this year. At first, web leaders were using hard copies of a form to track what each staffer would be doing for their web week, but we ran into issues when a form went missing or was left at school over the weekend. We decided to switch to a Google form, which meant anyone would be able to access web week info online at any time. The Google form has also helped the web team reduce the amount of opinion pieces staffers wanted to write and focus on news and feature writing. The form requires an entry in each category, ensuring we have a variety of content each week. |