Shepherd '08 will launch interactive academic publication
Emilie Ross
Issue date: 3/21/07 Section: Campus News
Imagine a YouTube or Facebook for academia. One Brown student is working to launch a Web site that will function as a networking site for students, academics and even journalists and policy makers interested in international affairs.
Henry Shepherd '08 tentatively calls his project "University Commons," and said he hopes to launch the Web site by the end of the summer.
The site, which will have personal pages - similar to a social networking site - and pages for specific interest areas, will allow people to describe their academic interests and have discussions with others.
"We think that people are interested in what scholars think about and what they're researching, and what's going on in society around them," Shepherd said.
The Web site will make extensive use of video as a communication tool, and Shepherd said he envisions students posting videos of their professors giving lectures or interviews.
Shepherd's idea developed last year, when he worked on the Brown Journal of World Affairs and interned over the summer at a public radio station in Cambridge, Mass. Shepherd said his experience at the journal encouraged him to think about the production cycle of a paper publication - and its limitations.
He said he was frustrated by waiting for scholars to submit research articles, the intensity of the editing period right before publication and the costliness of printing and distribution. "That production cycle doesn't keep as many people involved as would want to be in a different kind of cycle," Shepherd said.
Shepherd said he realized as an intern at WGBH in Cambridge, Mass., that the Internet could be used to accelerate the production cycle for distributing ideas. While the radio station was covering the Israeli-Lebanon war, a student blogger in Lebanon contacted him online, and the student was able to talk via Skype to the radio station about his experience in the country.
"I learned you can get close to news events," Shepherd said. "The evolving lesson of journalism is that the more technology you have, the closer you can get to an event or place - quickly."
Henry Shepherd '08 tentatively calls his project "University Commons," and said he hopes to launch the Web site by the end of the summer.
The site, which will have personal pages - similar to a social networking site - and pages for specific interest areas, will allow people to describe their academic interests and have discussions with others.
"We think that people are interested in what scholars think about and what they're researching, and what's going on in society around them," Shepherd said.
The Web site will make extensive use of video as a communication tool, and Shepherd said he envisions students posting videos of their professors giving lectures or interviews.
Shepherd's idea developed last year, when he worked on the Brown Journal of World Affairs and interned over the summer at a public radio station in Cambridge, Mass. Shepherd said his experience at the journal encouraged him to think about the production cycle of a paper publication - and its limitations.
He said he was frustrated by waiting for scholars to submit research articles, the intensity of the editing period right before publication and the costliness of printing and distribution. "That production cycle doesn't keep as many people involved as would want to be in a different kind of cycle," Shepherd said.
Shepherd said he realized as an intern at WGBH in Cambridge, Mass., that the Internet could be used to accelerate the production cycle for distributing ideas. While the radio station was covering the Israeli-Lebanon war, a student blogger in Lebanon contacted him online, and the student was able to talk via Skype to the radio station about his experience in the country.
"I learned you can get close to news events," Shepherd said. "The evolving lesson of journalism is that the more technology you have, the closer you can get to an event or place - quickly."