CoPress

A few days ago, Journalism 3.0 proprietor Emily Kostic sought feedback on Twitter. The topic of discussion? CoPress, of course.

In the process of writing a blog post, Emily was hoping for someone with good knowledge of our project to explain to her the benefits of CoPress versus College Publisher. This post is my response.

Before I being outlining some of our organization’s tenets, however, I must address the potential danger of publicly replying to a query like this. I feel it is important to note that CoPress, despite being in a position to help sway some (or many) publications from using the services of College Publisher, is not explicitly aimed at doing so.

This is because our strategy and focus are fundamentally different. Above all, CoPress seeks to spread knowledge and easily accessible resources—whether or not we turn a profit. We feel it is safe to say that the same ideology is not held at College Publisher.

That aside, there are several reasons why CoPress will become an invaluable resource and, indeed, an eventual alternative to many systems currently being utilized by college media outlets. Not the least among these is the fact that our organization is, at this juncture, entirely student-driven.

In addition to offering the benefits of large-scale collaboration, this demonstrates and ensures that what we produce is done with passion and because of immediate need—with real-world scenarios in mind. We know what happens in college media because we are college media, and that is something that will continually strengthen as the network grows.

Similarly, a key component to the success of CoPress is the fact that everything we recommend, support and build is open source. Like students creating a network for college news organizations, open source software contributors make tools based on community need as well as personal passion.

They strive for continual growth as individuals and as part of a greater body, and in doing so they succeed in offering top-notch systems that rival and often overcome proprietary offerings. Open source software offers honesty and transparency, and we feel these are principles to live by as a progressive technological network.

Our belief in the open source ideology extends to the organization itself, thus we have made a concerted effort to create transparency within CoPress and its operations. This is possible because we lack a profit motivation, but moreover it encourages involvement at any and every level.

If someone is interested in involving themselves heavily with what we do, they are welcome; if one just wants to download a few plugins or find out how to get the most out of their College Publisher site, that’s OK too. CoPress wants to empower its constituents so that they can take control of their content, and organizational transparency goes a long way toward helping achieve this goal.

To briefly recap, the benefits of CoPress versus College Publisher are fourfold:

• No profit motivation
• Student-driven
• Open source
• Transparent

Simple as they may be, these few items will drive us to success. CoPress will prevail.

Do you want to get involved in a college media revolution? Get in touch via e-mail, our Google Group, Twitter, Facebook or any of our personal sites listed at right.