CoPress

Post edited 9:48 pm – December 16, 2009 by dsoli
Post edited 9:49 pm – December 16, 2009 by dsoli
Post edited 9:50 pm – December 16, 2009 by dsoli

Hey all,

The Daily Egyptian is one of CoPress' newest clients and also on the hunt for an online editor/administrator/assistant editor – basically, I've been on the Web desk for about a year and spent that time convincing our editor and others to move off of College Publisher, but now I'm the editor in chief and while we're making it happen (yay!), our Web desk is almost non-existent.

We have one person on it right now who's only worked here a few months and has limited HTML, Dreamweaver and WordPress experience. We had someone lined up to fulfill an adminstrator role but lost them unexpectedly.

So, while we're finally moving off of CP and would like to take full advantage of the freedom CoPress offers in developing and customizing our new site, we are suddenly without the resources to do so.

The problem is this: We KNOW there's probably people out there perfect for these jobs, but seeing as how some of them might be living in a basement next to a fridge full of red bulls, we're worried about whether we'll be able to find them.

Daniel asked me to document how we're dealing with this, so here it is. Hopefully this helps anyone in the same boat and/or can start a discussion about other ideas people have.

—

1. We got in touch with our most recently graduated admin about two weeks ago, who left us May 2009. He was an infotech major who was the last of a lineage of editors from that school who had done us the favor of finding someone else to fill their spot before they left. He didn't know anyone in April/May, but we thought we'd try again. He gave us the name an adviser for the computer science department who has contact with students suited for the job.

2. We e-mailed the adviser and other advisers/officials in any of the related colleges on campus: Computer Science, Information Systems and Technologies, then the Director of Undergraduate Programs.

3. We also posted the job on the School of Journalism Web site and and the webdev club (or RSO = Registered Student Organization) Web site.

4. We began seeing results, with some students e-mailing or stopping by, and have pointed them to CoPress.org for a greater understanding of how much or little they need to know programming-wise, and probably found someone to be an assistant.

5. But we're still waiting for someone suited for the role of administrator – where are you?!

P.S. Here are copies of what we sent out: