When Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad on Wednesday, Abilene Christian University announced its plan to be the first university to publish its student newspaper on the device.

That newspaper, The Optimist, will publish on the iPad, a tablet-style hybrid of an iPhone and laptop, the day of the device’s release in March.

‘The faculty as a whole and the department discussed it, and we said we have to do this,’ said Dr. Cheryl Bacon, the chairwoman of the department of journalism and mass communications. ‘It’s just too good of an opportunity to pass up.’

This is not the first time that ACU has been a pioneer in using Apple’s technology. A program implemented in fall 2007 gives incoming freshmen their choice of an iPhone or iPod touch. ACU’s iSchool even has a course in iPhone application development.

‘We’re well positioned to do this because the university is well invested in mobile learning,’ Bacon said. ‘We already have our student newspaper in iPhone format, and we have for two years.’

The school has formed an interdisciplinary team to plan how The Optimist will be published on the iPad. The team consists of two professors from the department of journalism and mass communications, a professor in ACU’s iSchool, a graphic design professor and about 10 students. Last week, the team spent two days working together to plan the next two months leading up to the iPad’s release, Bacon said.

‘We had an off-site retreat where we hashed out how the iPad publication is going to work, what it’s going to serve, essentially setting what our priorities are,’ said Kenneth Pybus, an assistant professor of journalism, a member of the research team and a faculty adviser for The Optimist. ‘It’s a little bit of a challenge because we’re redesigning what the page is. We also want to take full advantage of the technology.’

Taking full advantage of the technology, Pybus said, means setting up The Optimist as an iPad application that is available for download. It is Apple’s ‘seamless integration of audio and video,’ he said, that gives an application an advantage over a Web site.

The iPad features a 9.7-inch touch screen and is an integration of the Web, e-mail, photos and video, according to Apple’s Web site. The device, which will have 10 hours of battery life, will be priced at $499 upon release. The price, which may be high for students who already have laptops and iPhones, does not scare ACU away from believing that publishing The Optimist on the iPad is the right move, Bacon said.

‘If Apple’s history is predictive, then lots of people, and especially lots of people in younger demographics, will have iPads,’ Bacon said. ‘But our reason for doing it is not just for the people that have iPads, but for the experience it provides for the students that are part of the development project.’

‘Having our students ready to be leaders in their news departments is a primary reason for wanting to do it,’ she said.

Colter Hettich, the editor-in-chief of The Optimist and a senior journalism major, participated on the research team in addition to his editor duties.

‘No one’s figured out a model yet (for newspapers) to get readership, to get advertising, comments and user registration,’ Hettich said. ‘What better practice do we have than taking a new technology and a new device and trying to design something that delivers the best news in the best possible way?’

Other schools have already contacted ACU, asking to be kept in the loop about the process, said Brian Burton, a professor in the iSchool.

The research team will work individually and meet once a week to see how the technology and journalism aspects of the project are progressing.

Publishing The Optimist on the iPad will give the students working on it a great learning experience, but the question still remains about what kind of audience this will gather. ACU is taking a risk, Pybus said, because the device might not catch on like other Apple devices. Even so, the concept of the iPad is enough to convince faculty that it is still a good idea, he said.

‘I see the iPhone as a wholly new medium of news consumption, and really, the iPad is the same,’ Pybus said. ‘They are unique media. People treat them differently than any other kind of news (source).’

The newspaper will be available in iPad format the day of the device’s release, although there will probably be some kinks worked out along the way.

But Pybus has nothing but optimism about The Optimist for the future, he said.

‘I think students don’t read the newspaper a way a 45- or 50-year-old reads news,’ Pybus said. ‘They read news wherever they are, whenever they want. Mobility is the future of news consumption.’

mcooperj@syr.edu

Published on February 8, 2010 at 12:00 pm

Contact Mark: mcooperj@syr.edu | @mark_cooperjr