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24 Hour Museum Student Sit-In Case Study
By Jon Pratty, Editor, 24 Hour Museum
28/06/2004
Meet the team - this is how we announced the sit-in on the website in April 2004.
Downloadable Word version of this document (5880 kb)
1.0 Nature of project
A group of student journalists from the National Council for the Training of Journalists (NCTJ) graduate course at City College Brighton were asked to take part in a ‘student sit-in’ where they would:
a) Plan content for the 24 Hour Museum for a whole week
b) Research and interview principals for stories
c) Write stories
d) Edit their stories
e) Upload content
f) Source and edit pictures
g) Proof the uploaded content before publishing
Though the students would be ‘shadowed’ by 24 HM staff to ensure no major problems (or libel) occurred, the students were given reasonable freedom to run the site as they wished during the week.
Pre-publicity was planned on the website, and the project was preceded by a planning meeting by 24 HM staff to establish:
a) Feasibility of the venture in terms of staff resources
b) Discussion of likely scenarios where failure might occur
c) How many students could be accommodated given space restrictions
d) Technology constraints and likely issues resulting from that
1.1 Summary
24 HM staff approached the project with some foreknowledge and planned for a range of outcomes based on experience of working with students over three years, as well as knowledge of their own editorial systems.
2.0 Outcomes
A planning meeting was convened with the students after the 24 HM internal meeting. A week’s output was discussed with the students, and jobs were allotted, roles planned out.
2.1 See the week's schedule worked out with students
A timetable was agreed, and this was distributed among the students. We agreed to contribute to the travel costs of one of the students who was incurring extra expense participating in the Sit-In.
Day one was very busy, but things went well, with one group of two writers researching a Regency Brighton trail, others working on stories, and one unlucky individual getting straight into the story of the day complete with deadline looming.
By day five, all was well. The trail writers were uploading their copy and putting in pictures. All the others had learnt writing, picture editing and uploading skills.
The week was a resounding success, so the students were taken to the pub at Friday teatime!
2.2 Read what the students said about the Sit-In!
2.3 What did tutor James Morrison say about the week?
Image: shows a photo of a story on the 24 Hour Museum website about our student sit in in 2002.
Here's one we did earlier. The 2002 Student Sit-In featured prominently a certain Mr David Prudames as student editor!2.4 And here's what the students did:
What We Did For The Romans - Verulamium To Go Hi-Tech by Tom Briggs
Spotted! Ladybird Book Artwork On Show At The Towner by Tom Briggs
Fabrica Gallery Serves Up Two Healthy Helpings Of Japanese by Doug Devaney
Big Pit Mining Museum Shows Off New Face After £7m Makeover by Doug Devaney
We'll Meet Again - Evacuees Reunited At IWM North by Alan Morrison
19th Century Missionary Collectors At Brighton Museum by Alan Morrison
Children Tell Stories At The University Of Brighton Art Gallery by Andrea Geeson
Hooray Hermit - Real Life Recluse To Move In At Painshill Park by Andrea Geeson
Nelly The Artist? Elephants Get Creative At The Booth Museum by Tessa Watkinson
Artists In Cornwall, Newcastle And Leeds Tackle Their Industrial Past by Tessa Watkinson
Prince George's Culture Club - A Trail Through Regency Brighton by Doug Devaney and Tom Briggs
3.0 Issues/Pitfalls
From 24 HM point of view:
3.1 Students need to be careful with note-taking skills. They can’t always rely on tape recorders.
Students need to know more about the law in relation to use of press releases – they are covered by Qualified Privilege, and can be quoted without fear of legal trouble. They don’t seem to know enough about un-attributed quotes – we just don’t do this.
There is lots of inconsistency in writing style and we’d like to see more effort put into teaching cliché-free use of plain English.
There's a need for students to press on with the story and bear in mind time management - don't wait for people to phone you back, because they won't.
3.2 Feedback from City College Brighton:
Tutor James Morrison asked 24 HM to review it's procedures for documenting student placements with relation to the logbook provided by the course supervisors, NCTJ.
Students didn't feel this was precise enough. 24 HM staff also felt the logbook was imprecise and obscure in relation to the day-to-day tasks they were asked to appraise the students for.
James Morrison agreed the logbooks are lacking in clarity and 24 HM staff will work with James to find a better solution, as the college can now use it's own logbooks, not predesigned solutions from NCTJ.
In the interim, students can have their logbook remarks from 24 HM reviewed if desired.
4.0 Background issues
24 Hour Museum needs to encourage student writers to contribute to the site on a continuous basis. We work with the beginnings of a national network of student journalists, and it’s key to our editorial productivity and regional coverage that we manage to attract student writers.
We also need to attract students and volunteers locally, as these individuals typically are trained up to use 24 HM systems. These volunteers are then very well placed when vacancies at the Brighton office are advertised.
4.1 Volunteer working - a structured approach
We have developed a structured approach to volunteer working, which typically involves the volunteer firstly working with us under the aegis of the local journalism course. This work experience involves an afternoon’s work on an occasional basis as directed by the course leader at CCB, Brighton.
4.2 Research assistantships
Keen students, who may be strong writers, good interviewers or strong sub-editors, are then selected to be Research Assistants. This volunteer route is for three months, up to two days per week at normal office hours.
Research assistants are given commissions, help with writing skills, references after the three months, and contacts help to get to the next stage of employment. Four of our full or part time writing staff have been Research Assistants on the site.
To identify these exemplary students we carry out exercises like the Student Sit-in.
4.3 Further staff benefits
A further benefit of the Sit-In is that it helps develop our own teaching or supervisory skills. We need to know if we’re asking too much of our volunteers. Staff find it useful to develop and define the skills that enable the supervision of younger/older/less skilled/more skilled volunteers.
We’ve had writers working here who’ve been much better than any of us –it can be quite intimidating!
4.4 What do students gain?
Our students benefit from a pleasant work environment; learn to work to deadlines; learn to write plain English; deploy their shorthand skills; interview for real people for stories; learn photo editing techniques; learn to ftp and assign photos to stories; learn to use an online editing client; they see their stories uploaded onto the net; they get an online folio of published work with their bylines; and best of all – they are never asked to make tea.
4.5 Volunteer history
Student work has appeared on the site since approx April or May 2001. From that time, students were solicited to work on the site as volunteers and now there are approximately 25-30 regular writers on the site, from Glasgow to Cardiff.
In April 2002 we ran our first sit-in, again in Brighton, and it was very successful, though it was seen by 24 HM staff as a test run. The main lesson learned from this test run was that it is very difficult to use an online editing client, such as the 24 HM Index+ facility, through an educational institution firewall.
4.6 How we work with students
Student writers are encouraged to find their own stories, and though many do, there are still some writers who like to be directed to stories. For our part we would prefer people to be keen enough in their writing to get out there and look for stories.
We have always been prepared to feed press releases and notices about press launches to students, however. Some may be trying to break into the arts, and have no contacts, and volunteering with 24 HM is a great way to build up contacts.
We are quite keen to encourage a limited commitment in terms of time for volunteers. This point springs from the treatment of many volunteers in the past. This is not just anecdotal: some of us in the 24 HM office have been in this situation. It cannot be good practice that volunteers give their precious time in sometimes open-ended commitments to unpaid work experience.
We try to limit volunteers to three month (or units thereof) blocks of working with us. They may do one story per month, or two or three quite quickly then nothing for a while. It’s clear that for our student writers, flexibility is what’s needed. If they do one story, then get a paid job, that’s fine.
4.7 What goes wrong?
It's very hard to run a network of writers with absolutely no budget - some would say we shouldn't attempt this. There is a very small commissioning budget - a matter of few hundred pounds per month. This is deployed to the keener writers or those who have been with us for a long time.
We know from talking with our volunteers that the keenest issue is 'where next?' Some of our writers have been with us for two years or more. They need to feel there is a further challenge, the possibility of bigger commissions, the chance to make a living, the eventual chance perhaps of a job with 24 HM.
These comments and points, occasionally made strongly by writers on the site, are what forms the next challenges for our volunteer policy.
5.0 Future strategy for volunteers
It's clear from volunteer feedback that 24 HM needs to develop more opportunities for our writers and these are some ideas we'll be following up in the next few months:
5.1. Bursaries for student writers on a region-by-region basis, to support regional museum strategies and tourism agendas. These are entry-level opportunities for those new to the cultural sector.
5.2 Embedded journalists - work placements in regional museum marketing offices. These may be opportunities for more experienced 24 HM volunteers needing more structured work experience, looking to move into arts writing or arts marketing professionally.
5.3 Student groups and colleges
We'll be looking to export the Sit-In idea to colleges all over the regions, with the intention of generating content for our City Heritage Guides project, which goes live in September 2004.
Copyright 24 Hour Museum, June 2004.
Downloadable Word version of this document (5880 kb)
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