Jessica Parrotta's Blog

“Weird” headline

jparrotta — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 22:14:06 +0000

This is a sample of an art headline I created, Weird NJ headline. I interviewed the creators of Weird New Jersey back in 2006 for a features article during my time as an intern at the Daily Record. A man from Mountain Lakes infamous for his yard displays said, ”Did New Jersey make us weird or did we make New Jersey weird?” The man, Fred Kanter, answered that both are true of the aporia, and his anecdote inspired me to create this sample art headline. The Weird New Jersey books are great resources on Garden State trivia. Many people I know have fun make road trips out of visiting the strange landmarks, including Kanter’s yard.

Front page newspaper sample

jparrotta — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 03:30:21 +0000

Here is a sample front page of a newspaper in QuarkXPress I designed using recent national news stories, front page newspaper assignment. I created the name as a spin-off of the Daily Record, where I have fondly spent hours at as an intern and freelance Features stringer.

Trimming articles

jparrotta — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 02:27:23 +0000

Trimmings are not just for the holidays. The following files are part of an editing exercise I did late October when the “Balloon Boy” story was out on headlines. I hacked and briefed the story from being over 1,000 words into a 200-word article and 500-word article. Here is the original story, Balloon Boy article.

Pearson Video Testimonial

jparrotta — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 05:06:07 +0000

As an ambassador for the Pearson Campus Ambassador program I created five video testimonials with students who have used the technology in their classroom, or in this case their lecture hall. I gave talks in two classes this semester, Infant and Child Development and General Psychology, about Pearson’s MyLab technologies. In this video testimonial, the student said MyDevelopmentLab helped her improve her grade by 20 points from one exam to the next. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egIplETea0c

Google Map Mash-Up on Rutgers Burglaries in ’09

jparrotta — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 18:00:30 +0000

This Google “My Map” I created shows where burglaries that have been reported to the Rutgers University Police Department occurred this past year so far. The trend seems to point that many of the burglaries occurred on George Street or College Avenue, the two most populated streets near the College Avenue Campus. The information comes from the Daily Crime Log, available through the Public Safety web site: www.publicsafety.rutgers.edu.

View Larger Map“>

Exploring an E-book initiative at universities

jparrotta — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:46:51 +0000

According to an article released by Rutgers University’s Media Relations department, Rutgers University Press is one of four universities in the tri-state area to receive the Mellon Foundation Planning Grant for an e-book initiative. The article said electronic books have not yet been readily implemented for widespread use in universities, a statement which as a Rutgers student, I can vouch for. E-books would be super convenient, especially if the makers of e-book readers, such as the Kindle, would offer a student purchasing discount.

It is so refreshing to know there is an initiative in place for students only. It will start out with electronic books for classroom use and may later expand for consumer use as well. They may or may not be packaged with a print version during the beginning of the transition. The release said the planning grant will guide the presses with recommendations to print a minimum of 10,000 e-books. The initiative plans to add up to five more university presses that range in size in the first year. Five to 10 are to be added each year for the next five years.

E-book publishing, a versatile brand marketing tool

jparrotta — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:44:35 +0000

An interesting article ran in the Star Ledger yesterday. There is a lot of understandable buzz surrounding Facebook in recent times with regards to using it as a tool to promote organizations and companies. Still, the E-book is another free tool that can be made accessible to the online public via a free download of a pdf on a company web site.

According to the writer of the article An Open E-book, Allan Hoffman, a company or enterprising individual can use the medium to produce information that is of interest to its consumers to read, perhaps –ironically– on how Facebook marketing works for a small business. Putting forth free educational material on a blog, web site or even a site like Scribd (which allows you to publish documents for free) is a positive way to attract attention to a company or cause.

The possibilities for designing the content and layout of an e-book are endless. So are the number of methods you can direct readers to share and redistribute the content. One e-book, the Social Marketing Playbook, on 360i.com, makes sure to include a “Tweet this” icon on the tops of pages and links to the 360i blog and Twitter pages on the bottom so users can tweet feedback on the resource.

Working as a Pearson Campus Ambassador.

jparrotta — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 18:15:44 +0000

The Pearson Campus Ambassador program is a relatively new endeavor by Pearson Higher Education Publishing that independently contracts students to work as liaisons between company executives and faculty and students at their respective universities with promoting MyLab technologies. The first ten ambassadors were taken under the wing of the company’s business professionals in spring 2008. 50 additional ambassadors from colleges and universities across the country were added to the program this fall, and I am one of them.

I began my work over the summer by going over the MyLab technologies, conference calls and other training. Since then I have had the opportunity to meet different professors, connect virtually with other ambassadors and students, present information on new technologies in front of lectures and of course get to know more about new Pearson technological products.

A great part of my work is encouraging students and professors to see how the add-ons, which are sometimes included by the professor, but whose use is not enforced. In the past, the tools have improved students grades significantly, particularly MyMathLab. Part of my job is to show them how these products are effective so that they will use these technologies, which are accessible online access codes to sites, which often come with the textbook as a study guide. The technology is being applied to subjects ranging from math to art history, and all have been proven to help students.

Often the technology will include an electronic copy of the book online. This makes me wonder how often students will use physical books in the coming decade with the availability of resources like online e-books. I will keep updating where my interesting journey as an ambassador takes me.

Check out the ambassadors: http://pearsonstudents.com/pcameet

Note: The views expressed on this blog do not necessarily reflect the views of Pearson Education. If you have any questions or concerns about the Pearson Campus Ambassador Program or would like to become a Campus Ambassador in the future, please see the link below for further information. www.pearsonstudents.com.

“More than ever, school publishers needed”: former head of Pearson, Peter Jovanovich

jparrotta — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 22:52:17 +0000

Unlike most publishing markets, higher education publishers tend to fare better in a recession because more people go back to school. However, according to Peter Jovanovich, former head of Harcourt and Brace, major publishers have not cut back enough to protect them from the recession.

“Most of the big publishers, for whom overall industry trends are so important because they have such big market shares, did not announce cutbacks or layoffs until last fall or winter,” Jovanovich said. This was too late, he said.

He recommends that publications reduce staff to bare minimum as soon as possible. The focus instead should be to “find, make [and] sell” products. Product development and investing in new ones are also good ideas for increasing market shares. School publishers will always meet a demand, and Jonvnovich cites these reasons why they are especially important today:

1. The Obama administration’s Secretary of Education Anne Duncan, “believes in tests, textbooks and data,” he wrote.

2. There are over 100,000 school districts in the US.

3. Publishers provide capital.

4. Publishers provide distribution.

5. Publishers provide editorial expertise.

Publishers will always be needed in some shape or form. That is why Peter assures that in hard time it is imperative to know those who are needed to run a workforce and to act wisely, not despair.

Jovanovich, Peter “Publishing in Hard Times.” Publishing Research Quarterly 25.2 (2009): 67-72. Communication & Mass Media Complete. EBSCO. Web. 19 Oct. 2009.

China’s University textbook publishing industry grows

jparrotta — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:50:59 +0000

In China, textbook publishing is one of the greatest sectors of profit in the publishing industry. Recently, their growing university presses have actually been giving a small part of their profits to the press’ parent university.

The number of undergraduate students in China has now more than doubled in less than ten years. As for the number of total students enrolled in any program? That rose from 1.1 million in 1998 to 5.4 million in 2005, according to a study done by the Journal of Scholarly Publishing last January.*

In addition, 0.7 million students enrolled into newly-founded secondary colleges sponsored by local government, business enterprises and the parent university. These colleges include new technology-centered college majors (i.e. e-commerce) that add a distinction between the purposes behind textbooks used in colleges versus those used in universities:

The goal of research universities is to train students
to become scholars or scientific researchers. [....] The content of textbooks for these undergraduates should include complete theoretical systems and relatively deep theoretical analysis, so that the students can develop their capacity to carry out research or to undertake further studies. On the other hand, the application-
based colleges focus on training students to engage in actual work
in relevant fields. The textbooks they need should emphasize skills
training by means of case studies and experimental teaching
methods.

The University presses have access to leading professors who know the demographics and background of the students from the region they are teaching in. This has helped accommodate the needs of the students seeking higher education because they are better able to focus on their specific needs.

Parent universities and the National Ministry of Education of China’s initiative to expand universities with local governments have also helped improve higher education publishing in China.

* Xiaoyan, Fan, and Wang Bo “Opportunities and Strategies for Chinese University Presses with the Rapid Development of Higher Education.” Journal of Scholarly Publishing 39.2 (2008): 127-143. Communication & Mass Media Complete. EBSCO. Web. 14 Oct. 2009.