UTC’s largest academic conference is back for a third year. The ReSEARCH Dialogues conference celebrates scholarship, engagement, the arts, research, creativity and humanities on campus. The deadline to apply is Saturday, Feb. 24, 2018.
The two-day event, which showcases and celebrates the scholarly and creative accomplishments of UTC’s undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff, will take place on Tuesday-Wednesday, April 3-4, in the University Center.
All faculty, staff and students interested in participating in the ReSEARCH Dialogues conference can apply through the online application. Students and faculty of all disciplines are encouraged to apply.
Recognizing the diversity of scholarship, research, engagement and creative expression on campus, ReSEARCH Dialogues includes multiple options for individuals, classes and small groups. Participants can make oral or visual presentations, showcase their work through posters or tabletop displays or take part in a pitch or elevator-speech competition.
In 2017, the event featured over 300 presenters and three fast-paced pitch competitions for faculty and students. A recap of last year’s event can be found here.
ReSEARCH Dialogues is free and open to the public. Click here more information.
NewsViz:
Visualization opportunities in local newspaper reporting
A course project in Curiosity and Creativity
UTC Honors College
Summary
Our team of four students proposes to explore opportunities to strengthen the art and practice of “visual storytelling” in local daily newspaper reporting. We aim to identify creative yet replicable tools and methods of illustration that can enhance both original media coverage and reader understanding.
Community partner
In the initial weeks of project conception, we have secured the willing collaboration of the graphic designer and public news editor at the Chattanooga Times Free Press for this semester-long research project. We readily understand the daily publishing constraints of time, budget, space, tools and talent. In response to their real-world needs, our interactions with newspaper staff will focus on visual enhancement of non-breaking local news topics, stories that typically involve longer news-gathering cycles and more in-depth reporting.
Traditional platforms
Educational and consumer research informs us that pure text is not necessarily the ideal — or even preferred — medium for receiving and understanding news story content. Accompanying photographs can show local people, places and events (the “who, what, where and when”) powerfully and memorably. Yet photos are less adequate for articles that convey quantitative data, trends over time, background connections and more nuanced cause-and-effect relationships — the “how” and “why” of complete reporting. Similarly, when a story involves specific locations in the region, mapping tools are deployed inconsistently or show only generic site information.
Complementary option
Infographics, a visual category still in its infancy a decade ago, is today an established, mainstream platform for media communicators. Younger audiences of readers in particular expect to see these visuals used in print and online media. On the front end, well-executed infographics can economize the newspaper’s time, budget and space by reducing the content load on words and photographs. On the back end, an information-rich visual can enjoy an extended viral life beyond the underlying news article it was intended to accompany, improving the metrics of reader engagement. Several good design models and templates for infographic creation can shorten the learning and execution curve in the newsroom.
University resources
In the course of confirming our hypothesis and refining our approach, we are reaching out for the insights of experienced photojournalists, geolocation experts, media librarians, and graphic design professionals. All of these contributors are in other departments of UTC and have encouraged this fresh look.
Public comment
We have been invited to present this project and our preliminary discoveries at the University’s annual Research Dialogues on Tuesday, April 3rd, 2018. The panel will include our Times Free Press community partners.
Diverse perspectives
Our interdisciplinary team of four students combines the relevant skills of writing, editing, photojournalism, graphic design, data analytics, computer science, innovation techniques and media communications. Individual journals and a team portfolio will track and document the iterative creative process. Pre- and post-project surveys of newspaper reporters, editors and readers will capture the impact of our findings and recommendations.
Team
Grace McPherson
Rachel Smith
Josh Freeman
Jim Frierson
Course
Curiosity and Creativity, UHON 3540, Spring 2018
Adviser: Dr. Karen Adsit, Professor of Education, University of Tennessee Chattanooga