Student Media

It’s a new year already! I don’t know about everyone else, but it has sort of snuck up on me. Thankfully it hasn’t snuck up on the Office of Student Media. We’ve got all sorts of very cool stuff going on for the new school year.

We’ve now rolled our community site onMason  into open beta. What does that mean for you? It means that you can now use your @GMU.edu email address to register for a new onMason site. The onMason system has been our big project over the summer and now, for the first time, it is open to any Mason student, faculty or department. The onMason system allows you to build an advanced website, complete with a host of very cool tools, and powered by the well known WordPress Content Management System. Having an onMason blog gives you all sorts of advantages, not just over a normal website, but also over a standard WordPress.com blog. We have installed a whole host of Search Engine Optimization tools, to make your blog more visible (if you choose) to search engines. We also have all sorts of mobile device compatibility (read this on your cellphone!). There is plenty more, stay tuned to this blog and we’ll be talking plenty more about onMason very soon. You can also find out what’s going on there by checking out the status blog.

We’ve spent a lot of time working on Connect2Mason as well. We’re going to have lots of cool feature for it as the semester goes on and we’ll have a greater level of integration with social networks and with onMason. You’ll also be seeing greater speed and fewer errors as the Office has hired a Drupal expert over the summer.

One of the really cool things to look forward to is Broadside moving to a more web-friendly model. It looks like we’ll be seeing more articles going online even before they hit print, and some other really cool feature for BroadsideOnline, which will be launching soon to show off Broadside’s new mojo.

That’s not all! We’ve got fantastic new folks working on WGMU, MCN, VoxPop and all the rest. It’s looking like an exciting new year for the office and we hope that you’ll stop by the office, pick up some publications, and say hello.

Oh, and if you are interested in working at one of our many media groups, fill out an application and stop by our office.