By Erin Roberts, roberte1@ohio.edu

ATHENS, Ohio (Nov. 3, 2009)—Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism in the Scripps College of Communication has released the first iPhone application for a school or department of journalism education.

School of Journalism Associate Director Robert Stewart said the free iPhone app, called "JSchool," is intended to make information about the school's activities more widely available to students and alumni, while also demonstrating its commitment to new technology.

"As media technology evolves, we believe it is essential that we do our level best to not just know about it, but to incorporate these opportunities to communicate into our curriculum,” he said. “The iPhone app demonstrates our commitment to our students, alumni and prospective students.”

The application, which incorporates news, events and video content from the school, was approved by Apple and launched in time for Ohio University’s Homecoming Oct. 15. Tom Hodson, the school’s director, said the school researched moving from printed communication to new media before making the decision to fund the creation of the iPhone application.

“It’s great to be first in something that is so important: mobile communication,” Hodson said. “It’s forward-thinking because the whole movement in communication is toward the mobile platform and social networking.”

Hodson said the application also allows the school to connect with students who rely heavily on both mobile devices and social media sites.

“If you look at students, they don’t even like to use email anymore,” he said. “They prefer to get their information on Facebook, Twitter and mobile applications. The communication industry requires us to take some bold steps into the foray of mobile communication.”

The power of such types of media isn’t lost on Stewart, who said he was surprised to get a congratulatory email about the application just a day after it launched from alumna Arian Smedley, BSJ ’07, and before it was advertised by the school at all.

Smedley, mobile online editor for The Associated Press at headquarters in New York, learned about the application from a “tweet” posted on Twitter, a popular social media site, by the Ohio Alumni Association.

“It is great to see the school going in that direction and experimenting with the technology to see if it’s going to work for them,” Smedley said. “The application is a work in progress, just like anything else, but I can tell that the school officials see mobile as an important platform and that they are putting effort into it.”

Stewart said content for the application is pulled entirely from the school’s Web site through the use of Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds. The school’s site was recently developed by Bryan Duffie, a 2005 graduate of the visual communication program, who recommended Acacia Tree Software, an Athens-based iPhone and Macintosh software development company owned by fellow 2005 alumnus Ben Lachman, to create the iPhone application.

Stewart believes the application to be the only one of its kind coming from a journalism school or department. “I’ve searched the iTunes store in every way possible, and I’ve not found any other app coming from a journalism school,” he said, adding that even only the most prestigious universities and colleges like Yale and Harvard seem to have an application at all.

Smedley says the application is not only helpful for alumni wanting to stay in touch with the school but that exposure to the platform will benefit students entering the ever-changing media industry as well.

“It’s also good for the students to be involved and to see a mobile application in practice so close to home,” she said. “It’s going to be more and more popular in the coming years.”

To download the application, search “jschool” at the iTunes Store. For more information about the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism, visit http://scrippsjschool.org or follow it on Twitter @scrippsjschool.