'ASU Insight' moves exclusively online in spring
ASU Insight, the university's weekly faculty and staff publication, will move exclusively online in the spring semester.
The move is part of the expansion of the university’s online news portal, ASU News at asunews.asu.edu, to offer enhanced delivery options for daily, as well as weekly, news; increased use of audio, video and multimedia content; and integration with other online features and services. The expansion will improve direct delivery of university news to the ASU community and beyond.
The Dec. 18 edition of ASU Insight will be the final print edition. Beginning at the start of the spring semester, Insight will be relaunched as a weekly electronic publication provided to all ASU employees. The publication will offer much of the same content as the print edition, with additional emphasis on news for employees.
One of the key reasons for the move is to support the university’s ongoing effort to reduce the use of paper on campus and help meet the university’s goal of carbon neutrality.
“ASU is one of the nation’s leaders in sustainability, and this is another example of how we put that into practice,” says Gary Campbell, the communication manager for news publications with ASU Public Affairs. “This also is a great opportunity to provide new and exciting multimedia features and deliver the news in a more timely way.”
The expansion and redesign of the current ASU News site will include:
• Multiple distinct, topical online sections covering campus life, research and sports, among others.
• A new “ASU News Now” portal offering the top news of the day in an easily digestible format.
• Multiple subscription options for daily, weekly and monthly ASU News Now updates, in addition to the employee-focused electronic version of Insight.
• A greater emphasis on video, photo galleries, audio and other multimedia features. Plans include continuation of a weekly photo wrap-up series of the university’s activities that was launched earlier this fall.
The expanded site also will offer new opportunities to serve a wider audience, including alumni, retirees and students.
“This is going to break a lot of the barriers we currently face in how we tell a story and who we tell it to,” Campbell says.
The print edition of ASU Insight has provided news to the ASU community for more than 28 years. Moving from its humble beginnings as a one-page newsletter, Insight has grown into a national-caliber campus newspaper. The current ASU News site was launched in 2007 as the university’s main online news portal and is visited more than 70,000 times each week.
Published by Media Relations and Public Information in ASU Public Affairs, the ASU News site currently features breaking news stories, a wide range of articles, photo slideshows, audio slideshows, videos, calendar events and an archive. With daily frequent news updates, the site also offers user-friendly interaction, allowing readers to search for content, give feedback and subscribe to news feeds. The expansion of the site will offer even more function and greatly enhance the site’s organization, content and features.
“Insight has been a valuable part of the campus culture, and I certainly don’t think that’s going to change,” Campbell says. “We’re definitely not going away, despite the format change. This will be a positive step and give us new and exciting ways to tell the stories of ASU.”
In the weeks leading up to the Spring 2010 semester, the ASU community can expect to be updated on the new format through a series of direct e-mail messages. To continue reading stories about ASU after the Dec. 18 edition of Insight, visit the ASU News site at asunews.asu.edu.