Assignment Zero

Assignment Zero (AZ) is an experiment in crowd-sourced journalism, allowing collaboration between amateur and professional journalists to collectively produce a piece of work that describes correlations between crowd-sourced techniques and a popular movement.

Assignment Zero Front Page

Staff

The following is a partial list of the individuals responsible for the execution of AZ:

• David Cohn - David Cohn is the associate editor for Assignment Zero. He is currently working toward a master's degree in Journalism at Columbia Univerity, and holds a degree in Philosophy from University of California at Berkeley. David has also contributed articles to Seed Magazine.

• Steve Fox - Steve Fox is the regional coordinator for the Online News Association(ONA) in the Midatlantic Region, based in Washington, D.C. Up until late 2006, Steve was also the Politics Editor at Washingtonpost.com. He is also an adjunct instructor at the University of Maryland's School of Journalism.

• Amanda Michael - Amanda Michael was the Communications Director for the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School from March 2004 to November 2006.

• Jay Rosen - Jay Rosen is the Executive Editor of Assignment Zero. Rosen has been a member of the Journalism faculty at New York University(NYU) since 1986. He has taught courses in media criticism, cultural journalism, press ethics, and other subjects related to journalism.

• Lauren Sandler - Lauren Sandler was also a former producer and reporter at National Public Radio. In 2000, Lauren graduated from New York University's Cultural Reporting and Criticism program to launch a freelance career in journalism.

Theory

The goal of Assignment Zero is to create a publishable, edited story that is an amalgamation of input from various "real" sources. In Jeff Howe's "Guide to Crowdsourcing" on the AZ Site, the method of contribution is broken down into three categories:

• Tapping the Collective Brain
• The Crowd Creates
• The Crowd Filters

Collectively, these three attempt to illustrate a concept that many people("Crowds"), by virtue of their size and diversity, have the capability to contribute, create, and peer-review much of the content that is submitted to the project.

Wikipedia and Citizendium, both offering the capability for many people to contribute content for the masses, follow this basic model. The idea behind AZ is to implement these concepts with an amount of journalistic oversight, coupled with a recommended model of ethics.

Process

User Registration

To be able to contribute to AZ, a user must first create a user account, providing a user name, a valid e-mail address, and your real full name in order to be able to take credit for any work that may or may not be sourced as a part of the final product. Thus, it is encouraged that each user populate their "Bio" by clicking on their "Column" and selecting the Edit tab. In this section a user may upload a photograph, update any contact or affiliation information they wish to make known to the public, and write a self-described biography. This is not a mandatory step and is not required by the site. The following notation is in the "Create New Account" section:

To take credit for your work, please provide your real name as your user name and your full name below.

This suggests that users who are not forthcoming with their real information will not receive any credit for work contributed. Indeed, some of the profiles that are listed in the User List are not complete and are missing information.

Contribution

The following sections exist for users to submit content:

• The Exchange - This is a forum where users can propose ideas, questions, or discuss topics.
• The Scoop - This is the section that is more or less represented in blog style, that presents recaps of existing topics and updates to the site. Posts are made by Assignment Zero staff and may be commented on.

Uses can find topics that they wish to contribute to by clicking on "Find Assignments by Interest"

Contributors Vs Users

The AZ site maintains two lists of users: one that displays the profiles of all AZ Site Members and a masthead that shows a listing of actual AZ staff and a list of clickable profiles for Contributors. This suggests that there exists a criteria that seperates users which are (possibly) real contributors to the site, and those that simply create an account; however this criteria is as of yet undetermined.

Support

AZ is a collaborative experiment between Wired Magazine, NewAssignment.net and other participants.

External Links

• Assignment Zero Website
• NewAssignment Website
• Wired Magazine