What are Your Students Publishing on the Web?

Suggestions for how school leaders can deal with on-line student work

Being on the cutting edge of technology is great, but it's no time to relax.

Many school districts, after finally snaking enough wiring through their walls to connect their computers to the Internet, are confronting a new challenge that puts them on the frontier of cyber law: student publications on the Internet.

The number of sites containing student publications is difficult to estimate because of the lack of a central repository and the failure of some Web sites to publicize changes in their Internet location. Accurately gauging how many schools publish student media on the Web is another challenge because listings typically lump together school-sponsored and independent sites.

A Yahoo search two months ago indicated 163 entries under "News and Media: Newspapers: K-12," but these ranged from the Garfield High School Student Messenger, which was described as a Seattle biweekly news magazine "providing both a catalyst and a forum for student expression," to overseas and underground school publications. Only by seeing a publication's Uniform Resource Locator, or URL, is it possible to determine if the student publication is linked to its school or district.

What is clear anecdotally from recent conversations with publication advisers and student editors is that interest in online publishing is escalating.

An Unexplored Issue

While much of the attention of school leaders and policymakers to date has focused on issues of student access to the Internet, publishing on the World Wide Web hasn't drawn much interest from the higher authorities. Educators now are starting to realize the legal, ethical and pedagogical issues involved when students post their work on line for the world to see.

School publications first went on line about four years ago, but these early explorers often simply converted the stories from their high school newspaper to HTML (hypertext markup language) and posted them on the school district's Web site. They looked and read just like their hard-copy counterparts. Many of these student journalists and their advisers were encouraged and applauded by their administrators for being innovative and ahead of the crowd.

A more recent second wave of publishing isn't meeting such enthusiasm. In fact, some of the same administrators at schools that were pioneers in on-line media now are questioning its value and raising concerns about possible dangers. Typically, the restrictions they have proposed involve the posting of student names and photographs.

The experience at District 214's Wheeling High School in Wheeling, Ill., is typical.

Even before the school or district had a Web site, a student approached news paper adviser Susan Hathaway Tantillo about producing an Internet version of the school's monthly newspaper. The result is Spokesman On-Line, which began three years ago.

Now with the district's Web site carrying The Spokesman and pages for student activities ranging from debate to student council, administrators have been worried about the use of names and photos and have begun discussing appropriate policies so the content is consistent for all information providers.

Under one recent proposal, full names of students would be allowed in reports about organized activities, such as athletic events or student competitions, because parents already know about their children's involvement in these. However, quotations from students on anything from current affairs to hit movies would require parent permission prior to their inclusion on the Web. In addition, no students would be identified in photo cutlines under this proposal.

"I would be devastated if a student at Wheeling was harmed by something on our site, but I do think we're being overly cautious," Tantillo says.

The staff and adviser of the Lakewood Times Online at Lakewood High School in suburban Cleveland are facing a similar predicament. Although first launched last spring from Kent State University, the student-produced Web publication is moving to a district site this year. A Web site committee, made up of teachers, has debated the use of names and photos, though the Times staff, which produces the publication as part of an on-line journalism class, is convinced this presents no problem.

"There's no difference between print and electronic media," Times editor Jana Zabkova says. "The Times newspaper is available at the public library and anyone can get it there. The Internet doesn't have any more dangers than print."

Unfair Restrictions

At other schools, students and their advisers who want to become publishers on the Web are finding restrictions they believe are unrealistic, unnecessary and maybe even illegal. Several publication advisers admitted defeat when they discussed this subject at last fall's national convention for secondary school media advisers and students.

In one session at the Journalism Education Association/National Scholastic Press Association conference, which drew about 4,000 student journalists and their faculty sponsors, an adviser described how she has put her students' Web publishing aspirations on hold for now, contending, "It just seems like too many hoops to jump through."

In some ways, the Internet poses the same problems all communications media have faced during their infancies--from the printing press on, according to computer law expert Jonathan Wallace, author of Sex, Laws and Cyberspace. History, he says, shows that new media often face strict laws and regulations at first, which over time become more relaxed as the public begins to understand the latest means of communication. In other instances, case law becomes a costly but definitive way to resolve the challenges.

People fear what they don't understand, and such technophobia is even more apparent with something as far-reaching as the Internet. Factor in the potential impact on young people, and it's not surprising that student publishing on the Web is creating confusion in many school communities and raising new controversies in the ongoing struggle over the rights of student journalists.

Thoughtful Considerations

So how is it possible for a school or district to walk the fine line between plunging in blindly to publish everything or jumping to the other extreme by severely, maybe even illegally, restricting content?

School leaders working in well-equipped buildings linked to the Internet would do well to discuss policies and responsible practices related to on-line publishing by students before major questions arise. Here are some considerations.

* Seek consistency in your treatment.

One approach to deal with student on-line publications is to draw analogies between a publication on the Web and what currently exists in printed form. If a school publishes a traditional student newspaper with names and photos, why should it eliminate this information on its Web site? If the school allows the student newspaper editors to make content decisions, why run the on-line publication past a screening committee?

Part of the U.S. Supreme Court's 1997 ruling on the Communication Decency Act indicated that content on the Internet is legally equivalent to the printed word and ought to be protected in a similar way. If the student newspaper serves as an open forum for exploring problems and issues in a responsible manner, students should be entitled to reach the wider audience that's available through the Internet.

* Consider the wider ramifications.

School leaders also need to carefully consider the implications of any decision that would limit the opportunities for a student staff to post its work on the Internet. What would this mean for other school-related publishers?

If student media are prohibited from using names or photos, would other Web sites tied to the school--say a PTA home page--have the same restrictions? If applied uniformly across the district, barring the publication of names presumably would prohibit other school-related Web sites from sharing good news about students, teachers or administrators.

* Link Web site policies to mission statements.

Connecting the on-line policies of a school district to the school's mission or curricular goals can be useful. If a journalism class is expected to practice the professionalism of the real world, student editors need to make decisions about using names and photos--the same judgments the local newspaper makes when it moves its content from the printed page to the Internet.

If a school's mission includes preparing students for their roles in a democratic society, where else but school can they learn how the Internet ties into their part as citizens? What better opportunity for authentic assessment than to see how many responses are generated from their on-line publication?

Requiring Web sites to have clear goals and educational purposes eliminates personal student home pages--those more likely to contain questionable material.

* Develop a comprehensive acceptable use policy.

A school district's acceptable use policy, which spells out student rights and responsibilities in the area of publishing, can prevent another problem. If administrators are worried about unprotected speech or hyperlinks to objectionable sites showing up on the school publication, an acceptable use policy can indicate the consequences for irresponsible actions. When the first student ignores the policy, quick punishment under the guidelines will prevent future violations.

* Don't overestimate your liability.

Finally, school leaders have no basis for concern that the publishing of names and faces is a legal risk. Of course, students will learn in their journalism training that no one publishes home addresses, Social Security numbers and personal information. Mark Goodman, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, says, "Absolutely no legal precedent exists to suggest a school would be held liable from anything resulting from publishing student photos or names."

Cutting-Edge Anxieties

Publishing on the World Wide Web offers many opportunities for students to expand their reporting, writing, editing, design and technological skills. It's even exciting career exploration.

Then, too, publishing on the Internet can be frightening because it's so far-reaching and works in ways most people don't fully understand. Nobody says being on the cutting edge is easy, but lots of educators think it's worthwhile to take time and learn its possibilities.

Candace Perkins Bowen, a former high school journalism and English teacher, is coordinator of the Scholastic Media Program at Kent State University, P.O. Box 5190, Kent, Ohio 44242-0001. E-mail: [e-mail]. She is immediate past president of the Journalism Education Association and a former Dow Jones Newspaper Fund High School Journalism Teacher of the Year.

Student Media Advisers Seek Broad Rights

The board of directors of the Journalism Education Association, whose nearly 2,000 members are journalism teachers and student media advisers, passed its first policy on Internet publishing at its November meeting.

What follows are excerpts from JEA's statement on Internet freedom of expression.

"The Journalism Education Association has always believed students involved in print media should enjoy freedom of expression. As an extension of that, JEA also believes student use of the Internet should be free from prior review, restraint and other hindrances preventing free expression.

"In particular, JEA:

* endorses the Student Press Law Center's revised Model Publication Guidelines that include statements on use of the Internet and urges journalism programs and school systems to adopt the Student Press Law Center model; ...

* strongly opposes the use of filters or blocking software that interfere with the legitimate gathering or authoring of information protected by the First Amendment and recent Supreme Court decisions. All current blocking and filtering software consistently has been shown to restrain more than unprotected speech, taking from educators valid educational decision-making and often giving it to unknown parties with unknown rationale.

* recommends communications teachers assist administrators, parents, students and others in their understanding the importance of free expression on the Internet; ... and

* urges communications teachers and advisers to be the leaders in the shaping of their systems' Internet policies and decision-making."