KU News Release

KU students from various disciplines collaborate on cell phone project

LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas has teamed up with telecommunications leaders Nokia and Cingular Wireless to create a multidisciplinary learning project.

The project was initiated by KU’s Department of Design. Students in that department, along with students in the William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications and the School of Business’ Entrepreneurship Programs, will study all aspects of Nokia’s N93 and N73 camera phones, including functionality, technology trends and sales and marketing.

“The significance here is the participation of two of the world’s largest brands supporting KU with real products and services for educational advancements,” said Gregory Thomas, chair of the design department. “Our students are in need of real-world challenges involving real-world industry. We are extremely grateful for the opportunity to bring several schools together on one project.”

Nokia donated the phones for the project. Cingular donated six months of service.

The journalism students will use the phones to create Web logs and video logs and to explore mobile journalism applications and citizen journalism.

“The last year has seen video applications on the Internet explode onto the media scene,” said Rick Musser, head of the journalism school’s news and information track. “Advanced journalism students in our multimedia newsroom will put these multi-use phones to the test under real-world conditions.”

Entrepreneurship students will study marketing from Nokia’s perspective, including how to reach the target audience — college students.

“This project provides the students with a true experiential learning opportunity in which the business students will apply their entrepreneurial knowledge acquired from their business classes to a real-world business challenge,” said Wally Meyer, director of Entrepreneurship Programs.

Design students examine the ergonomics and functionality of the N93 and N73, analyze the navigational components and create a blog and other media tools so all students working on the project can communicate with each other and with Nokia and Cingular.

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The University of Kansas is a major comprehensive research and teaching university. University Relations is the central public relations office for KU's Lawrence campus.