The Department of Communications and Agricultural Education has six groups with various duties. All of the departmental groups also offer training.
Academic Program
Teaching: We teach courses for majors and service courses in agricultural communications and journalism and agricultural education. The department is now offering a Master of Science in Agricultural Education and Communications.
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Research: We conduct qualitative and quantitative research. To date, most of the department’s research has focused on food safety, use of natural resources, and marketing. Additional research in teaching and learning principles and practices and curriculum development has been initiated.
Business Office, Bookstore and Mail Center
The business office administers and monitors departmental finances and human resource management. The Bookstore and Mail Center manages publication and promotional merchandise inventory, distributes educational and program materials, and provides full mailing and shipping services for business and personal needs. Bulk mail services are also provided.
News Media and Marketing Services
This group gathers, writes, and distributes or broadcasts research, extension, and agricultural information that reaches more than 750 media outlets. The K-State Radio Network broadcasts are distributed through its satellite uplink and online. Four Kansas stations carry video news stories each weekday on Ag AM in Kansas. We also distribute information via YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, and share photographs through Flickr, audio slide stories online, the KSRE image database, and the fee-based Zenfolio collection.
Publishing
We manage the publication of peer-reviewed documents of the Kansas Cooperative Extension Service and Kansas Agricultural Experiment Station. The services include professional editing, design, and publication/posting of fact sheets, research reports, and books in both print and electronic media. Staff members review, edit, and catalog technical manuscripts that are being submitted to journals, and create posters, magazines, and displays. We also provide information about disclaimer language; copyright requirements; basics of editing and proofreading; document preparation, management, and scheduling; types of printing available; and publishing cost estimates.
Technology
The Technology unit provides network services, technical support, technology training, multimedia and videoconferencing support, and Web and intranet design and assistance. We support a multimedia lab to assist faculty and develop interactive programs. We are helping to transition all websites to the university content management system and focusing on development for mobile devices.
University Printing
This group was created by combining the department’s duplicating center with the former K-State Printing Services operation. We provide everything from quick-copy services in single and multiple colors to large-scale digital printing of projects from brochures to books and similar materials, as well as related services such as cutting, folding, drilling, collating, stitching, perfect-binding, and shrink-wrapping.
