CHRC meets with educators to study new media skills needs

The Cultural Human Resources Council (CHRC) new media steering committee is conducting a study on new media education in Canada. Focusing on content creators - people who use new media to create products or art - the study will explore how education affects workers in the field country-wide. Slated for completion this August, the study will explore a broad range of issues, including how new media schooling and training varies from province to province, and what the needs are of new graduates entering the field. Seven guest educators joined in discussion with the committee, which includes members of provincial new media associations, teachers, artists and other content creators, at its latest meeting on April 29. Committee chair Ronald Lamoureux tells Canadian NEW MEDIA that it plans on holding a larger meeting with more new media educators a year from now. The study will also help give the steering committee direction, according to Lamoureux. He says the results will help the still-young committee discover which issues are most important in the industry and how it can best serve those needs. With another CHRC report, the committee is also hoping to better understand and help new media freelancers. Also set to be finished by August, this study began last year (CNM, October 10/03). It will look at who freelances in Canada, what types of work they are doing, and what issues are specific to that industry. Helping freelancers with their projects is also a means to foster Canadian content, adds Lamoureux. Providing new media creators and artists with the support they need is necessary because, "we need to look at Canadian content as a really important factor." Originally formed over the past two years to give workers in the industry a more unified national voice, the committee’s mandate is to assist new media content creators, a group which includes many professions from animators to artists to game makers. Late last year executive director Susan Annis explained the role of the committee to CNM, "The CHRC steering committee is more broadly-based... Our hope is that we’ll have a voice in new media that will come out at the end of this - a single voice for new media." Describing committee members as a "very passionate and very positive" group, Lamoureux also says that while producers had organizations, people generating content did not. The steering committee aims to fill that industry void by creating a support network for new media content creator. While the group seeks to help both new and well-established workers, the field itself is also young. This is where Lamoureux says the committee can make a real difference. "We’ve discovered that this is a complex and layered industry that touches so many aspects of technology," he says. "It’s an emerging industry that doesn’t have the maturity of the video or sound recording industries. Because it’s still young and growing we have the chance to do something very positive."

CHRC meets with educators to study new media skills needs

News | 05/28/2004 4:00 am EDT

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