Winchester students cover election in link up with US college

Students at Winchester News Online are livestreaming an election reaction programme this morning, America Decides, after covering the election results live last night in a partnership with the university's sister college in Eastern Illinois.

Today's show, which is being livestreamed using UStream, will run until 11am on Winchester News Online. The presenter-led programme also features interviews with guests in the studio, including politics students and local councillors, and Skype conversations with presenters from Eastern Illinois University.

Social media editor Hannah Hayesmore told Journalism.co.uk that the teams in the UK and US are communicating via Twitter "as well as emails and phone calls", with the US college able to "relay all the information they're finding out" to the Winchester students.

Journalism.co.uk previously reported on how the team at Winchester News Online used Skype and Livestream to cover the 2010 election.

"It is very similar to what we did with the 2010 elections, instead of just having people within London and Winchester we're going international by getting people in Eastern Illinois to help us out as well," Hayesmore said.

During the US election results last night the team in Winchester were also liveblogging using Ocqur, a real-time reporting platform which was set up earlier this year by - at the time - a group of three students from other universities.

Ocqur also announced yesterday that its platform was being used by the Tow Centre for Digital Journalism and Columbia Journalism Review "to create a meta newsroom of live coverage - a liveblog that highlights the best of live coverage from around the web and showcases innovative digital journalism".

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