YEAR 3 // SEMESTER 1 & 2

Industrial Placement [COM300J4]

During her third year at university, Akaihane spent a 15-month placement at Century Newpapers in Belfast.

There she was a web author in the New Media department. This job entailed maintaining the News Letter, Derry Journal and Farming Life sites by:

• Updating the content on the websites, using a CMS (Content Management System), with articles from the newspapers (these articles were extracted using Gemini Studio),
• Creating images for certain articles,
• Handling the advertising for the site (using PHPAdsNews), including making animated banners for clientele, and
• Making any required changes to the code.

She was also involved in the redesign of all three sites (they have been once again redesigned in the interium).

A reasonable amount of skills were required before taking up this position; a good grasp of XHTML and advanced CSS (along with a knowledge of the Macromedia Suite), JavaScript, database development and Photoshop were a necessity. As the placement was with a newspaper company, a good standard of English was also essential.