D News, Dawson’s biweekly web-based newsletter, turns 1 this month. The first issue was posted Nov. 12, 2019.

The initiative was promoted by Director General Richard Filion, who wished to give the Dawson community a means of being informed.

Growing value of D News

“The analytics, feedback and participation suggest that D News has become a valuable tool to keep our community informed,” said Director General Richard Filion. “Now that many of us are off campus, the value of D News keeps growing. I am proud of what our Communications Office has been able to accomplish and I am grateful for the ongoing collaboration of the Dawson community, all departments and special projects.”

In the Fall of 2019, a Dawson College Communications Advisory Board was formed and the group wholeheartedly endorsed the idea of a regular newsletter for the Dawson community with the goal of sharing news and information for the community by the community. The Directors Group also embraced the idea.

“Our approach is that colleagues should know the Dawson news first,” said Christina Parsons of the Communications Office. “As much as possible, we plan content for our colleagues and then other outreach flows from that.”

36 issues and over 570 pieces of news

In one year, there have been 36 issues, including the most recent edition of Nov. 19. Over 570 news and information items were packed into those issues!

About 800 unique visitors go to the latest D News issue within a day or two of it being posted and up to 1,300 visitors drop by in the period between issues. The average time spent on the page is about two and a half minutes. D News is distributed by email to employees and retirees, members of the Board of Governors and members of the Dawson College Foundation Board of Directors.

Most read

The most read issues were Sept. 8, 2020 and Sept. 22, 2020, not including the big spike on March 17, 2020 when we were in the first days of the College shutdown because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The most popular news stories were: CEGEP programs ranking and Search begins for new Director General.

Get more out of D News

You can get more out of D News by searching by tag to find content by subject. Every news item has at least one tag above the title. If you click on a tag, you can find a list of all the Dawson news related to that topic. D News lives on the website and is a record of our life at Dawson that you can refer to again and search by date or topic.

Putting together D News

D News is a community effort. If you have news, submit it here or email commsoffice@dawsoncollege.qc.ca The deadline for D News submissions is every Friday before D News at 12 p.m.

Every week before D News comes out, the line-up is shared with the D News team, which consists of over 40 people from virtually every sector of the College.

Further D News development

In the new year, we plan to upgrade the landing page for D News issues by showcasing the current issue and highlighting search functions.

Next issues

The last issues of 2020 will be Dec. 1 and Dec. 15 and the first issue for 2021 is tentatively planned for Jan. 26.  

Thank you’s

The success of D News is thanks to the dedication, participation and contribution of several teams and many people, especially the Communications Office, the Web Group and IST, the Faculty Hub, the D News team, the Communications Advisory Board and everyone who has contributed ideas and content. Thank you!