There's a new Web site in town for Hawaii college students looking to share news, opinions and multimedia across campuses and with a greater community audience.

Launched in October, myAdvertiserU is the newest addition to The Honolulu Advertiser's group of online community news Web sites. The site accepts news and blog writing from students attending the University of Hawaii-Mänoa, Hawaii Pacific University, Windward Community College and Kapiolani Community College.

"For the past three years, myAdvertiser.com has provided a free venue for community groups to post news stories and promote events online," said community news editor James Gonser. "Since the world of journalism is moving online, we created myAdvertiserU to give students experience writing and posting stories online to help them with their careers and to let our readers know what is happening on campus."

Thousands of readers visit myAdvertiser every month for community news not available anywhere else. Now student voices are part of that mix.

"When I first heard about the possibility of having another outlet for students to showcase their writing, I jumped on it," said UH-Mänoa communications professor Kevin Kawamoto, who teaches Fundamentals of Journalism with professor Gerald Kato. "The students still publish in Ka Leo (UH's student newspaper), but I don't think it's detracted from the quality of the news there — it's just provided them an additional outlet."

Student contributions are the bread and butter of myAdvertiserU, which uses reader-submitted stories similarly to www.myAdvertiser.com's eight regional community Web sites.

"One of the first things we did before the students started writing was to have them find out as much as they could about the University of Hawaii, because that's their community," said Kawamoto, who then sent the students out to find stories. "I was so amazed by the variety of topics, everything from buying Halloween costumes on a student budget to changing door locks on the dorms. It's so impressive to me to see how much is going on at the University of Hawaii that may not ever see the light of day if the students didn't go out and find these stories."

Student contributors see the site as a way to hone their journalism skills and get feedback from a wider audience.

"I think it's a great opportunity to publish my work and get local news and opinions," said HPU public relations senior Nicole Nicholson, who also contributes to the site as a student blogger. "It's good, not too much traffic on the site yet but it just started."

Because the site is not focused on one particular school or audience, stories can cover a broader range of topics than a traditional college paper can.

"It's a good way to learn about things going on at our university that Ka Leo doesn't always cover," said UH-Mänoa senior Stephanie Joe, an interdisciplinary studies major in creative media. "I also think it's a really good way for journalism students to get practice and see their stories published, and it gives people who don't attend UH-Mänoa information about what's happening there."

Publishing work online also gives students a way to participate in a changing news media environment, where social networking and a heightened online presence have become the norm for publications worldwide.

"I think it's very encouraging to see my work published on myAdvertiser, and it helps me easily share the article with my family and the people that helped me write the article through e-mail, Facebook or Twitter instead of having to cut out the article and slug-mail it to those I want to see it," Joe said.

In addition to accepting student news articles, myAdvertiserU features a blog for each school with contributions by several students. While the news articles are strictly journalism pieces, the blogs offer a place for student opinions, discussions, photos of campus events and videos.

"This association with The Honolulu Advertiser, a metropolitan daily newspaper, benefits students and is a way that we in the journalism program can fulfill our public service mission," Kawamoto said. "I think it's mutually beneficial. Students love working on stories and seeing them published online, and I think it provides a service to Advertiser readers as well because they can find out what's going on in the university community."