Fifteen journalism hopefuls are to get a unique chance to see their work regularly published by the Evening Gazette in Teesside as part of a link up with a new course being launched by the University of Teesside.

The first students on the university's BA (Hons) Multimedia Journalism Professional Practice course will begin their studies next month, and soon after will begin contributing to the Gazette's website www.gazettelive.co.uk.

They will each be given direct publishing access, and if their work makes the grade it could also appear in the Gazette or any of the group's other titles.

Gazette editor Darren Thwaites said the link-up would bring a real vocational element to the course, with students given their own patch to cover.

He said: "Each student will have direct publishing access to the website as bloggers and will be allocated a postal area to look after.

"What they write can be put forward for their portfolio of work for the course.

"There will be a mix of them finding their own stories and, on occasion, being given a real live brief."

Darren added that the work could also be reverse published into the Gazette, although this would depend on the value of an article and the news agenda.

The articles could also appear in the newly-launched hyper-local newspapers, which include content from the Gazette Communities section on www.gazettelive.co.uk

Holdthefrontpage has previously reported how the new course is being launched by the University of Teesside with the help of the Evening Gazette and parent company Trinity Mirror.

It will be taught in a purpose-built digital newsroom at the university, with direct links to the Gazette's own editorial system.

The programme leader is Andy Price, a former new media manager at Trinity Mirror, and the course recently won accreditation from the National Council for the Training of Journalists.

Students will take the NCTJ preliminary exams in year one and will also study audio and video footage gathering and editing, web publishing and 2D animation, to produce collaborative multimedia news packages.