Journalistic MOOCs you can take during the summer
There’s usually not much happening during the summer, so why not to use this time of year wisely? With so many things changing so quickly in the fields of journalism, media and communications, lifelong learning is a must for those who want to keep the pace with competition and understand the world around them. No one wants to be left behind, right? With a massive spread of MOOCs (massive online open courses) for which you just need a laptop and internet connection, you can basically spend your time learning about any interesting field from the best universities or institutes in the world and deepen or gain new knowledge. You can take the courses for free or earn a verified certificate for a relatively small fee. In this blogpost, we will share you with you a couple of courses you might be interested in taking this summer.
How to attract readers and increase information retention
Visual communication is key in the current world where so much information is competing against each other. Remember, you only have 24 hours a day and so do your readers, thus we all have to decide which content to spend our time on. On average, we only remember 20% of what we read, however, if the information is visualised, suddenly the information retention reaches up to 80%. According to this Huffington Post article, “publishers and journalists that use infographics see traffic that's 12% higher than those that don't.”
There are two courses available during the summer which will help you to better understand how to visualise information.
Data visualisation (The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Dates: 20.7. - 16.8.2015
This course teaches you over the span of four weeks the basics of graphics programming and human perception. It reviews the basic visualisation elements, both static (such as charts, graphs animation) and interactive. It will also explain to you a more sophisticated method of visualisation, such as hierarchies and networks. At the end of the course, you’ll go through methods of data mining and visualising the unstructured information.
More info about the course and enrolment: https://www.coursera.org/course/datavisualization
Data Visualisation and Infographics with D3.js (Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas
Dates: 17.8. - 27.9.2015
Similar to the ‘Data visualisation’ course, this one focuses on how to apply principles of infographics and data visualisation in real world use cases. You will learn how to display information using charts, maps, diagrams, and visual narratives, and how to bring them to life using d3.js, a Javascript library, which is quickly becoming a standard in visualisation for communication.
More info about the course and enrolment: http://journalismcourses.org/D30815.html
With good set of tools and skills, anyone can be a publisher
In the last few years we have witnessed a change in the communication structure from ‘one to many’ to ‘many to many’. Even people who do not have a journalism background and/or access to mass communication platforms can use currently available technologies for publishing purposes. They can reach out to audiences interested in the problems or events very often omitted by mainstream media or focus on reporting on (hyper)local news. While this news may have a very narrow audience, the impact of the reporting can make a huge difference for community life.
Here are two courses we found that will helpful to this particular group of publishers.
Journalism skills for engaged citizens (The University of Melbourne)
Dates: 17.8. - 12.10.2015
This course takes eight weeks and covers topics such as attribution, verification and the structure of news writing, how to work with leaks and sources and will also help you to improve your interviewing skills. You’ll also learn how to use your legal rights to access public information and how to not break the law while publishing. You’ll be also introduced to the ethical questions accompanying journalism practice.
More info about the course and enrolment: https://www.coursera.org/course/citizenjournalism
Community Journalism: Digital and Social Media (Centre for Community Journalism by Cardiff University)
Dates: TBA
This course doesn’t have a date announced yet, but you can already register your interest in taking it. Once open, this course will teach you how to set up a community website, build and grow your audience and how to make your project sustainable. In addition to that, you will learn the basics of media law and ethics you should follow when running your community website.
This course has already been offered once and many former students went on to start or improve their own hyperlocal sites. Have a look at Cwmbran Life and EastGrinsteadOnline as examples.
More info about the course and enrolment: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/community-journalism
Haven’t found what you’re looking for? Don’t give up, there are plenty of other courses with dates not announced yet. We’ll keep an eye on them for you, follow our Facebook and/or Twitter for further announcements.