Einar Thorsen

Associate Professor of Journalism and Communication at Bournemouth University

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International survey on use of websites in journalism education

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We are currently conducting an international survey into the use of news and magazine websites in journalism education.

We would be most grateful if you could assist by completing our survey:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/websites-in-journalism-education

We are interested in the views of both staff and students, so please circulate as widely as possible.

The survey is completed anonymously. For staff it takes no more than 10-15 minutes to complete, with the student section possible to complete in 5 minutes. All staff and students on undergraduate and postgraduate journalism courses are encouraged to partake and we welcome your participation.

The research is funded by the Association for Journalism Education, and is intended to map and share the experiences and best practice of all immediate stakeholders in use of news websites.

Survey results will form part of a larger study entitled “Strategies for use of news websites in journalism education”. Findings from this research project will be made available online and as contributions to relevant scholarly journals.

If you would like further information on the project, you can view the original project brief.

Strategies for use of news websites in journalism education

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Funding Source: Association for Journalism Education
Chief Investigators: Dr Einar Thorsen and Sue Wallace, Bournemouth University
Research Assistant: Dr Caitlin Patrick, Bournemouth University

Project Brief

Journalism is among the most rapidly changing industries, affected by both technological advances and shifting consumer habits. This makes it paramount for journalism education to keep pace with trends such as changing journalism practices and the migration of audiences to online journalism. One possible outcome of this imperative is for online news or magazine websites to be developed to a) showcase student reporting, b) serve as an educational tool in professional journalism practices, and c) facilitate research into news and journalism innovation. Journalism courses are increasingly making use of their own websites in one or more of these ways, but development, as in the news industry itself, has tended to be haphazard and quite often on a trial and error basis.

This proposal seeks to address this problematic by conducting a survey of news and magazine websites used in AJE member’s courses, their history, evolution and integration into education practice. The aim is not to produce a standard model to be applied in every case. Rather, the intention is to collect and share experiences to inform education and curriculum development. The sharing of best practice can also help to maintain high standards in journalism education.

Research questions

Questions that will be addressed by this project include:

  • What are the different teaching and learning strategies for use of news or magazine websites in journalism education?
    • How are websites integrated with the journalism curriculum?
    • To what extent are websites used for submission of assessed work and feedback to students?
    • Do institutions manage a single website for all cohorts and degree programmes, or multiple websites?
    • How is editorial control exercised and how is this resourced?
  • Which content management systems and extensions are being used?
    • How do these compare to industry standard software and workflows?
    • How is multimedia / converged newsgathering and storytelling approached?
    • How is social media and community interaction approached?
  • How do student websites meet requirements from accreditation bodies and industry expectations? 

Methodological approach

Phase One of the project will involve two online surveys. The first questionnaire will be sent to all AJE members to map how many have course websites, in what form and for which uses, and also to elucidate views on the biggest challenges and successes encountered. The second survey will be targeted at students in AJE member associations, to ascertain their experience of using course websites as part of their journalism education. Both surveys will gather quantitative and qualitative data.

Phase Two of the project will involve up to five site visits to observe how websites are used in live news days simulating real-life news operations. During these visits we propose to conduct follow-up interviews in conjunction with examination of websites, to scrutinise in finer detail the patterns of application and usage.

This project will investigate both technological and editorial issues. The intended outcome is a report to be made available to AJE members and / or contribution to the AJE journal, outlining experiences and advice. It may be possible to draw together the threads of those experiences into different models of application. The findings may also be of use to accreditation bodies and industry panels.

Student Wiki Pages: reflecting on new e-learning strategy for collaborative student notes

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Below are parts of a formal report I have written about my experience of using wiki tools as part of a wider e-learning strategy. You can read about the background to the experiment in part 1 and part 2 of this series.

Summative assessment component (30%) for Communication Skills, Level C unit on BA (Hons) Communication and Media, BA (Hons) English.

Pedagogic aim was to assess students’ ability to working effectively in a computer-mediated environment by applying interpersonal communication skills taught in the unit, in addition to fostering a professional engagement with the unit’s theoretical foundation.

Each of the seven seminar groups had a dedicated wiki section on myBU, which students used for collaboratively producing notes from the weekly lectures and set readings. Comments were used to discuss the lecture and readings with fellow students, as well as strategies for formulating the joint text.

Students were required to contribute to 8 out of 10 lecture weeks. Each student’s contribution was evaluated quantitatively (proportion of text written, number of edits, number of weeks participating) and qualitatively (accuracy, detail and self-reflexivity of final entries).

Evidence of impact
The Student Wiki Pages was an integral part in inspiring students’ commitment to learning on this unit, evidenced by:

1. Ensuring good attendance at lectures and professional attitude to learning

  • The requirement for each student to contribute to a set number of weeks, meant attendance at lectures was essential.
  • Attendance was regularly above 80%, despite being held at Lansdowne campus due to building works at Talbot campus.

2. Inspired student understanding of scholarly literature and engagement in lectures

  • Students developed a competitive spirit about who could be the first to contribute and who would write the most each week. They came prepared and were confident in their contribution to discussion during lectures.
  • Typically around 15% of students even contributed directly to their wiki during the lectures, using laptops or iPads to write and mobile phones to take pictures / record audio.

3. Facilitated electronic peer support and discussion groups

  • Students used the wiki to support each other’s learning by using the collaborative text for revision, asking questions, and discussing lectures and readings.

4. Improved engagement with scholarly literature in both summative assessment components

  • Weekly wiki entries were frequently around 10,000 words, often with 10-15 comments discussing relevant topics – both far exceeding expectation.
  • The quality of the second assignment, an extended essays, was noticeably improved compared to 2009/10. In particular students had a much more solid grasp of conceptual vocabulary and in-depth engagement with a wider range of scholarly literature.

5. Increased grade average for students taking unit

  • The overall grade distribution was significantly improved, including 13 firsts compared to none in 2009/10.

Feedback from a student retaking unit, with experience of wiki pages as both formative and summative assessment:

I also want to say how good an idea it has been to mark the wiki pages. Last year they were up and I paid no real heed to them, as they didn’t affect my grade. However this year they’ve made sure everyone turns up to lectures (which I and others didn’t last year) and will also be an integral part of the bigger assignment. This has also increased my understanding of the unit as I’ve had to do the further reading, which I clearly didn’t last year.

Transferable learning
The Student Wiki Pages assessment encouraged students to develop active learning techniques and scholarship at the start of their degree programmes, providing a solid underpinning for their future studies. Collaboratively producing notes meant students had to be proactive and critically evaluate their own notes from the lecture and the set readings on a weekly basis. This contrasts with a passive form of study, where students superficially read only a selection of the required material, often towards the end of the unit.

Whilst part of this assessment was subject specific, i.e. facilitating students’ experimentation with computer-mediated communication in the context of the theoretical foundation of the Communication Skills unit, this was not integral to the pedagogical benefits of using wiki tools as outlined above. The Student Wiki Pages could form part of any e-learning strategy that complements a series of lectures, seminars or workshops to enhance the overall student experience.

Part 4: I will follow up this post with some more in-depth reflections soon, specifically about how to manage the complexity of this type of assignment (relating to both setting student expectations, reassuring them about ongoing performance, and managing marking).

Update 5th May 2011: Yesterday I received the Vice Chancellor’s Educational Innovation of the Year Award at Bournemouth University for this project. More on the award in Part 4 of this series. Thanks to all the students who took part in the experiment!

Student wiki notes – additional guidelines

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The Student Wiki Pages experiment I described previously is going very well so far, with students collaboratively producing notes of (mostly) very high quality and using the comment facility to discuss issues that come up in the lecture and their readings.

However, I have had a few emails over the past days from students concerned about various aspects of the assessment. These do not apply to all the seminar groups, but in order to ensure consistency, I provided some additional guidelines for all students as outlined below.

  • The wiki pages will never be complete, so the argument that people before you have written “everything” does not stand. You can contribute 1) notes from the lecture, 2) notes from the readings, 3) notes or observations on the videos from the lecture, 4) additional examples illustrating points from lecture or readings, 5) post comments discussing or reflecting upon the wiki page contents.
  • However, the wiki pages are NOT designed to be a competition! They are intended to be a collaborative process. To this end, you may want to contribute your notes in batches, so as to allow other people to add their own notes (but this is entirely up to you and there are no formal restrictions concerning this). It is your collective responsibility to ensure that everyone feels able to do so and that you all engage in dialogue with fellow students. If concerns remain about how to best do this, please discuss in your seminar group and agree on how to best tackle it.
  • You are marked on the quality of your content as well as the extent to which you are able to collectively work to produce the notes. That means a page written by a large number of contributors will likely score higher than one written by only one or two contributors, provided the content is of a similar standard. Hint: this is a unit on communication skills, use them!
  • If you are editing the wiki simultaneously, the tool may generate a new page with your modification or text. There is no way around this at the moment, other than to manually move your content across to the main page for that week (I’m trying to find a fix). Please make sure you do so if you are having conflict issues like this, though I will look at all pages submitted for each week when marking. To this end, could you all please ensure the pages have a common naming structure (e.g. Week 11, Week 12 A, Week 12 B, Week 13… or whatever you have decided upon)?
  • I can assist with technical issues of not having the correct permissions, but if you are having technical difficulties beyond this, please contact IT helpdesk who should be able to help.

    • So far it appears this resolved most people’s concerns (judging by comments posted on wiki pages), though I’ll know for certain come Monday’s lecture…