Editors' Guide: Course Outline
JOUR 4857/5857 Online Workshop #2
(Jan. 4, 2010 to Feb. 18, 2010)
This is the course outline for the Online Workshop, a senior course in the School of Journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Course instructors:
Tim Currie
Work: <tim.currie[at]gmail.com> 422-6011, ext. 187 or <tim.currie[at]ukings.ns.ca>Kelly Toughill
Work: <ktoughill[at]gmail.com>
Overview:
The Online Workshop prepares students to work in an online newsroom. It gives them a toolbox of skills to create web content -- the ability to research, gather and produce online news, and, most important, an ability to present content in multimedia formats.
The workshop will produce a daily news site called UNews. It is a mixture of original news and feature stories. It also includes a daily news summary and a section called In Context that supplies online resources for stories in the news.
Reporters will pitch, research and produce stories that appeal to an online audience. They are expected to come prepared with original story ideas at a daily story meeting, and to read and comment on e-mail critiques of the site's content.
Editing is a key skill for online journalists. Students in the workshop will gain experience in editing for the web and will sharpen their skills with regular practice. They will apply Canadian Press style to produce clear and engaging content augmented with snappy headlines and captions.
Students will also work in teams to collaborate on reporting and produce multimedia content for a majority of stories posted.
Reporters will write and post their completed stories during the course of the day. Some will work in the morning; others will work in the afternoon. The goal is to produce a dynamic website that presents original content each hour.
Preparatory classes will be held in the first week of the workshop. This is an important segment. It includes sessions on photography, using a content management system and authoring multimedia content.
Texts:
Canadian Press Style Guide, CP Caps and Spelling
Grading:
An assignment not handed in gets a failing grade. If an assignment is more than one weekday late, it will lose one letter grade per day.
Marks will be assigned on these tasks:
- Stories (60 %): Eight individual stories or 12 collaborative story elements, or a combination. Grading is based on strength and difficulty of the story idea; depth of reporting; quality of writing, photography and multimedia; supporting documentation (links); presentation in online style; adherence to CP Style
- Editing (30 %): News digest, In Context assignments, copyediting. Grading is based on clarity and brevity of the summaries; evaluation of sources; speed; spelling and grammar; adherence to CP Style
- Participation (10 %): Punctuality for editing assignments; attendance at story meetings; helping fellow classmates
Intellectual Honesty
Plagiarism is a form of academic fraud. Plagiarism is the presentation of the work of another author in such a way as to give one's reader reason to think it to be one's own.
Self-plagiarism is the submission of work that is the same or substantially the same as work for which he or she has already received academic or professional credit.
Plagiarism is considered a serious academic offence, which may lead to loss of credit, suspension or expulsion from the University, or even the revocation of a degree. For more see "Intellectual Honesty", King's calendar, p. 33.
Students with Disabilities
Students with disabilities are encouraged to register as quickly as possible at the Student Accessibility Services if they want to receive academic accommodations. To do so please phone 494-2836, e-mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address), drop in at the Killam, G28 or visit www.studentaccessibility.dal.ca.
Workshop Schedule