This 12-week workshop will introduce students to the technologies and concepts that are transforming our profession. Students will leave the course with the ability to produce online journalism utilizing a range of tools.
Meeting times:
JMSC 0007: Tuesdays, 2.00-5.00 pm
Course Objectives:
Students who complete this course will:
- Learn how the Internet is changing journalism so that you can be prepared for the future.
- Gain basic skills to produce works of journalism online.
- Learn how to be comfortable on the Web and how to teach yourself new skills beyond this class.
- Learn how use the Internet wisely and well as a journalist, no matter whether your final stories are online, in print, on the radio or on TV.
Click on the links on the right-hand side of this page to see the full syllabus, reading list, and assignment details.
Instructors:
Diane Stormont, Adjunct Lecturer in Digital Media, JMSC
Kevin Lau, Web Specialist and Teaching Assistant, JMSC
Grades:
Your grade will depend on the number of assignments completed on deadline according to instruction, the amount of effort put into assignments and group projects, attendance, and course participation. You will not be graded according to your absolute techincal ability. Click here for more information about grades.
It is possible for somebody coming into the class with very little technical experience to get an “A.”
It is also very possible for somebody with high technical ability to get a bad grade due to bad attendance, failure to complete multiple assignments, poor journalism skills etc. These things have happened before!
Attendance:
This class has only 12 sessions. Attendance and on-time arrival are mandatory. This is a lab class with many in-class assignments that cannot be made up outside of class, so if you miss a class you get a “zero” for that day’s in-class assignments.
Deadlines:
In the news business, if you can’t show up on time and make your deadlines, you won’t keep your job. Assignments must be completed on time in the format specified by the instructor. Late assignments may not be graded, at instructor’s discretion.
If legitimate personal emergency or illness prevents you from or completing an assignment on time, you may be asked to show documentary proof of your reason.
Honesty:
On the Internet, plagiarism is especially easy. DO NOT give in to the temptation to copy-and-paste other people’s work!
Your work must be your own. If you plagiarize as a professional journalist and get found out, you will damage if not destroy your own reputation and do great harm to the reputation of any news organization you work for.
In this class, as in all JMSC classes, plagiarism will result in a failing grade. If you are not clear about what plagiarism is, please re-read the University Plagiarism Guidelines. Also see the excellent anti-plagiarism website, Against Dishonesty.
