My MOOC experience and what it means

Versión en español aquí.

If you want to study journalism, you have more choices today, at lower cost, and of higher quality than ever. Sometimes you will get that at a university and sometimes not. That represents a challenge for universities.

In a lecture at a journalism conference in Puebla, Mexico, I described a personal experience taking a course in data visualization from one of the world leaders in the field, Alberto Cairo, author of  "The Functional Art."

The six-week course had readings and video tutorials of the highest quality. The homework assignments required at least 10 to 15 hours of work a week.  

Engaged professor

Cairo was intimately involved with the course participants, offering criticism of their work and suggestions for improvement. What was remarkable about this course was that there were 2,000 students enrolled from more than 100 countries, it took place completely online and it was free. 

Online courses play bigger role in entrepreneurial journalism

Fourth in a series on entrepreneurial journalism programs at universities and media organizations. 

The Poynter Institute's online training center, NewsU, is building out its offerings in entrepreneurial journalism with the goal of creating a certificate program. It is one of the few organizations doing this kind of training mainly online. 

Howard Finberg
Poynter Institute, NewsU

NewsU already has eight courses, webinars and training videos that fit under the entrepreneurial umbrella and plans on developing more. These training modules are focused on helping journalists and news organizations stay competitive as digital media change the nature of their work, says NewsU's founder, Howard Finberg. 

“We're training people along two tracks. We're reshaping the traditional mass media business model to be more entrepreneurial and independent of major corporations. We're also training journalists to be more self-sufficient. We're giving them the skills to work across disciplines in ways they didn't have to when we were in school. We're changing the organizational and economic approach to training the people who do journalism.”