Course Details

Hacks/Hackers, Mozilla, the Medill School of Journalism, The Media Consortium, and others are teaming up to develop a solid six-week online curriculum that will benefit both "hacks" and hackers. Each week the course will focus on a different topic, and each week the participants will be joined by a different subject-matter expert from the field of news innovation. The weekly course readings, online participation, and a seminar are expected to require roughly 4-6 hours.

Based on feedback from the Hacks/Hackers community, the initial list of topics that have been shortlisted are:

1. A course that explores the fundamentals of journalism and coding would help hacks and hackers understand each others' principles, processes, lexicons, etc. For example, the Hacks/Hackers glossary,Zen of Python and Pragmatic Programmer Quick Reference are good possible resources to include for journalists.
2. Project management: How do you take an idea from the conceptual to launch? Although there are variations, developers usually have very particular processes they go through to meet deadlines & project goals. Have them share the different project stages and the whys behind the process.
3. "Data journalism and government." Exploring open sources: how to find them, how to work with them, etc. Timely topic given the recent release of data by Wikileaks.
4. "Edit it. Fork it. The art of collaboration and journalism." What does collaboration mean in the context of digital journalism? What are the tools that can support collaboration online, i.e., programming collaboratively, collaborative video editing, collaborative funding, etc.
5. Big Ugly Datasets For Thumb-Fingered Journalists
6. "Maps. Maps. Everywhere." From Google Maps to Grassroots Mapping and back again. What are the different ways that maps are being used to provide context and information, etc.

Facilitators and subject matter experts

We're in the process of securing commitments from volunteer facilitators & subject-matter experts. If you're interested, please join the course planning Google Group here. Here's the preliminary list of confirmed speakers:

• Mark Surman, Executive Director, Mozilla Foundation
• Tom Grasty & Nonny de la Pena, Stroome
• Amanda B Hickman, Program Director, DocumentCloud
• David Cohn, Spot.US
• Nick Grossman, Director of Civic Works, OpenPlans 
• Rob Purdie, Scrum Practice Leader for The Economist
• Nick Judd, Assistant Editor, Personal Democracy Forum
• Daniel Teweles, VP of Business Development and Marketing, Personal Democracy Forum
• Rich Gordon, Professor, Director of Digital Innovation, Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University 
• Burt Herman, Founder at Hacks/Hackers, CEO and co-founder at Storify
• Rick Martin (1rick), Freelance writer & sometimes "hacker"
• AmyJo Brown, Online news business & information architect, Stephens Media, central Arkansas
• Joaquin Alvarado, Senior Vice President, Digital Innovation at American Public Media
• Erik Hersman, Ushahidi
• Chris Amico, Interactive Editor for the PBS NewsHour /  journalist and web developer based in Washington, DC
• Your name could be here!  :)

Prerequisites

If you're interested in discussing this, please join the course planning Google Group here.

Motivation

Phillip will fill this in.

Audience

Phillip will fill this in.

Learning Style

Collaborative and collective knowledge sharing. If you're interested in discussing this, please join the course planning Google Group here.

Big questions:

• How many experts per week? 1 or 2? Is 2 too many? (Bekka asks where are your participants coming from, e.g., South Africa has bandwidth issues. Also, what people's lives are like.)
• Keep a rigid schedule, e.g.: 12 PM Eastern -- there is a video session; Assignments are due by 5PM Pacific on Friday.
• Assignments: long-running assignments are good; something that a participants can work on for the whole week. 
• Other examples: piece of writing, piece of research, etc. (and commenting on each other's work) 
• Outcome: Having a project for the end of the six week course is key to keeping participants involved.

Status

New

Course Outline

Week 0, September 15-17: Introduction & orientation 

September 15, 2010 -- 1PM Eastern: Live video: Mark Surman

September 17, 2010 -- 1PM Eastern: Live video: Rich Gordon & Burt Herman

Week 1, September 20 - 24, 2010: The fundamentals of journalism and coding, with Chris Amico, Interactive Editor for the PBS NewsHour

Readings: TBD

Assigments/Project Goals (Due dates & group assessment dates): TBD

Meeting times: 

• Live meeting (video & chat): Monday, September 20th, 1PM Eastern (attendance highly recommended)
• Mid-week check-in (group chat): Wednesday, September 22nd, 4PM Eastern
• Peer assessment (group chat, possible video): Friday September 24th, 1PM Eastern.

Week 2, September 27-October 1, 2010: Project management with Rob Purdie, Scrum Practice Leader for The Economist

Readings: TBD.

Assigments/Project Goals (Due dates & group assessment dates): TBD

Meeting times:  

• Live meeting (video & chat): Monday, September 27th, 1PM Eastern (attendance highly recommended)
• Mid-week check-in (group chat): Wednesday, September 29th, 4PM Eastern
• Peer assessment (group chat, possible video): Friday October 1st, 1PM Eastern. 

Week 3, October 4-8, 2010: Edit it. Fork it. The art of collaboration and journalism with David Cohn, Spot.US and Tom Grasty & Nonny de la Pena, Stroome  

Readings: TBD.

Assigments/Project Goals (Due dates & group assessment dates): TBD.

Meeting times: 

• Live meeting (video & chat): Monday, October 4th, 1PM Eastern (attendance highly recommended)
• Mid-week check-in (group chat): Wednesday, October 6th, 4PM Eastern
• Peer assessment (group chat, possible video): Friday October 8th, 1PM Eastern.

Week 4, October 11-15, 2010: Big Ugly Datasets For Thumb-Fingered Journalists with Nick Judd, Assistant Editor, Personal Democracy Forum

Readings: TBD.

Assigments/Project Goals (Due dates & group assessment dates): TBD

Meeting times: 

• Live meeting (video & chat): Monday, October 11th, 1PM Eastern (attendance highly recommended)
• Mid-week check-in (group chat): Wednesday, October 13th, 4PM Eastern
• Peer assessment (group chat, possible video): Friday October 15th, 1PM Eastern.

Week 5, October 18-22, 2010: Business Model for Journalism with Rich Gordon and Owen Youngman, Medill School of Journalism.

Readings: TBD

Assigments/Project Goals (Due dates & group assessment dates): TBD

Meeting times: 

• Live meeting (video & chat): Monday, October 18th, 1PM Eastern (attendance highly recommended)
• Mid-week check-in (group chat): Wednesday, October 20th, 4PM Eastern
• Peer assessment (group chat, possible video): Friday October 22nd, 1PM Eastern. 

Week 6, October 25-27, 2010: Government journalism & engaging your readers with Amanda Hickman, Document Cloud.

Readings: TBD

Assigments/Project Goals (Due dates & group assessment dates): TBD

Meeting times: 

• Live meeting (video & chat): Monday, October 25th, 1PM Eastern (attendance highly recommended)
• Course conclusion & final peer assessment (group chat, possible video): Wednesday October 27th, 1PM Eastern (attendance highly recommended) 

Promotion

• Update Hacks/Hackers help site post (done)
• Ask Erin/Tracy to post to The Media Consortium list (done) 
• Ask Burt to post to Hacks/Hackers mailing list (done)
• Ask Rich to promote to via his network (done)
• Ask Mark / Matt to promote via the Drumbeat / Mozilla communities (done)
• Ask Rebecca / Philipp to promote via P2PU list (done)
• Ask Andrew to send a note out to the FNCM attendees (done)
• Ask Jose to promote to the Knight network (done)
• Ask Jeff R to send a note to Boing Boing (submitted directly)
• Ask planning list to invite their network (done)
• Post a question to LinkedIn? (done)
• Post on other sites? If so, which ones -- post this question to the planning list (sent question to LinkedIn; may send to planning list also)
• Send a short press release out to relevant media organizations, e.g.: Nieman Journalism Lab, Poynter, etc. 
• Create a badge "I'm attending Open Journalism + Open Web. Are you?"