Social media for journalists: the basics

Reporters and editors have struggled with how to deal with the phenomenon of social networks. Now they have a chance to learn from a team of experts who will teach the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas' next Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), "Social Media for Journalists: The Basics."

The MOOC will give students an overview of the use of social media in journalism and best practices in finding and distributing news with these tools. Students will learn about the best journalistic uses of professional Facebook and Twitter accounts, where to find sources and story ideas on social media, how to verify information and other ethical considerations, how to cultivate an audience and a brand, developing a content strategy, and measuring success on social media.

• Click here to register

This five-week online course begins Feb. 3 and will conclude on March 9. The MOOC will be offered for free and, while it was designed with journalists and media practitioners in mind, anyone with access to the Internet is invited to participate.

The course will include videos, tutorials, reading materials, exercises and quizzes. Just like the Knight Center's other MOOCs, the course will be divided in weekly modules and will be completely asynchronous, meaning there will be no live lectures. Even though students can take the course at the times of their choosing, each weekly module will have deadlines for submitting the quizzes and participating in the forums.

A MOOC is a new type of online learning program that was designed to reach a large number of students. In general, most MOOCs are college courses that have been recorded on video and adapted to be shared over the Internet.

Although the course will be free, if participants need to receive a certificate, there will be a $30 administrative fee, paid online via credit card, for those who meet the certificate requirements. The certificate will be issued only to students who actively participated in the course and who complied with most of the course requirements, such as quizzes and exercises. The certificates will be sent via email as a PDF document. No formal course credit of any kind is associated with the certificate.

Learn more: http://tinyurl.com/n2usx8p