Covering Cohesion Policy in Europe – Training MOOC for European Journalism Students (COPE)
This project will conceptualize and implement a multi-lingual Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) in 2023 and 2024 in order to train European journalism students in EU coverage. To this end, a consortium of seven journalism institutes from EU universities (in alphabetic order: Belgium, Germany, Greece, Poland, Portugal, and Romania) has teamed up with the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA). Established in Brussels in 1990, EJTA groups about 80 journalism centers, schools and universities from about 30 countries across Europe. Partnership with EJTA provides the project with direct access to a network of journalism schools in nearly all EU member states, to be involved in this project as service providers, and in the future potentially also to journalism schools from candidate and associated countries to the EU. EJTA also provides the European journalism competence profile (Tartu Declaration), a standardized model of learning outcomes approved by all partner schools in EJTA.
Via the dense and experienced network of partners across EU member states, EJTA schools the MOOC contents and accompanying materials into all EU languages, as well as the pilot-teaching of the MOOC in the spring semester of 2024. Partnership with the renowned journalists’ initiative Arena for Journalism in Europe (ARENA) firmly anchors the project’s outcomes in European newsroom practices and actual media industry needs. It will generate best practice cases for outstanding research and multi-media reporting of EU matters. The MOOC will also put emphasis on the digital marketing of journalistic stories on EU affairs, including channels like Instagram, to make a special point of reaching young audiences.