Boldic Award for our Scandinavian online program in multimediajournalism

The Boldic Award 2011 was anounced Friday, October 21th in Stockholm, and it was awarded the Scandinavian project Multimedia journalistikk by NKI Nettstudier, Berghs School of Communication and the Danish School of Media and Journalism.

Kristiina Müllersdorf (Berghs) and
Morten Flate Paulsen (NKI Nettstudier)
at the Boldic Award Ceremony

NKI Nettstudier (www.nki.no) has developed a three-course online program in multimedia journalism in collaboration with Berghs School of Communication (www.berghs.se) in Stockholm, and the Danish School of Media and Journalism (www.dmjx.dk). This is a unique Scandinavian project, and as far as we now, there are no similar multinational online programs in Europe. The program comprises a Norwegian course in Web journalism, a Swedish course in Audio journalism and a Danish course in Video journalism. Students from all Scandinavian countries can start at their own convenience and publish their course work in their national languages in www.webjournalisten.com – an online, multimedia student journal.

Ten Award Reasons
The project stated that the three Scandinavian organizations should receive the Boldic Award for the following ten reasons:

1. Innovative use of www.webjournalisten.com. Webjournalisten is an online multimedia journal published by Scandinavian students and teachers. During the last few years, it has accrued about 500 varied and interesting articles under the category headings: News, Commentaries, Interviews, Articles and Minutes.

2. Scandinavian collaboration in online education. The program consists of three courses:
a) Web journalism is developed by NKI and the content is provided both in a Norwegian version with a Norwegian teacher and in a Swedish version with a Swedish teacher.
b) Audio journalism is developed in Swedish and taught by a Swedish teacher.
c) Video journalism is provided in Danish with a Danish teacher.

3. The ability to find common solutions that overcome barriers in Scandinavian online education collaboration. The partners have developed a common statement about nine barriers and found pragmatic solutions and strategies to overcome the barriers. These barriers and solutions are especially related to national languages, different pedagogical traditions, credits, grades, examination schemes and lack of funding for Scandinavian online education projects.

4. Development of a feasible financial model. The model includes a scheme that distributes the student fees income among the partners depending on three factors: a) student nationality as an incitement to recruit students in all countries, b) course responsibility as a mean to pay back investments made in course development and c) administrative responsibility as remuneration for NKI’s administrative work, LMS-provision and teacher administration.

5. Coexistence of the three Scandinavian languages in a common learning environment. There is one discussion forum per course, and the students will use their national languages in the interaction. This will create a “Blandinavian” discourse which will facilitate an interesting multi-language learning environment.

6. Innovative use of automatic translation tools. Even though the Scandinavian languages are closely related, there are obvious challenges for students who work in a Scandinavian online learning environment. Therefore the project has included automatic translation services which for example can be seen at the front page of www.webjournalisten.com

7. Active use of web 2.0 services. The project has developed a Facebook page at www.facebook.com/Multimediejournalistikk, the video presentations are edited in JayCut and uploaded to YouTube or other public video services and www.webjournalisten.com is based on Joomla.

8. Continuous evaluation through unique barometers for response time and teacher quality. All students and teachers in the program are included in NKI’s barometer scheme which continuously measures and presents teacher response times at the teachers’ web pages. It also continuously asks students to evaluate the teachers’ work and presents the results at the teachers’ web-pages.

9. Global student catalogues. All students and teachers in the program have personal presentations that they may include in NKI’s global catalogue.
Examples of global student presentations are: www.nki.no/pp/StineEriksen and www.nki.no/pp/BirgitteBarkenaes
Examples of teacher presentations are: www.nki.no/pp/arnejansen, www.nki.no/pp/annegreteskovbjerg and www.nki.no/pp/KarolineMalitzki

10. The project has devised a flexible examination scheme. The scheme allows students to start the examination whenever they are ready. The students know from the start that they must publish a multimedia report including text, audio and video elements. However, they will not know the theme of the exam, until they choose to start their exam work. All students will have individual examination themes.