JOMC 491.4 - "Newsdesk" - Spring 2009

Course Syllabus

Grades: Blogs - 30 percent

The instructor will assign each student a different beat. Students produce a link blog on their beat from Jan. 19 until April 24. To give students a safe place to make mistakes while they are still learning, the blogs will remain private and password protected until Feb. 2. The student blogs will be live on the public Web on Feb. 2.

Due Dates

Students are expected to maintain their beat blogs daily by scouring other Web sites and information sites for stories, information, photos, video, discussions or other content that is relevant to their beat's audience. Students are expected to update their blogs with annotated links to the other sites every weekday. Because the online audience is primarily a workday audience, blogs must be updated by noon each day.

Number of Posts Required

There is no maximum or minimum number of posts that students must due over the course of the semester. The final grade for the blog will be the total score of all posts divided by 100 * the total number of posts. However, students are required to keep up with daily developments on their beats and will be docked 25 points for every story on their beat to which they fail to link by noon of the day it's published on another site.

Grading Scale

Each blog post is worth 100, from which points are deducted or added according to the following rules.

+ 100 points if the blog post breaks original news, and includes at least two sources.

+ 20 if the student adds newly reported facts to the annotation of the link.

-5 for every unnecessary word in a blog post.

-10 for every error in grammar, style or punctuation.

-20 for every broken link

-20 if the post fails to explain the significance of the story; the reason that you are linking to it.

-25 if the student fails to link to a story on his or her beat by noon on the day it is published.

-50 for every factual error

-50 if the student links to a hoax site