Interested in community journalism? Want to do a MOOC?

A MOOC? Yes, it’s another unlikely acronym we can thank the web world for and stands for Massive Open Online Course.

So it’s education, it’s expansive, open to everyone and delivered online. Sounds great, and Cardiff University’s journalism school is pioneering a course dedicated to community journalism using this format.

Here at Talk About Local we’re very pleased to be involved. William and I will be helping to produce some of the course material which is aimed at helping people set up their own community journalism initiatives or those studying the sector.

Talk About Local has many years of experience in delivering training sessions online. Our trainees have ranged from groups of professional journalists at big media organisations in the UK and overseas to volunteer one-man-bands. We hope the new course’s access to both the traditional journalism techniques, alongside emerging theory and practical skills, will help the many people looking to use digital tools to get their voices heard and support their local communities.

The course is led by professor Richard Sambrook who explains more in the official press release and on the video below.

He says: “Over five weeks, the course will build on that expertise and experience to offer insight and practical skills for all those interested in community and hyper local journalism. The course combines practical skills in setting up a community website, identifying and building an audience, creating content, establishing a workflow to sustain a site, managing an online community, media law and ethics, with a broader understanding of this new sector, how it has developed and the experience of those operating community sites.”

The course starts on April 14 and will be delivered via the FutureLearn website, the first UK-led provider MOOCs. You can sign-up here and there’s more about the Community Journalism centre here.