EUROMAIN FUNCTIONAL

SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS

news.euromain.netnews.euromain.netnews.euromain.netnews.euromain.net

ldshake.euromain.netldshake.euromain.netldshake.euromain.netldshake.euromain.net

learning.euromain.netlearning.euromain.netlearning.euromain.netlearning.euromain.net

EUROMAIN FUNCTIONAL

SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS

SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS

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Contact and funding

IJIE Integrated Journalism in Europe is an Erasmus Lifelong Learning Project reference

number 5228057-LLP-1-2012-1-ES-ERASMUS-FEXI. This project has been funded with

support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the IJIE

consortium and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made

of the information contained therein.

For more information:

News Website and professional simulation platform for the EUROMAIN

network: http://news.euromain.net

Educational and assessment platform for the student’s network of

correspondants: http://ldshake.euromain.net

Website with thipsheets, model courses, and more:

http://learning.euromain.net

Project website for the IJIE project: http://integratedjournalism.upf.edu

Document authors:

Radu Meza (meza@fspac.ro), Jonathan Chacón (jonathan.chacon@upf.edu),

Davinia Hernández-Leo (davinia.hernandez@upf.edu), Pablo Abenia

(pablo.abna@gmail.com)

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Professional simulation in integrated newsrooms in the context of Journalism

education requires a web platform that can manage content, publishing as

well as student progress tracking, evaluation and feedback from instructors.

SOLUTION

Linking the Professional Simulation Layer with the Educational Layer

The EUROMAIN platform integrates an open source web content

management system and flexible publishing frontend powered by Newscoop

with a blended learning system LdShake (Hernández-Leo, Moreno, Chacón, &

Blat, 2014). Our approach is to have the professional simulation layer

separated from the educational layer so that the editorial process in the

integrated newsroom can include roles and processes assimilated to the

workflow of real newsrooms unhindered by the roles and processes

associated to journalism education. However, the educational layer supported

by LdShake will reflect student activities in the Newscoop side, allowing

instructors to observe, evaluate and provide feedback on students’ individual

involvement in the production process of different content types in different

roles over the duration of the professional simulation.

PROBLEM STATEMENT

SOLUTION

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Figure 1. Integration of professional simulation in integrated newsroom with educational layer

TARGET USERS

This integrated platform is meant to be used by instructors and students as

part of the professional simulation educational process taking place in

journalism schools. The content produced in the professional simulation of the

integrated newsroom is published online and made available (possibly in

several different languages) to local or global audiences.

MAIN FUNCTIONALITIES

The Professional Simulation Layer (NEWSCOOP)

The platform used to support professional simulation needs to offer the

functionalities associated with a full-fledged Web Content Management

System, but also support the workflows associated with integrated

newsrooms.

5 Functionalities:

Defining content types

Defining display templates for custom content types

Defining user roles and permissions

Defining authorship types

Content creation, management and publishing

Support for translation management

Support for multiple authorship

Support for newsroom workflow (drafting-editing-publishing)

Support for media management (for photo and documents)

Integration with media-sharing platforms (for video and audio)

Integration with location services (Google Maps)

The Blended Learning / Educational Layer (LdShake)

The blended learning platform needs to offer functionalities associated with

the educational needs of a production-oriented higher education practical

course in journalism.

Functionalities:

Predefined student and instructor Roles

Support for resource management (Manuals, Tutorials, Links)

Support for discussion and comments

Support for evaluation (Grading) of online and offline activities

Support for individual and group feedback

Support for tracking the publication process of articles

Support for tracking authorship/contributions over multiple articles

6 Integrated functionalities

Integration of the two layers in the EUROMAIN platform will be done by first

configuring the blended learning system to map users in the Integrated

Newsroom Web Content Management System, according to their respective

roles in the educational layer (student / instructor). Users will be able to use

the same authentication data in each of the two systems. Also, the main

integration point will be the retrieval of content (embedded articles), authorship

information (which student contributed in what way to each content item),

newsroom workflow data (timestamps for first submission of each element,

submission of final draft, editing and publishing) and statistics about the

published content (page views, unique visitors, likes, comments etc.).

USER TYPES

The two layers of the EUROMAIN platform handle the same user base

mapped to different user types, according to the specific functionalities of

each platform.

The Professional Simulation Layer (NEWSCOOP) will use user types

associated with the management of a medium-sized newsroom:

Unauthenticated users (can only browse published content)

Authenticated users

o Administrator - full authorization (technical staff)

o Chief Editor - has the right to create and delete issues (instructors)

o Editor - limited to basic article management and editing (students)

o Author - can create articles, but not delete them (students)

o Section editor – can manage sections in issues (students)

7 Author usertypes will be associated in the context of each article and at

system level with one or more of the authorship types defined:

Author (generic default)

Writer

Photographer

Editor

Columnist

Video editor

Reporter

Infographic designer

Photo editor

Video operator

Audio editor

Illustrator

Animator

Researcher

This approach supports crediting collaborative work in the context of an

integrated newsroom professional simulation practical course. Also,

information about authorship types will be retrieved and aggregated by the

educational layer to provide instructors and students an overview of the level

of integration of media in content items and multi-media production

experience of students.

The Blended Learning Layer / Educational (LdShake) will use just

authenticated user types associated with the learning process:

o Administrator - full authorization (technical staff);

o Instructor – add course resources, read, evaluate and provide

feedback on content, workflow and integration information for

individual students or content items;

o Student – see overviews of personal activity in the professional

simulation, see grades and feedback;

8 IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROFESSIONAL SIMULATION LAYER

The Newscoop 4.2 Web Content Management System was used to

implement the Professional Simulation Layer (news.euromain.net). Below is a

diagram of how different types of media can be integrated in a content item.

Figure 2. Integration of media types in the content items

produced by the integrated newsroom

Other than, the default news and page content items, we used plugins for the

debate and poll content types and configured two custom content types –

longform and chapters.

The Educational layer is implemented in LdShake (ldshake.euromain.net).

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Figure 3. Final development plan and task distribution

for the EUROMAIN platform

The final version of the development plan also included adding teaching

resources resulted from WP3 and WP4 to the EUROMAIN platform as model

courses and tips (learning.euromain.net).

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE EDUCATIONAL LAYER

LdShake is a web platform originally designed for asynchronous co-edition

and sharing of educational materials within a social network of teachers

(Hernández-Leo, Moreno, Chacón, & Blat, 2014). These materials developed

by the various authoring tools on the platform are called «Learning design

Solutions» (LdS). LdShake acts as a repository where users can manage their

LdS and allows the collaborative creation of these LdS using different

authoring tools: a rich text editor and two other editors for the specific design

of educational materials and activities.

10 The main five sections of LdShake are:

● “New LdS” for the creation of a new LdS

● “My LdS” where educators will find the LdS created or shared with

them with edition rights

● “Browse” where educators will find the LdS created in the platform

with, at least, with viewing rights

● “Community” for viewing the list of members in the community and a

messaging icon for sending private messages to other members in the

platform

Figure 4. Assessment page in LdShake Euromain

11 The objectives of the IJIE project included having a platform to allow the

reviewing, feedback and final assessment of journalistic articles created by

teams of students. In the context of the project, the LdShake platform has

been adapted to meet IJIE requirements. As described previously, a set of

functionalities has been added to LdShake:

● Initially LdShake had two roles: admin and teacher roles. For the

project we included and managed the inclusion of a new role student in

the platform for allowing students to view the grades and feedbacks of

their instructors (teacher role already present in LdShake)

● Support for evaluation (Grading) of online and offline activities

● Support for individual and group feedback

● Support for article’s progress tracking

Moreover, as the creation of material is being carried on Newscoop and not in

LdShake, the “New LdS” option has been limited to rich text editor only,

allowing teachers the creation of a single type of material in the platform. This

option was decided to be maintained (in addition to the documents directly

imported from Newscoop) to allow teachers the creation of extra material in

LdShake for example for evaluating purposes.

The LdS document’s structure has been modified to meet teacher’s

requirements. Previously, every LdS document on the platform was

composed of two documents: the main document where the activities are

defined; and the support document for adding any extra information related to

the activity, such as material or resources needed. Now, any LdS is initially

composed by three documents: the first one for the article’s draft with the

document created in NewsCoop by the students (as the article to be

published in the Euromain platform); the second one for the teacher’s review

that will include an initial assessment in language and writing, content and

sources, page design, structure and multimedia elements; and a third one for

adding comments or to discuss about the review. Once students received the

12 feedback and modified the article in Newscoop they re-publish the article.

Once students re-publish the article, LdShake add two new sections to the

LdS document for the final assessment: the pre-reviewed version (draft), and

after introducing the suggestions from the teacher, a final version from the

article. Instructors then can compare the draft version with this one to see if

students applied all the suggestions. To assess the final version, a new

document with a set of competences and indicators that evaluators may

follow, will appear to grade the final version of the article.

Finally, the backend of LdShake has been adapted to allow sharing users and

roles between LdShake and NewsCoop. Due to this implementation, users

can have the same username and password to login in both platforms.

Furthermore, and extension of LdShake was implemented to process the data

produced by Newscoop. Thanks to this extension, LdShake is became able

to import articles and users related in the writing process in Euromain News to

LdShake. Once there, instructors can assess and grade the article.

The LdShake platform can be accessed at http://ldshake.euromain.net/

asking for a username and password to the project manager.

Reference

Hernández-Leo, D., Moreno, P., Chacón, J., & Blat, J. (2014). LdShake

support for team-based learning design. Computers in Human Behavior.