Two further major steps for the EU “COPE” project

Since January 2023, the Institute of Journalism, under the direction of Prof. Susanne Fengler, Academic Director of COPE, and Isabella Kurkowski, COPE Managing Director, has been developing a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on precisely these topics. The project is being carried out together with 27 European universities and renowned journalistic institutions.

35 academics from the following institutions have developed the content of the online course entitled “Covering Cohesion Policy in Europe - Training MOOC for European Journalism Students” (COPE): TU Dortmund University (Germany), AP Hogeschool (Belgium), the ARENA for Journalism in Europe organization, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania), the European Journalism Training Association (EJTA), the University of Porto (Portugal) and the University of Wrocław (Poland).

In a total of 14 modules, journalism students at Bachelor's level acquire, among other things

• Basic knowledge of EU institutions and EU cohesion policy
• knowledge of reporting on the EU and EU cohesion policy and the role of the (local) media
• Journalistic skills for practical application in daily journalistic work
• Knowledge of innovative concepts in reporting

The first version of the COPE online course is currently being developed in English. The major challenge of the EU media project is to translate the content into all other EU languages and to produce so-called “Local Windows”, which offer perspectives on EU cohesion policy from the local point of view of each EU country. Richard Brandt and Juliane Niepert, research assistants at the Institute of Journalism Studies, are overseeing both the translation process and the production of the “Local Windows”.

In addition to the members of the COPE consortium, a total of 21 other regional partners have taken on this challenge and translated the English content into their respective national languages and produced the “Local Windows”.

The meeting in Vienna with all local partners provided space for important discussions and an open exchange. This is because all 27 partners will offer a pilot test teaching phase of the COPE course content at their universities in spring 2024.

Susanne Fengler explains: “COPE is co-funded by the European Commission with one million euros and enables all universities in the European Union to teach journalism students at Bachelor level according to the same highest standards of journalism education, while also taking into account relevant differences from the respective national perspective.”

Feedback from European journalism students plays a central role

Richard Brandt, research associate at the IJ, presented the latest developments in the COPE project at the end of November 2023 at the General Assembly of the Forum for European Journalism Students (FEJS) in Marseille, France. The European student organization supports the COPE project as an important roll-out partner and will evaluate the online course after the pilot test teaching phase in all 27 EU countries, among other things.

This evaluation is crucial for the further development and completion of the COPE online course, which takes into account the specific needs of journalism students at Bachelor level. Until now, journalism students could hardly find so much information on EU institutions and reporting on EU cohesion policy on a single digital platform.

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Susanne Fengler, Academic Director of COPE: susanne.fengler@tu-dortmund.de

Isabella Kurkowski, COPE Managing Director: isabella.kurkowski@tu-dortmund.de