Community of Practice, GIME

The GIME COP will be based on the principles of the GMDC which to collect, connect and collaborate on knowledge creation. The process will be as follows:

Collect: Information (including information gathered in the GIME research), good practices, course outlines, curricula, assessments, research etc will be collected from institutions across Southern Africa.   See Annex A for an example of the online GIME COP Collection form. A call will be put out to all institutions offering journalism and media education and training to submit information according to certain thematic areas. These could include assessment, curriculum development and review, specific subject areas, teaching, learning and others. The information will be circulated to all the members of the COP with guiding questions for a discussion that will follow.

Connect: After the information has been circulated there will be an online discussion using the GL online chat facility. The discussion will be facilitated by a moderator from GL or a partner institution. The moderator will guide the discussion based on the questions that were circulated prior. The discussion will last for an hour and a half. After the online chat the discussion will be summarised. The collection form and summary will be published on a wiki. A wiki is a virtual space that encourages the collective creation of knowledge.

Collaborate: Once the wiki is published a notice will be sent out to educators across the region to comment on and contribute. The wiki will be moderated. The final document will be uploaded onto a searchable GIME database which will be housed on the GL website.

The COP will focus on four broad areas:

–       Curriculum development: discussions around whole qualifications, content to be included, opportunities to mainstream gender, curriculum review
–       Course content: discussions on specific courses, assessment, teaching and learning
–       Research: discussions on existing and potential research projects on gender and media, how the research may be used in teaching and learning, how research may be taken forward
–       Institutional gender framework: review and development of gender and/or sexual harassment policies, assisting with strategies, reviewing policy content

The GMDC will run a parallel Community of Students (COS) on Facebook. Similar curriculum linked discussions will happen with students. Lecturers will submit names of students and their email addresses. They will then be invited to join the GMDC Facebook page. The student input will be summarised and included in the final product.

To read more about this Community of Practice, click here.