Assessing Journalistic Potential with Performance Reviews
Grading a student’s performance is probably one of the least favorite tasks of most journalism educators. One reason, apparently, is that grading in courses that involve so many writing assignments is tedious and time-consuming. Instructors also sometimes may harbor doubts as to how reliable grades are as a measure of journalistic potential and ability. Those feelings seem reflected in a review of the eleven articles on grading over the past two decades in Journalism Educator. The titles alone tell much about attitudes, including “Five proven ways to ease the chores of grading stories,”l‘‘Reflections on the difficult task of grading writing assignments,”z and “Grading system reduces anxieties, improves e f f~ r t . ”~ Several ideas have been advanced in the articles to make grades more closely reflect actual competence and ease student anxieties. Often the methods center on rewrites or on some type of ungraded approach. For example, Bowers (1973) described a method in which many individual stories were evaluated as acceptable or unacceptable for publication, rather than assessed letter grades. Stories could be resubmitted as many times as necessary until they were found acceptable. Some stories were graded and, of course, students still received grades at the end of the course.‘ Bowers and others have suggested that no grades be used in courses such as beginning news writing, perhaps substituting simply a pass-fail system. How well ungraded approaches would work or be accepted by students, however, can be questioned. During a panel discussion at a recent regional educators‘ colloquium, a participant asked, “What would you think of a system where we didn’t give students any grades until the end of the term, when one grade would be given?” “They’d riot! ” replied another educator, to general emphatic nods, laughs and “amens” from the rest of the audience. There was also discussion at the same meeting over the question of how fair it is to include at least some nonobjective components in journalism students’ grades. Some participants said they frowned on the idea, although Brigham Young University’s Ralph D. Barney found merit in the approach: “We have to prepare them when they get out for a world that is not necessarily easy or objective.” He said he often includes a “Barney Bias” factor of 10 percent in his course grades that covers what he acknowledges are subjective measures of such things as dedication and
La professionalitat dels periodistes a la ràdio espanyola
Recerca que preten donar a coneixer el grau de professionalitat dels periodistes de la radio espanyola -i, en concret, d'aquells que treballen en les emissores autonomiques de Catalunya, Pais Basc i Galicia-, en funcio d'un model hipotetic d'atributs i trets caracteristics acceptat internacionalment, ates que la seva credibilitat es superior a la dels de premsa i TV.
The Protection of the Right to Education by International Law: Including a Systematic Analysis of Article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. International Studies in Human Rights, 82.
[In view of the trend of demoting education from ”human right” to “human need” and the accompanying commercialisation of education, and the complex nature of the right to education under international law, entailing a freedom and a social aspect, this book seeks to affirm education as a “human right” and to describe the various state duties flowing from the right to education, by referring to the provisions on the right to education found in instruments of international law and by systematically analyzing article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights., In view of the trend of demoting education from ”human right” to “human need” and the accompanying commercialisation of education, and the complex nature of the right to education under international law, entailing a freedom and a social aspect, this book seeks to affirm education as a “human right” and to describe the various state duties flowing from the right to education, by referring to the provisions on the right to education found in instruments of international law and by systematically analyzing article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.]