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The advent of data-driven journalism has transformed the field of journalism globally, offering new ways to collect, analyse and communicate stories and information. In contexts such as Africa, where socio-political and economic contexts differ significantly from those in the Global North, the need for critical data literacy in journalism education is particularly pronounced. This chapter proposes and argues for developing critical data literacy skills among journalism students. It suggests that fostering a critical approach to data is essential for producing impactful, contextually relevant, and unbiased data-driven journalism. The chapter addresses the unique challenges faced by journalism education and presents strategies (an agenda) for integrating critical data literacy into journalism curricula.

This research examined the effects of information literacy on lifelong learning, creativity, and work performance among journalists in Pakistan.

Survey research design was applied to conduct this research. The participants were recruited through a stratified convenient sampling process from the press clubs of four provinces (e.g. Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Baluchistan) and the federal capital Islamabad with the consent of relevant authorities for data collection. An online questionnaire was distributed among these journalists and a total of 1,089 responses were received. The data were analyzed by applying descriptive and inferential statistics in SPSS.

The results revealed that these journalists perceived themselves as information literate. The information literacy (IL) skills of journalists appeared to have a direct and positive effect on their lifelong learning, creativity, and work performance. In other words, the lifelong learning, creativity, and work performance of journalists increase as their levels of IL skills increase.

These results generated useful insights for academicians and organizations about the importance of IL in the workplace and its influence on organizational effectiveness and performance in gaining a sustainable competitive advantage. This knowledge might be crucial for media employers to initiate training programs for journalists to impart IL education.

This research would be a worthwhile contribution to the existing research on workplace IL, particularly in the context of journalists' workplace as no such comprehensive study using these variables appeared so far.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-06-2022-0345.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a critical analysis of the history and development of public relations education in the USA and Canada.

The research methodology used for this paper is the historical/critical analysis approach.

This paper finds more differences than similarities between public relations educational development in the two countries. The first PR course at a US university was taught at the University of Illinois in 1920 and the first US degree program was offered by Boston University in 1947. The first Canadian university PR course was taught at McGill University n 1948 and the first university degree was offered by Mount Saint Vincent University in 1977. Although PR courses and degrees are offered at a small number of élite US universities, the greatest recent PR curriculum development has been at smaller, second‐ or third‐tier institutions. While a few Canadian universities offer courses and degree programs in the field, most of Canada's recent PR program growth has been at colleges rather than at universities.

Rightly or wrongly, academic institutions often look to North America for direction when it comes to establishing and developing public relations education programs. A number of factual inaccuracies about public relations education history have frequently surfaced in books and journal articles. This paper corrects a number of those inaccuracies and in doing so improves public relations scholarship.

A thorough review of the literature suggests that this paper represents the only journal‐length piece about the history and development of public relations education in Canada and the USA.

The chapter deals with a service-learning course based in the School of Journalism and Media Studies at Rhodes University in South Africa. It provides a backdrop for the case study, describing the context in which the course is based and kind of intervention that it aims to make into this context. It then maps out the theoretical framework that informs the course, explaining how this is informed by the available spectrum of approaches to service-learning. It demonstrates how the course draws on the concept of a ‘communicative ecology’, to provide itself with a language in which to reflect on the social significance of communication. The chapter then reviews the first cycle of the course which took place in 2019, drawing on insights from participants (teachers, students and community partners). It deals, firstly, with the participants’ engagement with the concept of service-learning. Secondly, it describes their experience of service-learning as a communicative process. Finally, it describes their evaluation of this process as an intervention into the local communicative ecology. It is demonstrated that service-learning enables the school to respond strategically to the need for innovative communicative practices both in their immediate environment and within the broader South African context.

This paper discusses the importance of developing a discipline‐based approach to the issue of plagiarism in information literacy instruction sessions. Through an examination of how both higher education and academic librarianship view plagiarism, the growing need for anti‐plagiarism instruction, and the role librarians can take in anti‐plagiarism instruction, this article will offer insight into effective ways for librarians to reach out to both faculty and students facing the difficulties inherent in higher education in the wake of the cut and paste age. Practical examples of discipline‐specific, collaborative approaches and process‐based assignments in journalism will be discussed to show how both librarians and discipline faculty can successfully make connections between student needs and collective information literacy instruction activities.

Blogging has become a well-established method of online communication and publication, used by individuals and organisations to disseminate news, ideas and information. In their earlier forms, blogs were used as online diaries, but have now evolved into complex digital environments. The purpose of this paper is to consider whether blogging can be framed as a mode of work-integrated learning in the context of journalism and media education, and to ask whether blogging can develop transferable skills useful in graduate-level employment.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with established undergraduate bloggers to investigate which skills and attributes were developed through blogging.

When evaluated against the Prospects UK list of graduate attributes (the Government career’s service) blogging allows the development of the vast majority of transferable skills, abilities and behaviours expected of graduates. It is necessary to structure the curriculum to ensure that blogging is taught, and blogging activity monitored and evaluated, so that journalism undergraduates maximise the opportunities offered by blogging and fully reflect on their experiences.

This paper argues that these online environments, with their associated communities, offer journalism students opportunities for work-integrated learning. It argues that blog environments have the potential to enable students to develop journalism-specific skills, and enhance transferable graduate attributes including creativity, sophisticated communication competencies, initiative and problem solving. It suggests that blogging offers a platform for accessing experiential learning, and as such should be considered within a curriculum for work-integrated learning in the journalism and media subject area.

In a technological era driven by coding, programming and artificial intelligence (AI), there is more need than ever to develop computing skills and knowledge for non-specialist students. Nonetheless, the literature on computer science teaching methods of non-scientific majors is not as comprehensive as that of scientific ones.

Pedagogically, the authors designed and implemented prototyping from John Dewey's pragmatic epistemological lens. Using a mixed methods approach, the authors tested the effectiveness and efficiency of this approach within the same course over four semesters across four academic years.

As an epistemological pedagogic device, prototyping facilitated learning by doing and experimenting and stimulated graduate students' self-directed learning, engagement and their overall ownership of the learning and teaching process, changing their role from being merely passive recipients of “strange, awkward and unfamiliar” knowledge to active constructors of “relevant and exciting” content knowledge. Such a change was reflected in the significant progress students made, driven by their commitment, motivation and enthusiasm, irrespective of their prior knowledge and age (Generations X, Y and Z). Prototyping also served as an avenue for a “Deweyian Reflection”, where graduate students, after internalizing the acquired computing skills and knowledge, started transferring such skills and knowledge to their professions (journalism and public relations (PR)) and daily practices.

Findings from this study will add to the literature review on this subject matter and will inform future case studies in computer science education for graduate students from non-scientific backgrounds.

This paper reveals that learning by doing/experimenting needs to be accompanied by in-depth reflection to enable students to transfer the acquired knowledge and skills to other settings and contexts beyond that of the lesson, task, or project in hand.

There is little research published on introductory programming courses offered to non-specialized students (i.e. students from non-scientific backgrounds). This study contributes to the body of research on how to effectively engage these students in programming courses informed by John Dewey's pragmatic lens/epistemological lens.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether journalism education techniques can be adapted for use in the information literacy classroom as a means of teaching the ethical use of information.

The author uses personal experience as a journalist and graduate of journalism education programs to examine the similarities between journalism pedagogy and information literacy and whether any aspect of journalism pedagogy is transferrable to the information literacy classroom.

Journalism educators deliver a potent anti-plagiarism message using case studies and “war stories” from the newsroom delivered through the pervasive instruction method or stand-alone ethics class. Using case studies from a variety of different disciplines in information literacy classes could help students make a stronger connection between honest writing in all subjects. However, until information literacy is taught more widely in libraries as semester-long classes, it would be difficult to use journalism’s pervasive method of instruction. The same holds true with the stand-alone class, which does not appear to be used as a part of information literacy education.

Given the many commonalities between journalism pedagogy and information literacy, there have been very few attempts to see whether it would be efficacious to adapt journalism education’s methodology to the information literacy classroom.

This paper presents recently published resources on library instruction and information literacy, providing an introductory overview and a selected annotated bibliography of publications covering various library types, study populations and research contexts.

This paper introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs, dissertations, reports and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2020.

The paper provides a brief description of all 440 sources and highlights sources that contain unique or significant scholarly contributions.

The information may be used by librarians, researchers and anyone interested in a quick and comprehensive reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

The purpose of this paper is to detail research into experiential learning and journalistic practice in the Department of Journalism Studies at the University of Sheffield.

This paper explores a range of themes and issues stemming from the application of an experiential learning approach to postgraduate journalism education at the University of Sheffield. Following the experiential learning exercise, a number of semi‐structured interviews were conducted with students and teaching staff in order to get an insight into their perceptions and experiences of the learning exercise.

The development of experiential learning programmes within journalism education provides valuable experiences that simulate the real world of journalism practice. Further reflective research work would be required to embed such learning approaches within journalism practice modules across the UK.

Embedding experiential learning exercises within vocationally orientated MA programmes requires reflective and ongoing curriculum development. Moreover, the establishment of more reflective elements within programmes will aid the research process in future explorations of this type.

Research on experiential learning on postgraduate journalism programmes within a British context is minimal. The research hopes to stimulate further work in this area.