The teaching methodology for this course aims to encourage active learning and to increase students’ level of autonomy in decision-making, the acquisition of knowledge and the development of the professional skills required by the labour market. The teaching staff is responsible for providing all the necessary instructions, guidance and support to ensure students can follow the classes effectively, but each student is responsible for achieving the course objectives and passing the module successfully.

The learning activities combine different formats: lectures, case studies, debates, active participation in class, individual or group practical assignments, etc. In addition to the content explained by the professors, classes will follow specific dynamics, emulating basic routines and processes of the journalism profession. In this way, students study the syllabus whilst gaining practical experience of the day-to-day aspects of any journalism professional’s work.

From the very first day of class, all teaching activities require the attendance and participation of all students. Occasionally, distance learning or out-of-class activities may be scheduled depending on the needs of the module.

A detailed schedule outlining the content of each session will be presented on the first day of the course and will be available on the course’s Virtual Campus, where students will find the various teaching materials deemed appropriate by the instructors and necessary information for effective course monitoring. Should the teaching modality change for reasons of force majeure according to the competent authorities, the teaching staff will inform students of any modifications to the course schedule and teaching methodologies.

Virtual Campus and UAB email: essential tools

From the first week of classes, every student must ensure they have access to and can use correctly the course page on the Virtual Campus and their UAB student email account. No other form of electronic communication between students and the teaching staff will be accepted.

Consequently, the only valid sources of information for the entire course will be the guidance provided by the teaching staff during face-to-face classes and the information, notices and documents published on the Virtual Campus. Students must regularly check the Virtual Campus to keep up to date with the instructions. Assignments must also be submitted exclusively via the Virtual Campus tools, except in cases where the nature of the task or the format of the assignment does not allow this. In such specific cases, the teaching team will indicate the appropriate alternative method.

Tutoring

Tutoring meetings (individual or by teams) are a key factor in achieving success in this course. During the term, professors will provide their respective teams of students with the timetables and venues allocated for the tutoring meetings. The teaching staff will take students’ attendance in those meetings into account when marking assessed work.

Annotation: within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.

The course follows a system of continuous assessment; it is therefore assumed that student participation in all the specified learning activities is compulsory.

The final grade for the course will be calculated as a weighted average, based on the following assessment activities:

A) Current affairs tests: 10% of the final mark;

B) Individual exams: 35% of the final mark;

C) Laboratory practicals: 30% of the final mark;

D) Final coursework: 25% of the final mark.

To pass the course, the following two conditions must be met:

1. All assessment activities B, C and D must have been completed and submitted. In the event of absence due to circumstances beyond one’s control, the relevant supporting documentation must be submitted to the teaching staff; otherwise, the activities will be considered not completed;
2. Achieve a minimum average mark of 5.0 in each of the activity blocks B, C and D.

IMPORTANT:

• Any written assignment or test containing five spelling, grammatical and/or stylistic errors (totalling five errors) will be marked 0.
• In the case of group assignments, teaching staff may take steps to monitor and assess the level of involvement and participation of each student in the group work. Therefore, even though the work is collaborative, members of the same team may receive different marks, which could mean, for example, that one member of the group passes the assessment whilst the other members fail it.
• In the event of a change to any assessment activity due to circumstances beyond our control, as determined by the relevant authorities, lecturers will inform students via the Virtual Campus.

Grades Review

Marks for the various assessment activities will be published in the ‘Grades’ section of the Virtual Campus. Once each mark has been published, students will have a maximum of seven calendar days to request a meeting with their tutor to review their grades. Once the seven-calendar-day deadline for requests has passed, the grades will be considered definitive, and no changes will be accepted.

Reassessment

Students may be eligible for a resit if they meet these two conditions:

1) they must not have met the criteria set for passing the module;

2) they must have been evaluated on a set of activities accounting for at least two-thirds of the total course grade.

Activities A and D are excluded from the reassessment system.

Single-assessment system

This course does not provide for a single-assessment system.

Second Enrolment

Students enrolled in the course for the second time (or more) may request the option (which is not mandatory) to take a Synthesis Exam, an assessment covering the entire course content (theory, practical work, and current topics). The course grade will correspond to the grade on the Synthesis Exam.

Students who wish to take this synthesis exam must contact the course coordinator during the first week of classes.

Each case will be reviewed individually, considering the grade obtained in the previous exam period, the number of activities completed, etc. In some cases, students may also be required to complete the final course assignment; in such cases, the final grade will be the weighted average of the Synthesis Exam grade and the course assignment grade.

Not Assessable

Point 9 of Article 266 of the UAB’s Academic Regulations states that “where it is considered that a student has not been able to provide sufficient evidence for assessment, this module must be marked as not assessable”. In the case of continuous assessment, a student who has not attended at least 50 per cent of the compulsory face-to-face assessment activities will be marked as ‘Not Assessable’. In the case of the synthesis test for students sitting the exam for the second time, a student who has not attended the compulsory face-to-face synthesis test will be marked as ‘Not Assessable’.

Artificial Intelligence (restricted use)

In this module, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is prohibited for creative tasks specific to the journalism profession, such as journalistic writing, style editing of journalistic texts, the processing of data and news sources, or the generation of images and photographs for news purposes.

The course permits the restricted use of these tools exclusively for complementary and support tasks, such as transcribing audio or video-recorded interviews, translating foreign languages, conducting bibliographic or documentary research, or other specific situations expressly authorised in advance by the teaching team.

Students must clearly identify in which parts or stages of the required work AI has been used, specify the tools employed, and include a critical reflection on how these have influenced the process and the final outcome of the activity.

A lack of transparency regarding the use of AI in this assessed activity will be considered a breach of academic integrity and may result in a partial or total deduction from the mark for the activity, or more severe sanctions in serious cases. Any student suspected of submitting assignments that have been generated by AI, written by others or copied; include unattributed AI-generated content, or fall outside the permitted scope, may be asked to provide the preliminary work or other materials that can demonstrate it is original work and the result of their own authorship. They may also be asked to separately explain or justify their work. Teachers may also use AI detection systems or carry out any verification tasks they deem appropriate. If, after review, the instructor detects irregularities, the assignment may be graded zero, and the student may be subject to further disciplinary action.

Irregularities and consequences within the assessment system

Any irregularity in an evaluation act (academic fraud, plagiarism or improper use of AI, unless this use is expressly authorized by the teaching guide), which may lead to a significant variation in the grade, assumes that this act will be graded with a 0. If the teaching guide foresees that to pass the course it is an essential requirement to have obtained a minimum grade in this evaluation act or that there are several irregularities in the evaluation acts of the same subject, the final grade of this subject is 0. Apart from this, a disciplinary process may be instructed to the student that incurs any of these irregularities.