There were more than 3,000 submissions to this year’s Bobs awards. Our jury is currently selecting this year’s finalists and users will be able to scroll through 14 language’s worth of interesting and inspiring people’s work starting April 2. The Bobs’ jury members will get together for two days of discussions starting on May 4 to decide on the winners of the 2014 Jury Awards. They’ll dig into the details of each of the nominees before reaching their verdict in the six multilingual categories.

On April 2, we’ll also start the online voting phase at www.thebobs.com for the People’s Choice Awards in all the contest’s categories.

The Bobs awards honor websites and projects  in 14 languages that champion the open exchange of ideas and freedom of expression. When the annual awards launched in 2004, blogs were just beginning to establish themselves as a new type of media and The Bobs aimed to show that this new form of communication was worthy of being taken seriously and to point to the excellent example of work being done online to foster dialogue across language barriers.  The Bobs represent one of Deutsche Welle’s ongoing efforts to contribute to promoting freedom of expression and the upholding of human rights on the Internet and around the world.

 

 

DW Akademie is testing an innovative new training format for bloggers and journalists in North Africa based on the MOOC concept (massive open online course). The Open Media Summit (OMS) is an interactive online course combining e-learning and social media, which is an open-access, interactive, online platform where educational resources are distributed through live streaming, discussion forums and other online resources. The course is free and open to everyone. The only prerequisites are English and Arabic language skills and a computer or laptop with an Internet connection.

More than 300 citizen journalists from North Africa are testing the new learning format, which offers a virtual campus. Participants can meet in online classrooms, access training resources and take part in live stream sessions. The website shows how many people are online and the countries they’re from. This is part of the concept behind open exchange and interactive learning.

Upcoming topics on the course agenda include dealing responsibly with online sources, data-driven journalism and Internet censorship. A total of six live video sessions will feature guest experts from North Africa. The course is open to all those interested, and newcomers are welcome.