A crucial stage in the IJIE project has been the development of a database that includes relevant information regarding the teaching of media convergence and integrated journalism in 39 countries all over Europe. The database has identified the schools where journalism is taught in a practical integrated way, in order to establish the patterns and ways to approach this aspect of innovative teaching that still needs to be extended in the EHEA framework. Among the results obtained, the database includes information about the specific subjects in which some journalistic integration is practiced, an insight into the way in which these subjects are taught or an overview of the role of professional simulation within journalism study plans.
Three fundamental criteria were followed to select the universities for the study. First of all, the universities that were examined were chosen from (a) the 27 member countries of the European Union (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and United Kingdom); (b) the countries on the road to EU membership (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Iceland, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey); or (c) nearby countries with a full relationship with the aforementioned countries (Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Norway). Secondly, all schools with a University degree both in Journalism or Communication and with subjects mainly related to Journalism have also been considered for the study. Finally, specifications related to those analyzed countries and acquired by consultations with experts, have also been taken into consideration.
The workload to elaborate the database has been distributed among the five teams participating in the project. They have brought in the perspective of consultants and additional bibliography to provide the required contextual information to comprehend the data under study. It is worth pointing out that in three countries (Latvia, Liechtenstein and Malta) no university offers official higher education programs in the field of journalism. The collected data is available previous request to our project manager or via our website contact: ijie.integratedjournalism@gmail.com.