THE FACT-CHECKING elective of the Faculty of Arts and Letters (AB) will be available in the College of Commerce and Business Administration next term, following its recent implementation in the Faculty of Engineering.
Initially exclusive to Journalism and Legal Management freshmen, the Fact-checking, Verification, and Digital Literacy course is among the AB general education electives now being extended to other colleges.
“[Fact-checking] is not the only AB [general elective] course being offered. There are many more. Former chair Asst. Prof Felipe Salvosa [II] first rolled this out last A.Y. (academic year) when [journalism] became a department,” Journalism chair Prof. Jeremiah Opiniano told The Flame.
“So far, outside of AB, Engineering (currently) and Commerce (next term) have tapped these courses,” he added.
Journalism instructor Jasper Arcalas is teaching the class for engineering students this term.
According to AB Dean Prof. Melanie Turingan, the faculty’s department chairs were instructed to propose “timely and relevant” general or professional electives and assign their own teaching staff to handle the courses.
She said the idea for a fact-checking elective came from the need to equip students with skills to verify information, saying that offering it as a general elective would benefit more Thomasians.
“Since fact checking is something that we always demand, given not all sources are reliable, the department decided to come up with one. And it is suggested that this be a general elective so non-AB [students] will also benefit from the course,” Turingan told The Flame.
The elective, which tackles disinformation across different disciplines, was first offered to the Journalism and Legal Management departments last academic year.
READ: UST journalism program to offer elective on fact-checking next academic year
The elective had been in development for over a year, with faculty members being trained in verification tools, analysis of foreign influence operations, AI-based tools and data visualization, he added.
Under the course, students are taught to apply digital literacy and online safety principles, validate information accuracy and produce fact-checked content. The elective also adopts theoretical and practical approaches to help students navigate the current information disorder.
While the Journalism department has enough faculty members for the course, it is open to hiring additional staff should demand increase, Opiniano said.
“So far, our roster of academic staff is sufficient to handle the course. If more colleges request to offer it, hiring new faculty members may be considered,” he added. F ― with reports from Mei Lin Weng
