IJNet.org
International Center for Journalists
The International Journalists' Network provides access to global training opportunities and media resources. It serves a diverse, multi-national audience that includes journalists working in some of the most dangerous regions of the world, with content published in English, Arabic, Persian, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, and Portuguese. IJNet empowers its users to tell some of the world’s most necessary stories, often on the front lines of the struggle for human rights and equality.
The website, designed by Aten and built on Drupal, allows a distributed team of international editors to publish training opportunities, create original IJNet content, and spotlight a growing community of journalists online.
Topic pages aggregate opportunities and original IJNet content.
More than Journalism Training Opportunities
Since ijnet.org first launched in 1998, the website has maintained a strong focus on training, publishing information about training opportunities and events daily. With more than 35,000 training opportunities published to date, and dozens added weekly, this remains a vital resource for IJNet users. Over time, though, the website has expanded to include stories, articles, and columns, published in multiple languages, covering a broad spectrum of journalism and media topics that reach beyond the scope of training. As IJNet grows its partnerships with writers and content providers like Poynter, PBS, Amy Webb and others, this wealth of content continues to expand. We worked with IJNet to create an “Articles & Resources” section, providing access to original IJNet content organized by topic. Within this section, users can access topical pages — for example, “Health in Africa” — that aggregate featured content, blogs, community posts, videos, and other IJNet content.
User preferences provide personalized training opportunities..
Personalized Training Opportunities
The vast majority of IJNet users come to IJNet.org in search of journalism training opportunities. To help users find relevant opportunities, we worked with IJNet to establish simple personalization features. Users specify their interests and geographic locations, which are used in turn to dynamically curate lists of suggested opportunities.
Journalists connect online with the IJNet community.
Fostering a Community of International Journalists
With thousands of registered users from dozens of countries communicating in seven different languages, the need to highlight and grow participation in online communities quickly became apparent in the discovery process. Community content is featured on the home page and promoted on various topic pages. Users can see community content that is both “Most Recent” and “Most Active”, and can quickly join in online conversations around various journalism topics.
Content is available in seven languages.
Designing For Multiple Languages
Some of the most challenging aspects of the redesign project for IJNet.org were creating a design concept that would work effectively for 7 languages, executing the technical infrastructure to support 7 complete translations of the website, and coordinating efforts with a large team of international editors. The website is as beautiful in Arabic (right to left) as it is in Russian. Throughout the process (but especially toward the end) constant communication with the entire client team was critical. Multilingual editors added translations directly into Drupal, translating the entire interface and a massive bulk of the websites’ content.
