Featured Courses
We offer a range of core BMPD courses in the elements of non-fiction storytelling and online design.
We also offer optional elective courses you can take with Bachelor of Journalism students over the four years of your program.
Here are some of the highlights.
Please note: your core courses have the designation MPAD (Media Production and Design) and your related design courses have the designation ITEC (Information Technology).
MPAD 1001 and 1002 – Introduction to Storytelling: The Context and the Practice
You will explore the theories and historical origins of stories and how they are conceived through words, sound and images to resonate with and influence audiences. Then you move to a workshop that shows you how to find stories and tell them in engaging ways, primarily through text and basic images.Lecture/workshop – three hours a week
ITEC 1005 – Web Development
Introduction to Web development. Combining graphics, text, audio, and video to create Web sites; developing different, major working Web sites on an individual basis and in groups, using valid HTML5, cascading style sheets (CSS3), JavaScript and XML structures.
Precludes additional credit for IMD 1005.
Lectures and tutorials five hours a week.
ITEC 1100 – Introduction to Interactive Media Design
Start with an overview of interactive multimedia design including user-centred design, web design and mark-up languages, then move to general logic design, multimedia project management, design processes for animated film, video game development, visual effects in movies, ethics and current trends in the field. Lectures three hours a week.
ITEC 1400 – Introduction to Programming and Problem Solving
Introduction to systematic problem solving including defining and modelling problems, testing, debugging and results analysis, numeric methods, data presentations and abstraction, class relationships and program style and documentation. Lectures/tutorials six hours a week.
MPAD 2001 and 2002 – Basics of Visual Communication I and II
In a workshop environment you learn visual storytelling, initially through a focus on video to develop both editorial and technical skills, then expanding from video theory and practice to still photography and multimedia theory and presentations, with an emphasis on hands-on work.
ITEC 2000 – Multimedia Data Management
The focus switches to back-end organization of information and multimedia with a specific focus on databases and database design, server-side scripting, the structured query language (SQL),digital rights management, and watermarking.
ITEC 2100 – Data Visualization
Learn the skills you need for good Web-based data visualization techniques and systems. Good design practices for visualization, tools for visualization of data from a variety of fields, and programming of interactive web-based visualizations focusing on JavaScript, CSS, SVG and the D3 library. Lectures/labs five hours a week.
ITEC 2400 – Intermediate Programming
Your introduction to object-oriented programming using C++ language, Topics include detailed study of pointers and structures, inheritance, polymorphism, object-oriented program design, class libraries, user interface objects. Lectures three hours a week, tutorial three hours a week.
MPAD 3001 – Storytelling and Social Media
Explore all aspects of social media and the role it now plays in storytelling and the dissemination of information from the perspectives of participants, subjects and observers. You will also use various social media tools for storytelling and research.
MPAD 3002 – Civic Engagement and Public Institutions I and II
Learn how public policy is made, how the public participates in it directly and what the information media does with that information. Then work in groups to find a story related to public institutions and produce a mini-project involving all the stages in planning and development that you will employ in your capstone project in your final year of the program.
ITEC 3100 – Immersive Storytelling
A focus on the craft of digital storytelling, creating compelling online and game-engine packages. Using a variety of narrative formats, interactive tools, and digital content, including blogs and RSS feeds, developing an in-depth story using leading edge technologies and techniques.
Workshop three hours a week.
MPAD 3300 – Media Ethics in a Digital World
Consider the theory of ethics as well as practical ethical issues and questions surrounding information media production in all its formats, building on second-year media law, expanding the discussion to consider the specific ethical challenges and pitfalls related to video, audio, still photographs, multimedia and immersive environment projects.
MPAD 3501 – Internet and Big Data Law
The law has not quickly adapted to regulate big data, creating a legal landscape that is fraught with both real legal concerns and ongoing policy problems. You will determine how to use data successfully and legally as well as exploring how the law may change in the future.
MPAD 4000 – Capstone Project
A year-long project in which you work in groups to bring together all you have learned in the program. You start with detailed story development and planning after finding an idea, then you move through crafting a design document to building the project and presenting it to the class.
MPAD 4001 – Media Industries Now and Next
Stay ahead of changes taking place in the media and the public’s relationship with the media, how journalists, news organizations and other media players respond and the practical issues and challenges in the professional life of an information producer.
MPAD 4200 – Freelance Media Survival Skills
Preparing you for the possibility of freelancing your work, including how to pitch stories, concepts, projects, ideas and services successfully to clients, marketing yourself, accounting, business and personal tax management.
