Blogging

Blogging about Big Tech

In the Bachelor elective course Regulating Big Tech, student’s write an academic blog post in which they develop a position and comment on developments regarding the regulation of big digital technology companies. All students write a blog post, but only the best get published on www.regulatingbig.tech. Students who are invited to publish their blog receive additional feedback to make their blog ready for publication. These blog posts are graded and account for 60% of the course’s final grade.

Academic blogs are generally shorter than academic papers and are written in more accessible language. Still, the blog post that students write for this course must be based on thorough research, and also requires them to link back to academic work of others. Moreover, students will have to translate their research findings into accessible and plain language, that engages the reader, and that enables the reader to quickly grasp the topic of the post and the points made in it. In that sense, writing an academic blog post may be even a bigger challenge than writing a regular paper.

Ideally, the blog post goes beyond a descriptive analysis (i.e. describing the law), and also takes a normative position on the topic. For instance, a blog post may highlight that doubts can be raised about the effectiveness of a particular rule. Of course, a normative position does not always mean that the blog post should be negative in tone. Positive contributions (e.g. ‘The Court’s decision in case x should be welcomed!’) are suitable as well. Hence, all normative positions are valid, as long as they are supported with sound arguments and thorough research.

To help students in the process of writing their academic blog post, students are required to start their research already in the first weeks of the course and to report on their research during the course. Specific research assignments must be handed. These assignments are not graded, but they may be used by the instructors to inform the grading process. The main goal of these assignments is to ensure that student’s start their research and writing early-on.

Aims

The blogging assignment helps to achieve the following aims in the course:

• Students can find relevant legal and academic sources for immediate application specifically in relation to the regulation of big tech companies.
• Students can put forward a clear view on regulating big tech companies.

Final product: An academic blog post on the website Regulating Big Tech.

Student ECTS’s: Student’s earn 60% of their grade by researching and writing their academic blog post. The total EC’s awarded after finishing the course amounts to 7,5 ECTS.

Teacher efforts: Students write a blog post instead of a regular paper. Additional efforts are required when blog posts are published.

Criteria: A Rubric is available. Contact Stefan Kulk for more information.

More information: Dr. Stefan Kulk, s.kulk@uu.nl.