Sourcefabric

Sourcefabric^[1] is a non-profit organisation that develops open source software for independent news media organisations. It is based in Prague, Czech Republic, with branches in Berlin, Germany and Toronto, Canada. Sourcefabric was spun off from the Media Development Investment Fund's Campware project in April 2010.

Software

Software products developed by Sourcefabric include:

• Newscoop (formerly known as Campsite, renamed in 2011), a content management system for news websites
• Airtime (formerly known as Campcaster, renamed in 2011), a radio station management application
• Superdesk, launched 2011, a newsroom tool to manage the entire journalistic process^[2][3]
• Booktype, a book publishing tool, developed in collaboration with the FLOSS Manuals Foundation.^[4]
• Live Blog, a web tool that helps individuals and teams cover major events and ongoing stories in real time.

All these applications are free and open-source software.

Training

Sourcefabric also provides training for journalism students as well as professional journalists on how to use new media tools. It has had training and consulting activities in Africa (Senegal, Zimbabwe), various EU countries and Georgia.^[5]

Implementations

In April 2011, Sourcefabric worked alongside West Africa Democracy Radio to build a news platform for the station using Airtime, Newscoop and Soundcloud integration.^[6] TagesWoche, a Swiss online and print newspaper, launched in October 2011 on a new version of the Newscoop platform with the new features Print Desk and Feed Ingest.^[7]

Awards and nominations

• The West Africa Democracy Radio project was named as a special distinction winner in the 2011 Knight-Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism.^[8][9]
• Airtime was nominated as a finalist in the Packt Open Source Multimedia Software Awards 2011.^[10]
• Superdesk was nominated for the 2011 Ashoka Google Citizen Media Global Innovation Competition in November 2011.^[11]
• Airtime won The Guardian's Digital Innovation Award 2012 in the category Best Use of Technology for Social Change.^[12]
• In November 2012 Sourcefabric was one of the winners of the African News Innovation Award for Citizen Desk in Mozambique.^[13]
• Booktype won Silver in the Lovie Awards 2012 in the category Web Services & Applications.^[14]

References

1. Sourcefabric homepage http://www.sourcefabric.org/.
2. "New open source organization is dedicated to quality journalism".
3. "Superdesk is an open-source newsroom for citizen media".
4. Charman-Anderson, Suw (14 February 2012). "Booktype: Book collaboration made easy". Forbes.
5. "New open source company aimed at journalists".
6. "WADR launches new website".
7. "TagesWoche Portrays New Future for Swiss Media Landscape".
8. "Storify Wins Knight-Batten Award".
9. "2011 Knight-Batten Winners Include Storify, Andy Carvin".
10. "Open Source Radio Station Management Software Airtime Sees New Release".
11. "Superdesk Brings Digital Newsroom to Independent Media Organisations".
12. "Guardian Awards for Digital Innovation - winners 2012". The Guardian (London). 23 March 2012.
13. "ANIC Winner 2012".
14. "2nd Annual Lovie Honourees".