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There were no sourdough or banana bread making skills honed by the Griffith College media faculty during the lockdown. Instead, we hunkered down and developed a brand-new programme that could just be the first in the world of its type, writes Dr Robbie Smyth of Griffith College.
July 1st was a big day for the Media and Communications Faculty in Griffith College. The Quality and Qualifications Ireland (QQI) validation panel for our new Post-graduate Diploma in Trust, Safety and Content Moderation Management met and, after a day of discussion, validated the course.
It was the largest validation panel I have ever sat across from, as our new programme involved an interdisciplinary approach. We had drawn academics in the college from the Graduate Business School, as well as utilising the expertise of lecturers from the computing and psychology programmes run in Griffith College.
We had also assembled industry expertise in the form of Mark Little and Áine Kerr from Kinzen, our collaborative partner, as well as Ben Decker, the founder of digital investigations company Memetica, and from within the Trust and Safety sector itself.
The planning and research to develop this programme began in the first weeks of lockdown, in March 2020. Kinzen’s Mark Little had floated the idea of a trust and safety programme. He could see first-hand the challenges of dealing with bad actors online across the social media platforms that dominate our daily lives.
In Griffith College, we have witnessed through our alumni network an increasing number of graduates enter the trust and safety sector. It seemed a natural fit for us to begin to research the skills needed to progress in a sector that is employing thousands of people in Ireland, and a six figure sum globally, in a market that was in 2020 estimated to be worth $5.3 billion annually, according to a recent Business Wire release.
We interviewed a range of respondents in the development stages of the programme, including workers on the front line of content moderation, their managers and industry groups such as the California based Trust and Safety Professional Association. The findings from this process created the foundations of the programme.
Skills For Content Ptrofessionals
It was clear that for content professionals to progress into management functions in this sector they require an enhanced range of skills, including specific competencies in project management, appropriate deployment and operation of software packages, regulation and compliance, problem solving, communications, and critical thinking with accredited transferrable proficiencies in these areas.
This is what the Griffith Trust and Safety Postgraduate Diploma offers learners. It will also help employee retention and reduce churn in the sector.
We have also included a module in Self Caring Practice in an Occupational Context, which can be taken as a standalone certificate. The work of content moderators is complex, attrition is high, and their constant engagement with graphic and unsavoury content can lead to long-term, stress-related conditions. This issue was raised by everyone we spoke with in the 18-month journey to bring the programme to validation.
There are also certificates in Applied Project Management and in Software Skills for Trust and Safety Professionals.
Currently, there is no publicly available, national qualification programme designed for these individuals, and we believe that the Griffith College programme goes some way to filling this gap.
Ongoing Research Project
As we prepare to welcome our first students onto this programme, our development work hasn’t ended. We see an ongoing project of research with Kinzen and other academic and industry researchers that focuses on long-term solutions to the ongoing challenges of empowered safe content moderation.
It is clear to us in Griffith College that technology now sits at the heart of global economic growth. As we rely on social media technologies in AI and machine learning to power critical aspects of our businesses, it is crucial we invest effort and expense in equipping our workforce with the skills and competencies to manage these technologies ethically and effectively.
• Dr Robbie Smyth (pictured) is Deputy Head, Faculty of Journalism and Media Communications, Griffith College