Illustrative: a hexagonal population grid where a wave rises, peaks and recovers from seeded outbreaks

Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Course catalogue · Governance, Policy and International Affairs

Science, Technology and Society

Information integrity and public trust

Information integrity and public trust, taught twice over: as the working methods of the field and as its frontier since 2024, with labs on the Academy's tools, open data and the Nexus Standards.

Core course Frontier course

The discipline

01Core course · L2 Intermediate

Information integrity and public trust: foundations and practice

This area covers the quality of the information ecosystem, the spread of misinformation and disinformation, AI-generated content, the role of platforms and media, and the trust people place in institutions and evidence.

Level
L2 Intermediate
Study time
about 24 hours (planning estimate)
Status
In authoring
Prerequisites
An L1 course in the area, or an entry review

Why now

Shifts in where people get news change how crisis information and corrections must be distributed to reach them. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Overview and key findings of the 2025 Digital News Report, 17 June 2025

Learning outcomes

  1. Define misinformation and the other key terms of the discipline and use them correctly in a written case
  2. Explain misinformation and disinformation and AI-generated content with a worked example and its source
  3. Apply the discipline's method to a documented case and explain each result with its source
  4. Analyse a named case against platforms and media systems, stating evidence, date and limits

Modules

  1. Misinformation and disinformation
    • Misinformation and disinformation
    • AI-generated content
    • Platforms and media systems
  2. Crisis information
    • Crisis information
    • Institutional trust
    • Information governance and rights
  3. Community information
    • Community information
    • Fact-checking and prebunking
  4. Lab: the discipline's method
    • Each exposure to a post yields on average some number of further reshares; below one the cascade dies, and its total size is the sum of a geometric series; false content reshared about 70 per cent more often than true content reaches many times the people, and prebunking works by lowering that rate before exposure.
    • Work the method through a documented case and explain each result
    • Read the method's sources and stated values

Labs with Academy tools

Nexus Standards

Teaches

  • NRS-X7 Information integrity and public trust
  • NRS-H52 Hazard family: Information-integrity attacks
  • NRS-H117 Hazard family: Social cohesion and atrocity risk

Relies on

  • NS-1 The UNI and the artefact catalogue
  • NS-16 UNI application profile (how articles, documents, code, data, APIs and interfaces carry the UNI)
  • NRS-C1 Risk vocabulary and ontology
  • NRS-C2 Risk assessment method
  • NRS-C3 Hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity data
  • NRS-C4 Risk data model, identifiers and exchange
  • NRS-C7 Early warning, triggers and anticipatory action
  • NRS-C8 Evidence, uncertainty and provenance

Assessment

  • 40%Lab recordWork the discipline's method through a documented case and explain each result with its source and date
  • 40%Case memoApply the discipline's methods to a named place or organisation, stating evidence and limits
  • 20%Key terms checkShort answers on the key terms, marked against the definitions

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Intermediate, 4 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

Open now in this discipline

References

  1. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Overview and key findings of the 2025 Digital News Report, 17 June 2025
  2. Vosoughi, Roy and Aral, The spread of true and false news online, 2018
  3. Roozenbeek and van der Linden, Fake news game confers psychological resistance against online misinformation, 2019
  4. Lewandowsky, Ecker, Seifert, Schwarz and Cook, Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing, 2012
02Live map

People and exposure in the Philippines

Population density, night-time lights, air quality, heat and floods, over the Philippines.

The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.

Layers 2

People and exposure

Latest available

NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth

Loading the latest NASA imagery.

Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.

People and exposure, framed on the Philippines.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.

Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONETSources and licences

  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), Columbia University. 2018. Gridded Population of the World, Version 4 (GPWv4): Population Density, Revision 11. NASA Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center (SEDAC). Licensed under CC BY 4.0. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). doi:10.7927/H49C6VHW. CC BY 4.0
  • VIIRS Black Marble night-time lights, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • OMI nitrogen dioxide (Aura) and OMPS aerosol index (Suomi NPP), NASA; distributed by the NASA GES DISC; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
  • Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
  • © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
  • Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
  • Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
  • Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
  • Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
  • NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
  • Air quality forecast, 5 days, PM2.5 (CAMS via Open-Meteo): Contains modified Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service information 2026.
  • Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (https://open-meteo.com/), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • Optional layers (7 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.

Layers and dates

  • Population density, 2020: Population: CIESIN, Columbia University, Gridded Population of the World v4.11 (2018), NASA SEDAC, CC BY 4.0 · static
  • Night-time lights, daily: VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2), NASA LAADS DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
  • Nitrogen dioxide, lower atmosphere column: OMI Aura, NASA GES DISC · 10 Oct 2026
  • Land surface temperature, day, 8-day composite: VIIRS NOAA-20 Level 3, 8-day, NASA LANCE · 14 Sep 2026
  • Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026

03How learning runs

How learning runs, as a process you can run

Select a scenario and press Play: course, pathway, practice, faculty, cells and record.

04What is changing

Frontier course · L3 advanced, programme courses and standards

Information integrity and public trust: frontier methods

The methods, data, tools and studies that changed information integrity and public trust between 2024 and 2026, taught by reproducing them on open data.

Level
L3 Advanced
Study time
about 28 hours (planning estimate)
Status
Planned
Prerequisites
Information integrity and public trust: foundations and practice; Working knowledge of a scripting language (Python or R) for the labs

Why now

Shifts in where people get news change how crisis information and corrections must be distributed to reach them. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Overview and key findings of the 2025 Digital News Report, 17 June 2025

Learning outcomes

  1. Explain what changed in information integrity and public trust since 2024 and cite the studies, data or rules behind each change
  2. Reproduce digital News Report 2025 tracks AI chatbots and creators as news sources on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  3. Evaluate a 2024 to 2026 study: its question, data, method, limits and what it changes for practice
  4. Design an analysis that combines a frontier method with the faculty's instruments, and justify each choice

Modules

  1. Digital News Report 2025 tracks AI chatbots and creators as news sources
    • The Reuters Institute found 7 per cent use AI chatbots for news weekly, 15 per cent of under-25s.
    • Shifts in where people get news change how crisis information and corrections must be distributed to reach them.
    • Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 17 June 2025
  2. EU disinformation code became auditable under the Digital Services Act
    • The Commission and the European Board for Digital Services endorsed converting the voluntary Code of Practice on Disinformation into a Code of Conduct under the DSA.
    • Auditable platform commitments give regulators and researchers a firmer basis for assessing how disinformation risks are mitigated.
    • European Commission, 13 February 2025
  3. Meta ended third-party fact-checking in the United States
    • Meta announced it would end its US third-party fact-checking programme and move to a Community Notes model, stop demoting fact-checked posts and replace full-screen warnings with smaller labels.
    • Platform moderation choices change the reach of false claims during crises and the levers available to counter them.
    • Meta, 7 January 2025
  4. Reproduction lab
    • Extend the discipline's method with one frontier method and compare its results
    • State the uncertainty and the limits of the result
    • Peer review against a shared checklist
  5. Technology that helps and the risks it carries
    • Foresight tools and regulatory sandboxes.
    • Threats to information integrity, and AI in public decisions.

Labs with Academy tools

Nexus Standards

Teaches

  • NRS-X7 Information integrity and public trust
  • NRS-H52 Hazard family: Information-integrity attacks
  • NRS-H117 Hazard family: Social cohesion and atrocity risk

Relies on

  • NS-1 The UNI and the artefact catalogue
  • NS-16 UNI application profile (how articles, documents, code, data, APIs and interfaces carry the UNI)
  • NRS-C1 Risk vocabulary and ontology
  • NRS-C2 Risk assessment method
  • NRS-C3 Hazard, exposure, vulnerability and capacity data
  • NRS-C4 Risk data model, identifiers and exchange
  • NRS-C7 Early warning, triggers and anticipatory action
  • NRS-C8 Evidence, uncertainty and provenance

Assessment

  • 50%Method reproductionReproduce one frontier method on open data and state the uncertainty of the result
  • 30%Study reviewA critical review of a 2024 to 2026 study: question, data, method, limits, what it changes
  • 20%Peer reviewReview two other learners' reproductions against a shared checklist

Delivery

  • Self-paced online, with the labs in the browser
  • Cohort study over six to eight weeks, with a weekly lab review
  • Co-delivered with a partner institution, inside its own courses

Partner on this course

  • Co-teach a module and bring a current case from your work
  • Host a cohort for your learners, with your own schedule and review
  • Contribute a lab: a dataset your institution publishes openly, or a model
  • Review the course content and its references before it opens
  • Translate the course and adapt its cases to your region

How institutions and experts take part

In the Academy LMS

Course on the learning platform
Expert, 5 topics
Cohort group
A community group for each cohort of learners
Achievement
Recorded on completion of the assessed work

Open now in this discipline

References

  1. Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Overview and key findings of the 2025 Digital News Report, 17 June 2025
  2. European Commission, The Code of Conduct on Disinformation, 13 February 2025
  3. Meta, More Speech and Fewer Mistakes, 7 January 2025
  4. Vosoughi, Roy and Aral, The spread of true and false news online, 2018
  5. Roozenbeek and van der Linden, Fake news game confers psychological resistance against online misinformation, 2019
  6. Lewandowsky, Ecker, Seifert, Schwarz and Cook, Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing, 2012
05Take part

Take part in the work

Start from who you are.

06Questions

Questions, answers and key terms

Is the course free?
Yes. Every course and learning material of Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium, is free to study, self-paced or with a cohort. Ordinary participation has no fee; paid work, internships and fellowships are separate arrangements.
What does completing a course give me?
A completion record: the course, its version, the date and what was assessed, private by default and shared by you. It stacks into discipline, department and programme achievements. A record states what was studied and assessed and does not certify competence; it is not a licence, a professional title or an employment status.
Where do the data and the places come from?
Every faculty teaches on a twin of a real place built from open data; each layer carries its provider, licence and date, and every result on the Academy states its source. Maps and figures are indicators for teaching, never an assessment of a place.
How do I take part beyond the course?
Form a competence cell of three to seven people, study a shared pathway, take a supervised assignment in the National Working Groups, or bring a cohort from your institution. For organisations.

Key terms

Term

Misinformation

False or misleading information shared without intent to deceive.

Term

Disinformation

False information spread deliberately to deceive.

Term

Information operation

A coordinated effort to influence an audience, often through deceptive means.

Term

Content provenance

Information about where content came from and how it was changed.

ReportsContribute

Contribute evidence from this page.

Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.

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