Registration has opened for the 12th International Symposium on Online Journalism(ISOJ), taking place April 1–2, 2011, at the University of Texas at Austin. Journalists, media executives, and academics from North America, South America, Asia, Africa, and Europe, will participate in two days of panel discussions, which feature keynote addresses from executives of NPR, CNN.com, and Patch.com.

Participants will discuss many facets of online journalism, including innovations in the industry, economic models, technology and design, social media, nonprofit journalism models, and community engagement with the news.

The annual event has been organized since 1999 by Professor Rosental C. Alves, the Knight Chair in International Journalism and director of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas at UT Austin.

The ISOJ panels by industry representatives from leading media organizations, including BBC News, The Daily, The New York Times, Washington Post, and Mexico’s Grupo Reforma. Other panels focus on academic research, featuring professors and graduate students. The call for research-oriented papers this year generated a record number of papers.

The Symposium receives generous support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Dallas Morning News, and UT’s College of Communication.

“We have a great lineup of first-class speakers from around the country and around the world who will touch on some of the most important issues related to the evolution of journalism in this digital era,” Alves says. “We will learn from diverse topics such as the project to transform NPR from a radio network into a digital, multimedia enterprise and how the first newspaper produced for the iPad has been designed. We’ll learn about the global operations of CNN.com and the local efforts of Patch.com and other companies.”

For the second year, the ISOJ will take place at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center on the UT campus. A live stream of the event will be accessible from the Symposium website.

Registration is now available online.

The ISOJ will begin Friday, April 1, with a keynote address by Vivian Schiller, president and CEO of NPR. The keynote speaker Friday afternoon is Meredith Artley, vice president and managing editor of CNN.com.

Panels on Friday dealing with the industry perspective will examine “Paywalls: Charging for news content. Does it work?” “Designing for iPad and other mobile devices.” Research panels Friday will cover “Examining the innovation in the industry” and “All about the Tweet and More.”

On Saturday, April 2, the morning keynote speaker is author and consultant Madanmohan Rao, of Bangalore, India. In the afternoon, Warren Webster, president of Patch.com, will deliver the keynote address.

Panels on Saturday featuring industry members will explore “Nonprofit journalism online: Is the model sustainable?” and “Engaging the communities with the news.” Research panels Saturday are “Nuts and Bolts of Online Journalism” and “Beyond the Conversation, Beyond Engagement.”