Combine your database and data visualization skills to find, filter, analyze, and visualize data as a publishable package for the web.
Elements of Assertive Data Journalism
An introduction to data journalism, how to count, how to research, and understanding the elements of a data story. We also dive into doing public records requests and using spreadsheets to aggregate and filter data.
DIY Databases
Some of the most important journalism involves finding that there just is no official data -- and then being able to efficiently collect and organize the data needed to do unique analysis and journalism. The recent crowdsourced initiatives to track police-involved homicides are valuable case studies for learning best practices and the complications of real-world data collection.
More DIY Databases and introduction to SQL
We continue looking at "homemade" databases and start to learn the concepts and basics of Structured Query Language and database programming.
SQL Syntax and Aggregations
A real grounding in basic SQL syntax. We won't cover much that we can't already do with a spreadsheet, but with SQL, we'll learn how to do it with much bigger datasets.
Data Joins, More SQL, More Visualizations
The ability to join two or more datasets is one of the most powerful techniques of the data journalist. We learn the SQL syntax to express these joins.
Midterm Marlarkey
Some catch-up time, a take home midterm, and a guest speaker.
The points and shapes of maps
Besides being a very valuable and much sought-after visualization skill, mapping allows us to continue thinking about how different kinds of data can be joined, even without a database. We'll also cover best practices with mapping and get an overview of the latest mapping tools.
Data research and wrangling
Not much different than other kinds of journalistic research, but profoundly important in the work of data wrangling, collection, and analysis. Since it's that time of year again, we will also take a look at various U.S.-election-related data.
Data visualization and publication
An emphasis on seeing how effective data wrangling and research leads to powerful and expansive data visualization. We also learn how to publish interactive and static visualizations independent of a platform or content-management system.
Thanksgiving Break
No classes
Project discussion and work time.
Last week of classes. Workshop and project-showoff time in the lab.