While telling stories with data has been part of the news practice since its earliest days, it is in the midst of a renaissance. Graphics desks which used to be deemed as “the art department,” a subfield outside the work of newsrooms, are becoming a core part of newsrooms’ operation. Those people (they often have various titles: data journalists, news artists, graphic reporters, developers, etc.) who design news graphics are expected to be full-fledged journalists and work closely with reporters and editors. The purpose of this class is to learn how to think about the visual presentation of data, how and why it works, and how to doit the right way. We will learn how to make graphs like The New York Times, Vox, Pew, and FiveThirtyEight. In the end, you can share–embed your beautiful charts in publications, blog posts, and websites.
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There are 6 modules in this course
In this module, you will become familiar with the course, your classmates, and the learning environment.
What's included
1 video3 readings2 quizzes1 discussion prompt
This module starts with a summary of the history and emerging trends of data visualization in journalism. You will then explore various types of charts and compare their pros and cons. By doing so, you will be able to recognize a wide variety of graphical forms and evaluate their capabilities/shortcomings as well as what situations each chart type is typically used in storytelling. We will also go through the classic reading by Edward Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and learn how to locate and articulate errors and deception in data visualization.
What's included
3 videos2 readings1 quiz1 ungraded lab
In this module, we will first look at some examples of successful data visualizations in journalism. We will then drill down on numbers, learning the process of transforming data into information. Next, we will explore theories in visual perception and concepts in visualization and familiarize ourselves with the visual channel ranking—a useful guideline in designing news visualizations. You will evaluate pre-attentive attributes and why they are important in visualizations. You will also have hands-on practice to learn how data wrangling helps us make informed decisions.
What's included
3 videos2 readings1 quiz1 peer review2 ungraded labs
In this module, we will learn about the frameworks and techniques that can be used to integrate visualizations into a narrative. You will examine the role messaging and interactions play in drawing readers into a story package that contains greater detail. For the hands-on exercise, you will start creating graphs in Python. You will apply design theories and concepts you previously learned to build line charts, bar charts, and scatter plots.
What's included
3 videos2 readings1 quiz2 ungraded labs
In this final module, we will explore some related concepts of cognition and memory in visualization. You will examine the importance of using the “right” amount of color in the right place and apply Gestalt principles to de-clutter your data visualization. In the end, we will work on various exercises to create interactive maps with Python.
What's included
3 videos2 readings1 quiz1 peer review1 ungraded lab
What's included
1 quiz
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Recommended if you're interested in Data Analysis
Google Cloud
Northeastern University
Coursera Project Network
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Reviewed on Jun 11, 2020
Comprehensive course to helping us how to use data for journalism as well as will help us in understanding data in newspapers.
Reviewed on Apr 25, 2020
It helped to learn a lot about Visualization and enabled with the desired skills of presenting data using python and Jupyter notebook.
Reviewed on Jul 12, 2020
Well organised and with a lot of commitment from the faculty. I would like to see deeper discussions on most of the topic in the future. Thank you
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