#Tip: Video of data visualisation tools tutorial at #ijf13

By Jorge Franganillo on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

At the International Journalism Festival in Perugia late last month, a tutorial was delivered by freelance information visualiser Gregor Aisch, on three key tools for building data visualisations “on a shoestring”.

Video of the workshop has been uploaded to YouTube by the festival and is also embedded below. The tutorial covered three platforms: Datawrapper, QGis and Tableau.

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#Tip: Bookmark this list of resources on statistics and data analysis

By Jorge Fran Ganillo on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

The ability to understand data and statistics, or at least turn them into a story, is a central skill in news and investigative journalism. The helpful folks over at 10,000 Words have put together a list of books and resources that can give journalists a solid foundation of the basics.

If you want to find out more about getting started in data journalism this recent Journalism.co.uk podcast features some expert advice. Keep an eye out for more information about data journalism on Journalism.co.uk in the future.

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link.

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#Podcast: Getting started in data journalism

Image by Adikos on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

The ability to analyse and untangle datasets is a vital skill for journalists in the age of endless information, so this week’s podcast focuses on how to get started in data journalism.

Getting started in data journalism and getting further than the basics can seem like a mountain of programming tools and coding languages, but the experts we spoke to describe how to take the first steps.

• Paul Bradshaw, online journalist, lecturer and blogger, Help Me Investigate.com
• Marianne Bouchart, web producer and data journalism projects co-ordinator, Bloomberg News
• Nicola Hughes, data journalist, Dataminer UK, 2011/12 Knight-Mozilla fellow at the Guardian, soon to join The Times

Podcast: Download

You can hear future podcasts by signing up to the Journalism.co.uk iTunes podcast feed.

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#Tip: Tools for creating visualisations of data

By Jorge Fran Ganillo on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

The website for .net magazine has posted a list of 20 tools and platforms journalists may find useful when looking to visualise data. The list also organises the tools by type, based on users’ skillsets or the sort of visualisation they want to build.

See the post by Brian Suda here.

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link.

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#Tip: Check out Source for data journalism inspiration

By Jorge Fran Ganillo on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

If you haven’t come across it already, Source was launched late last year as part of the Knight-Mozilla OpenNews initiative. The platform says it aims to “amplify the impact of journalism code and the community of developers, designers, journalists, and editors who make it”.

A particularly interesting element of the site in terms of training is Source Learning, which seems to be a useful reference for anyone working in data, who can use is to see how others approach projects.

For example, according to the site, this section shares the background to the techniques used by others, such as “how journo-coders find and build web-native stories, what kinds of questions they ask of data” and “the ethics they encounter along the way”.

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link.

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#Tip: Understand open data with ODI guide

By Jorge Franganillo on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

For those keen to get started in data journalism, the Open Data Institute website’s guide to open data may prove useful in gaining a detailed understanding of what open data is, and the differences between big data, linked data and midata. The guide also outlines to organisations the benefits of opening up their data.

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – advice for journalists and developers working together

On her Data Miner UK blog Nicola Hughes outlines the ten tips she gave at a HacksHackers Canterbury meetup recently, on how to manage “the relations between what the journalists need and what the developers need” when working together on data projects.

Tips include doing “the journalism first”, to “be comfortable with your tools” and to “work open source”.

See the full post here.

If you have a tip you would like to submit to us at Journalism.co.uk email us using this link.

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#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – questions to ask of data you’re working with

An article written by Owni.fr’s Nicolas Kayser-Bril in the Data Journalism Handbook published earlier this year, republished on the Media Helping Media website, helpfully highlights three key questions journalists should be asking of the data they work with.

The three “very simple” but important questions, outlined in his article, are:

• How was the data collected
• What’s in there to learn?
• How reliable is the information?

Here is a link to a copy of the full handbook which “can be freely copied, redistributed and reused under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license”.

You may also be interested to know Journalism.co.uk runs training courses in data journalism. There are two levels: introduction to data journalism, being held on 10 September, and intermediate data journalism, which will run on 11 September. Both are being run by Paul Bradshaw.

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#followjourn – @smfrogers Simon Rogers/data journalist

Who? Simon Rogers

Where? Simon Rogers is editor of the Guardian Datablog and Datastore. Hear him speak about open data in this week’s podcast.

Twitter? @smfrogers

Just as we like to supply you with fresh and innovative tips, we are recommending journalists to follow online too. Recommended journalists can be from any sector of the industry: please send suggestions (you can nominate yourself) to Rachel at journalism.co.uk; or to @journalismnews.

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• #followjourn – @NateLanxon Nate Lanxon/Editor
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• #followjourn – @ruudelmendorp Ruud Elmendorp/freelance video journalist
• #followjourn – @benfenton Ben Fenton/head of ‘live news desk’
• #followjourn – @david_rae David Rae/editorial director

#Tip of the day from Journalism.co.uk – dive into the data journalism handbook

Any journalist interested in data journalism and improving their skills in this area should take a look at the new data journalism handbook, published this weekend. The handbook started as a draft guide pulled together in just 48 hours at last year’s Mozilla Festival in London.

Contributors to the guide include data journalism experts from outlets including the Guardian, Wired.co.uk, the BBC, the Open Knowledge Foundation and the New York Times. The guide includes advice on finding and using data, with plenty of case studies along the way.

The handbook also states that it “can be freely copied, redistributed and reused under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license”.

Contributors to the Data Journalism Handbook retain copyright over their respective contributions, and have kindly agreed to release them under the terms of this license

Journalism.co.uk runs training courses in data journalism. There are two levels: introduction to data journalism, being held on 9 or 28 May, and intermediate data journalism, which will run on 29 May. Both are being run by Kevin Anderson.

Those looking to expand their skills quickly can book on one of the introduction to data journalism courses and the intermediate course. If you book both options the cost is at the reduced rate. 

This is the last time we will be offering this course led by Kevin Anderson due to his commitments – so take advantage of the final opportunity to learn from this former BBC and Guardian journalist.

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