Overview of Teaching Data and Journalism Brant Houston Knight Chair in Investigative Reporting University of Illinois brant.houston@gmail.com

Why we use data in journalism To go beyond the anecdotal To find patterns and trends To find outliers To present our stories in more comprehensible, compelling and credible ways

Training sequence for professionals Preparation Training Evaluation Follow-up

Training sequence for students Preparation The Syllabus Instruction Evaluation

Preparation Keep it simple Short survey of students: Skills, experience, and expectations Assess technical needs and challenges Select software based on location Create realistic syllabus and examples Select relevant data Keep it simple

Training Early room set-up: Testing technology and room layout Introductions and start slowly Show first, then instruct Try a test exercise Keep it simple

Training Overall goals: For individual or organization or both? Three levels? Basic user, power user, data cruncher? Breaks Exercises and quizzes

Preparation for Professionals Share proposed program with organizers Share program with participants Ask participants to do some reading (Don’t expect all of them to do it.) Redundancy of materials: Online, sticks, and DVDs Newsroom culture? Keep it simple

Training Strategies for dealing with different skill levels, software and hardware Repetition and trial and errors Realizing journalists’ and students’ worries Dealing with fear of data and math Sequence: From basic to complex

Training Basic test dataset – Three columns and five rows, one screen. Data management before calculations – filter, sort and pivot tables The idea of analysis of subsets within subsets – nesting dolls Applied calculations – Median is a lie detector

Training Summarize during classes Create confidence Celebrate achievement Buddy system but not enablers Co-trainers and coaches and teaching assistants Quick early victories

Training Teaching three things: Motor skills, new scenery, and concepts It’s like going on a hike (Different paces, but periodically stopping and getting together) Find and know your style (voice) But borrow from the best Teaching is discovery and many paths to palace of wisdom

Training Get them to teach you Fun Humor Do your own learning every year Tip sheets each day or a manual or a book?

Evaluation for Professional Training Forms for students Have them fill evaluation forms immediately Clarify answers through one on one Compile and analyze

Follow-up Emailing Form online groups Re-send tip sheets and conference notifications Keep track of their accomplishments Use it or lose it

Sequence Spreadsheets and database managers (building datasets too) Statistical software Visualization of data through charts, maps timelines, social network analysis Tools and software for scraping and cleaning data Unstructured data

What to remember…fundamentals remain Credibility is at core of journalism Integrity checks of data lead to credibility Nearly all databases have flaws or are incomplete Digital tools have limitations Multi-sourcing is key Investigations include the lab, interviews and field work Adoption of new tools and methods does not always mean elimination of old