Data Journalism

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Syllabus
Outline
Resources
Instructor
Final Project
Final Project Submissions
Week 14 - Above and Beyond
Class 25: New Frontiers
Class 26: Final Presentations
Week 13 - Revisiting the Web
Class 23: Figma to Web and SVG
Class 24: Advanced CSS
Week 12 - Revisiting Graphics
Class 21: Advanced Charting
Class 22: Prototyping in Figma
Week 11 - Embedding
Class 20: Basic Embedding
Week 10 - Making Interactives
Class 18: Being Trilingual
Text Content Exercise
Second Interactive Assignment
Class 19: The Wicked Web
Week 9 - Intro to JavaScript
Class 16: Basic JavaScript
Basic JavaScript Assignment
Class 17: Your First Interactive
First Interactive Assignment
Week 8 - Websites
Class 14: Making a website
AutoSepta Site Exercise
CodePen Conversion Assignment
Class 15: The Linked Web
Linked Web Assignment
Week 7 - Halfway Point
Class 12: Recap
Mid-Semester Survey Assignment
Class 13: AutoSepta Exploration
Crash Data
Week 6 - HTML
Class 10: Intro to HTML
HTML Bridges Assignment
Class 11: Intro to CSS
HTML Website Assignment
Week 5 - Working with Figma
Class 8: Diving into Figma
Figma Tips
Bar Graph Assignment
Class 9: Figma like a Pro
Portfolio Mock Assignment
Week 4 - Intro to Design
Class 6: Records, Pitches, Design
Class 7: Basics of Visual Design
Sketch Assignment
Week 3 - Public Records
Class 5: Public Records
FOIA FBI Letter Assignment
Week 2 - Spreadsheet Deep-Dive
Class 3: Strength in Numbers
Analyzing Election Results
Assignment: Election Results
Class 4: Pivot Tables
Pivot Tables: An Illustrated Guide
Assignment: Pivot Tables
Project Pitch
Week 1 - Intro to Data Journalism
Ice Breaker
Class 1: Intro
Example stories
Coding practice
Survey
Mini Assignment
Class 2: Data and Spreadsheets
Data Formats
Spreadsheet Quick Tips
Example Datasets
Spreadsheet Mini Assignment
Tools
Spreadsheet Preview

Data Formats

This page is a quick reference on common data formats. This week, we will only be focusing on tabular data formats that can be imported into Google Sheets.

Tabular data formats:

  • csv: Comma-separated values. This file contains a list of tabular records (“tabular” is a fancy way to say spreadsheet, or matrix). Each line of the file corresponds to a row, and each line contains multiple values separated by commas (hence comma-separated) corresponding to columns. This kind of file can be imported into Google Sheets.
  • xls and xlsx: Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. Like a CSV, this kind of file describes a list of tabular records. The format is more flexible though, and allows for multiple sheets within the same file (pages of data, if you will) as well as formatting. This kind of file can also be imported into Google Sheets.

Geographic data formats

  • shp: Shapefile. This file stores geographic features (points, lines, or an area) — basically shapes that correspond to geography. It can also hold associated data for each feature, e.g. the name and population for each county in a state.
  • GeoJSON: Geographic JavaScript Object Notation. This file describes pretty much the same as a Shapefile above, but it is in the JSON file format (JavaScript Object Notation), which let’s JavaScript web application read it more easily.
  • kml: Keyhole Markup Language. We won’t really look at this format in this class, but it’s a way to specify geographic annotations and 3D shapes. It could be used to specify the shapes of buildings on Google Earth.

Programmatic

  • API: Application Programming Interface. This is not really a data format, in that it doesn’t describe a file type. Instead, it refers to some interface with which you can request data with code and get results back quickly. In most cases, APIs are web applications that return data in one of the formats above after you specify your desired parameters.