Data Literacy for Journalists

Understand the role and importance of data for journalism

With a world increasingly driven by data, knowledge of data and skills to handle data have become increasingly important for journalists.

This six-week course from the University of Sheffield and Reach PLC will empower you with the skills to understand, use, and report data accurately and ethically.

After completing this course, you will improve your data literacy and have the foundational knowledge and skills to use data for journalism.

Learn how to use FOI techniques for data collection

The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act is an important tool for journalists that allows access to and publishing of information held by public authorities.

You’ll learn to use FOI to access and collate information and improve your data collection skills to create comprehensive datasets.

Discover how to clean data, perform data analysis and present data

While data is powerful, it is not valuable in its raw form. As a data journalist, you will be required to transform raw data into information that can be easily understood and utilised.

On this course, you’ll learn to identify basic errors in data, prepare data for analysis, and improve your understanding of data. These skills will help you to present data and create valuable insights and information that can be used to enrich journalistic reporting.

Explore data ethics with the University of Sheffield and Reach PLC

Data ethics is an essential topic in data journalism. As a journalist, you need to employ ethical principles and fair practice in the analysis, interpretation, and dissemination of data.

With the expertise of your course educators, you’ll be equipped with the skills you need in order to present accurate, impartial, and informative data that protects sensitive and personal information and serves to further knowledge and understanding.

This course is designed for working journalists and students of journalism who want to improve their data literacy and use data in their journalism.

• Data for Journalists
• Getting started
• What is data?
• What is data journalism?
• What does this mean for me?
• Week 1 roundup
• Collecting Data
• Types of data used in (data) journalism
• Collecting existing (open) datasets
• Using Google Sheets to collect data
• What does it mean for me?
• Week 2 roundup
• FOI skills
• What is the FOI Act
• How to make a request
• Disappointing response
• Exemptions
• Ideas for FOI
• Week 3 round up
• Cleaning Data
• What do we mean by cleaning data?
• Why do we need to clean data?
• How to clean data?
• What does it mean for me?
• Week 4 roundup
• Analysing Data
• Verification is the key to good analysis
• Useful tools for data analysis
• Basic data analysis knowledge and skills
• What does it mean for me?
• Week 5 roundup
• Presenting data
• The problems of data visualisations
• Useful tools for data visualisations
• What do audiences need?
• Visualising data in Excel
• What does it mean for me?
• Week 6 roundup