data journalism 2: interrogating, visualising and mashing

Online JournalismCity UniversityPaul Bradshaw

Data 2: Interrogating, visualising, mashing

Monday, 7 March 2011

5 things you need to know about eachData journalism in actionWalkthrough

Themes

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Interrogating data

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1. Data always needs cleaning up2. Treat the ‘source’ like a source3. Use the right ‘average’ and percentage4. Variation over time & space: context5. Spreadsheet tools are your friend - but always backup copies

5 things you need to know about interrogating data

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“What the Independent have done is confuse the UK’s deficit with our debt [making] the debt problem look around eight times worse than it is. And it used the whole of its front page to do so.”

- James BallMonday, 7 March 2011

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Measurement doesn't answer anything if there's only one variableStatistical significanceSample size and selectionControls and the placebo effectRead up.

What is the data worth?

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1. Variance is interesting.2. Variance is different for different variables and in different populations.3. The amount of variance is easily quantified.

- Philip Meyer, Precision Journalism

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Data > Text to columnsFind & replaceConditional formulas: =IF(condition, if met, if not)=COUNTIF(range, test)

Getting data in the right form

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Edit cells > common transformsEdit cells > split multi-valued cellsFacet > text facetExport...

Walkthrough: cleaning data in Google Refine

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Visualising data

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1. Choose the chart for the purpose2. It can be used to spot a lead3. Good design is when there’s nothing more to take away4. It should be self-contained & have refs5. Be careful with scales and classes

5 things you need to know about visualising data

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or http://chartchooser.juiceanalytics.com/Monday, 7 March 2011

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What is wrong with this picture?

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http://simplecomplexity.net/statistics-without-context/

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http://junkcharts.typepad.com/junk_charts/trifecta-checkup/

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ManyEyesTableauWordle, TagxedoBatchGeoGephiDelicious.com/paulb/visualisation+tools

Visualisation tools

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Walkthrough: visualising data with Google Gadgets

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Walkthrough: visualising data in ManyEyes

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Mashing data

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1. It is what a journalist does best2. Look for a point of connection: place? Person? Company? Date?3. What an API can do4. What APIs there are5. Mashups can be live, updated or static

5 things you need to know about mashing data

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Yahoo! PipesOpenHeatMapMapalistxFruitsScraperwikiMaptube

Mashup tools

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Inputs - Fetch Feed, CSV, Data, Page, YQL, Flickr, FormOperators - Filter, Sort, Unique, Union, Count, Split, Rename, Regex, Unique, Location extractor, URL BuilderOutputs - Map, Gallery, List, XML, KML

Walkthrough: making mashups with Yahoo! Pipes

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Format the spreadsheetPublish it as CSVCopy linkPaste it at OpenHeatMapFix any problems

Walkthrough: making mashups with OpenHeatMap

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Edit column > Add column by fetching URLsUse GREL (Google Refine Expression Language)Search web for help & examples

Walkthrough: grabbing geo data with Google Refine

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Questions?

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Links

OnlineJournalismClasses.tumblr.comDelicious.com/paulb/cityoj09Delicious.com/paulb/datajournalismDelicious.com/paulb/visualisationDelicious.com/paulb/statistics Delicious.com/paulb/mashups

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Before the lab: play with these techniques yourself, have problems, find solutions, raise questions. Install Google Refine and Tableau on your laptop to use.- Visualise, interrogate or mash data

Lab

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Books

Kaiser Fung - Numbers Rule Your WorldBen Goldacre - Bad ScienceDonna Wong - The WSJ Guide to Information GraphicsBrian Suda - A Practical Guide to Designing with Data

Monday, 7 March 2011