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University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Visualization for Data Journalism

While telling stories with data has been part of the news practice since its earliest days, it is in the midst of a renaissance. Graphics desks which used to be deemed as “the art department,” a subfield outside the work of newsrooms, are becoming a core part of newsrooms’ operation. Those people (they often have various titles: data journalists, news artists, graphic reporters, developers, etc.) who design news graphics are expected to be full-fledged journalists and work closely with reporters and editors. The purpose of this class is to learn how to think about the visual presentation of data, how and why it works, and how to doit the right way. We will learn how to make graphs like The New York Times, Vox, Pew, and FiveThirtyEight. In the end, you can share–embed your beautiful charts in publications, blog posts, and websites. This course assumes you understand basic coding skills, preferably Python. However, we also provide a brief review on Python in Module 1, in case you want to refresh yourself on the basics and perform simple data analysis.

Status: Data Analysis
Status: Plotly
BeginnerCourse18 hours

Featured reviews

LS

4.0Reviewed Feb 23, 2021

Lectures by professor Ng are excellent. But I found that the final project relies too heavily on Python coding, which wasn't as covered (there are ungraded exercises in the previous lessons).

AA

5.0Reviewed Jun 11, 2020

Comprehensive course to helping us how to use data for journalism as well as will help us in understanding data in newspapers.

DB

5.0Reviewed Apr 25, 2020

It helped to learn a lot about Visualization and enabled with the desired skills of presenting data using python and Jupyter notebook.

QY

5.0Reviewed Sep 22, 2020

Love her way of teaching, very clear and in a very good pace. I hope she can have more classes on Data journalism.

DC

5.0Reviewed Jul 12, 2020

Well organised and with a lot of commitment from the faculty. I would like to see deeper discussions on most of the topic in the future. Thank you

AB

5.0Reviewed Jan 3, 2021

I genuinely enjoyed learning in this class. It is hoped that more online classes from this professor or similar content could be found.

SG

5.0Reviewed May 10, 2022

I truely enjoyed the contents and teaching in this online course. It's very helpful for my projects as an intern in journalism. Thanks so much, Dr. Ng. Amazing course.

WL

5.0Reviewed Dec 25, 2020

Dr. Ng is clear and concise in her explanations and did a great job creating an entry-level overview course on data visualization which she obviously has a great wealth of knowledge.

HH

5.0Reviewed Sep 23, 2019

Thanks very much for great content and the instructor did a great job, and her materials were very use helpful and relevant! Great experience!

MG

5.0Reviewed Jul 12, 2020

Good for fundamental knowledge of data visualization in a journalistic perspective.It is also inspiring for young people like me to get ready to step into the world of data visualization.Great course!

SS

4.0Reviewed Feb 9, 2021

The course can be bit more interesting with some suspense and current trending scenarios

CL

5.0Reviewed Oct 17, 2021

Took this class for my job which requires lots of data visualization. Enjoy the classes a lot and learn so so much from it! The slides are easy to follow and very attractive to learn.

All reviews

Showing: 20 of 30

Harold Hernandez‎
5.0
Reviewed Sep 23, 2019
Yonggang
5.0
Reviewed Apr 24, 2020
Dr Sachin Batra
5.0
Reviewed Apr 26, 2020
Amjad Ali
5.0
Reviewed Jun 12, 2020
Miki Griffin
5.0
Reviewed Jul 13, 2020
David Castineira
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Reviewed Jul 13, 2020
Sarah Johnson
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Reviewed Jun 29, 2020
Emily Eo
5.0
Reviewed Sep 23, 2020
Queenie Yong
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Reviewed Sep 23, 2020
wai wai law
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Reviewed Dec 25, 2020
Jorge Ruiz
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Reviewed Nov 30, 2020
Jamie C
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Reviewed Jan 14, 2021
Alice B
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Reviewed Jan 4, 2021
Sam Gore
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Reviewed May 11, 2022
Cathy Loomis
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Reviewed Oct 18, 2021
Vivek Vs
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Reviewed Jan 24, 2022
Sam Beardsworth
1.0
Reviewed Jan 4, 2021
Maha Bashri
1.0
Reviewed Jun 21, 2020
Gigi Gin
5.0
Reviewed Jun 9, 2022
Ryan Robert
5.0
Reviewed Jan 3, 2023