Course Description
Familiarizes students with the conceptual, procedural, and technical aspects of telling newsworthy stories through visual depictions of information. Students will practice gathering and processing data, executing basic statistical procedures, and creating original explanatory and informational graphics for news.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students:
Evaluation of graduate students differs significantly from that
of undergraduate students. Not only will graduate students be
assigned more readings and additional projects, they will also
be graded with higher expectations than undergraduate students.
Specifically, graduate students will be assigned an additional
research or applied project depending upon the discretion of
the instructor. Research projects may involve secondary
research reviews and synthesis, whereas primary research
studies will involve collection and analysis of data. Applied
projects will consist of an original professional-level project
delivered as a written report and/or oral presentation.
Athena Title
Data Gathering and Visual
Undergraduate Prerequisite
Permission of department
Graduate Prerequisite
Permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall and spring
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
Students will identify roles for data visualization in effective story telling. Students will locate and gather data from a variety of public sources. Students will clean data and compute statistics for use in graphics. Students will create graphical stories that are informative, clear, and incorporate evidence-based format and design decisions. Students will write effective text for all elements of graphic- driven stories. Students will make audience-appropriate and ethical decisions in visual representations. Students will create meaningful and accurate illustrations for use in graphics. Students will apply principles of effective user experience design to the planning of interactive graphic stories.
Topical Outline
Principles of visual design Evaluating informational graphics Executing layouts Finding and cleaning data Telling stories with data: graphs and charts Typography and color Using maps to inform Explanatory and process graphics Designing for user interaction Programming interactive graphics