5. 5 things you need to know about
interrogating data
1. Data always needs cleaning up
2. Treat the ‘source’ like a source
3. Use the right ‘average’ and
percentage
4. Variation over time & space: context
5. Spreadsheet tools are your friend -
but always backup copies
Monday, 7 March 2011
7. “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 Ball
Monday, 7 March 2011
9. What is the data worth?
Measurement doesn't answer anything if
there's only one variable
Statistical significance
Sample size and selection
Controls and the placebo effect
Read up.
Monday, 7 March 2011
10. 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
Monday, 7 March 2011
11. Getting data in the right form
Data > Text to columns
Find & replace
Conditional formulas:
=IF(condition, if met, if not)
=COUNTIF(range, test)
Monday, 7 March 2011
12. Walkthrough: cleaning data in
Google Refine
Edit cells > common transforms
Edit cells > split multi-valued cells
Facet > text facet
Export...
Monday, 7 March 2011
14. 5 things you need to know about
visualising data
1. Choose the chart for the purpose
2. It can be used to spot a lead
3. Good design is when there’s nothing
more to take away
4. It should be self-contained & have refs
5. Be careful with scales and classes
Monday, 7 March 2011
26. 5 things you need to know about
mashing data
1. It is what a journalist does best
2. Look for a point of connection: place?
Person? Company? Date?
3. What an API can do
4. What APIs there are
5. Mashups can be live, updated or
static
Monday, 7 March 2011
31. Walkthrough: making mashups
with OpenHeatMap
Format the spreadsheet
Publish it as CSV
Copy link
Paste it at OpenHeatMap
Fix any problems
Monday, 7 March 2011
32. Walkthrough: grabbing geo data
with Google Refine
Edit column > Add column by fetching
URLs
Use GREL (Google Refine Expression
Language)
Search web for help & examples
Monday, 7 March 2011
35. Lab
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
Monday, 7 March 2011
36. Books
Kaiser Fung - Numbers Rule Your World
Ben Goldacre - Bad Science
Donna Wong - The WSJ Guide to
Information Graphics
Brian Suda - A Practical Guide to
Designing with Data
Monday, 7 March 2011