In spring 2022, I offered a course on Data Visualization (dataviz) and Storytelling as a special topic course in communication.
This course covered the process and ethical issues involved with creating a visualization and writing a story with data and related information.
Some of the major topics or modules included in this course were: data ethics, dataviz principles, data research and scraping, data cleaning, data visualization, data story narrative and web publishing of a data story.
Communication students specializing in journalism, Ad/PR or digital media can use the skills learned in this course.
Students master skills in spreadsheet use, including creation of pivot tables, dataviz creation with Flourish, DataWrapper or Tableau, cleaning data with OpenRefinery and publishing data story on WordPress.
A sample of student projects:
– Maternal Mortality: The Dangers of Parenthood (by Genevieve Green)
– Lack of Educational Access and Resources Creates Unequal Opportunities for BIPOC Elementary Students (by Johanna Husena)
– Baltimore City and Poverty (by Andres Rivas)
