Out of the Spreadsheet and Into the Community
Introduces data to nontechnical audiences using open-source tools and creative approaches
by MIT Center for Civic Media
Target Skill Level:
Beginner
Audience:
Nonprofit staff
This presentation is structured around five steps: asking questions, finding data, finding a story, telling your story, trying it out.
- In “asking the questions,” the presentation introduces easy-to-use data processing and analysis tools such as WTFcsv, which characterizes each column's data type and contents within a comma-delimited file. It is one of DataBasic’s easy-to-use web tools that introduce concepts of working with data.
- In “telling the story,” the presentation gives the example of a Data Mural (a data story told through visual form) as a creative way to give meaning to the statistics.
This is one of many trainings on the Data Therapy website. Others include “Communicating Impact in the Arts” and “Empowering People with Data: Tips and Tricks for Creative Data Literacy.” The website also documents activities from the workshops.
Course Categories: General Data Literacy