| JOUR 319 | Fall 2009 |
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Computer-Assisted Reporting |
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(Click class titles for useful URLs, handouts, and/or other notes.) Class 1 (September 11): The Internet I What's computer-assisted reporting?; tools; domain names; file paths and URLs; Internet research tools; finding people for fun and profit; mailing lists; Usenet; government resources, online publications, and wire services. Class 2 (September 18): The Internet II Internet sources; dos and don'ts; anatomy of an e-mail; reading e-mail headers; e-mail interviews; Web 2.0. Class 3 (September 25): The Spreadsheet I What's a spreadsheet?; basic spreadsheet elements; basic equations and functions; combining equations and functions; sorting; resizing; file formats and delimiters. Class 4 (October 2): The Spreadsheet II Additional operations; graphing data; sample exercises; so, like, wtf is this all used for? Class 5 (October 9): Spreadsheet Analysis Work Time in class spent working on the Spreadsheet Analysis assignment - or we move on to the next class. Class 6 (October 16): Statistics and Meaning I What statistics tell us; the math-illiterateÕs guide to statistics; standard deviation; uncertainty; probability; error and confidence. Class 7 (October 23): Statistics and Meaning II The birthday trick; pitfalls of statistical research; correlation vs. causation; miracles; can you prove a negative? Class 8 (October 30): The Database I What's a database?; structure and varieties of database; making a database; entering and importing data; layouts; sorting and searching. Class 9 (November 6): The Database II Advanced
searching; relations; examples of real-life award-winning database journalism. Class 10 (November 13): Data Analysis Using
spreadsheets and databases together; more examples to work on. Class 11 (November 20): Database Analysis Work & Stat Reporting Lessons learned from the Stat Reporting Critique, and time in class spent working on the Database Analysis assignment - or we move on. Class 12 (November 27): Data Mining Work Time in class spent working on the Data Mining assignment - or we move on to the next class. Class 13 (December 4): Last Class Short in-class assignment (nope, not officially a test, no siree).
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