[Sigia-l] the role of IAs in Data Journalism?

[eric scheid]

On 4/1/11 5:13 PM, "Stephen Collins" <trib at acidlabs.org> wrote:

> More than anything, the IA's capacity to take large buckets of data
> and identify and expose structure and themes in that data is, I think,
> somewhere we can add value.

I can see at least three arenas where IAs could be involved.

    a) helping the original publishing of the data
    b) helping journalists etc process third party data
    c) helping to publish those stories, ie. making web sites

We've traditionally been involved in (c), especially alongside interaction
designers (who do the bulk of the design of the story widgets). We've always
had the opportunity to do (a) but few websites provide a data API (our focus
has been on individual users accessing the content). Area (b) is a new area
for most of us.

Regardless, all three areas will require development of new skills and
understandings.


> I'll be giving a talk at a conference in March around the issue of
> open data (amongst other matters), it's intrinsic and often unrealised
> social and economic value, with a particular focus on public sector
> information (as the public sector is where I do the bulk of my work).

Will you be also referencing Linked Data?

http://linkeddata.org/

   "Linked Data is about using the Web to connect related data that wasn't
    previously linked, or using the Web to lower the barriers to linking
    data currently linked using other methods. More specifically, Wikipedia
    defines Linked Data as "a term used to describe a recommended best
    practice for exposing, sharing, and connecting pieces of data,
    information, and knowledge on the Semantic Web using URIs and RDF."

e.