the kdmcinfo weblog

Blog posts in "Databases and Maps"

June Multimedia Institute: What you’ll take away

By Mitzi Mock, May 9, 2013

The June 10-21 Multimedia Institute is an intensive multi-platform training program designed to equip journalists, educators and other professionals with skills in visual storytelling, data visualization and social media.

Alberto Cairo Presentation for May 4 Data Journalism Symposium

By Guest Blogger, May 7, 2013

Visual communications expert Alberto Cairo shares his slideshow presentation on the art of infographics.

LIVE Storify: Complexity & Context Data Journalism Symposium

By Guest Blogger, April 30, 2013

Journalists, technologists and civic leaders talk trends and implications for the future of data journalism.

Q&A with Alberto Cairo: Exploring the art and ethics of infographics

By Mitzi Mock, April 18, 2013

Alberto Cairo on the art of infographics and the ethical dilemmas that come with the field of data visualization.

Q&A with Catherine Bracy: Technology, innovation and the public sector

By Mitzi Mock, April 12, 2013

Catherine Bracy of Code for America wants to bring 21st century technology and innovation to the public sector.

Our First Ever Data Journalism Symposium

By Mitzi Mock, March 20, 2013

Data Symposium at kdmcBerkeley-transforming the way we tell stories with data. For data journalists, non-profits interested in new ideas for communicating information, and higher education professionals.

Free Online Training Series in Data Journalism

By Mitzi Mock, February 6, 2013

We are bringing world class digital training straight to you. And, yep, it’s FREE.

Unleash your inner data geek

By Mitzi Mock, January 30, 2013

Join our spring Visualizing Data Workshop Series.

Custom Trainings: Supporting the Next Generation of Broadcast Media

By Mitzi Mock, December 10, 2012

How can television and radio stations effectively adapt their content for the web, especially new mobile platforms? We can help.

Data visualization workshop take-aways

By Vickie Hammarstedt, November 9, 2012

Examples of interactive charts and maps - take-aways from the Data Visualization workshop in January 2013.

Data Visualization for Storytellers

By Mitzi Mock, November 6, 2012

Some of the most compelling information about our world can be found in data. But just because you shape those numbers into a graph doesn't make it a story.

Beyond Infographics: 12 Ways to Visualize Data

By Guest Blogger, October 30, 2012

Guest blogger Patrick Winfield looks beyond the basic pie charts and infographics to explore other techniques and tools that can help visualize data.

Can Twitter predict an election?

By Mitzi Mock, October 15, 2012

Our very own data viz guru, Len DeGroot, has built a living tool that predicts the winner of congressional elections each day based on ongoing Twitter feeds.

Social Media Influence: An experiment in information mobilization

By Mitzi Mock, October 9, 2012

influence chart 

This year we’re hearing a lot of buzz about the potential influence of social media in the upcoming election. It makes sense: more than a third of us are turning to social networking sites for political news.  But how successful are we really at using these sites to raise awareness about particular issues—especially those that lack a sensational ...

Information is Beautiful Awards Celebrates Data Viz Experts

By Mitzi Mock, September 10, 2012

Data is beautiful. Skeptical? Check out the finalists for the first Information is Beautiful Awards.

Storytellers: Master the Modern Toolbox

By Mitzi Mock, September 4, 2012

Reporting meaningful stories with the latest digital tools can be confusing, even for the tech savvy journalist. Let us help.

First look at CartoDB 1.0 data mapping platform

By , April 4, 2012

Easy data mapping easy for beginners and powerful APIs for data journalists.

freeDive updates and future plans

By Len De Groot, February 21, 2012

One month later: What we've changed and what we plan to do next.

Introducing freeDive: Searchable databases for everyone

By Len De Groot, February 1, 2012

KDMC at UC Berkeley is proud to announce the launch of freeDive, a simple way to make searchable databases for the web.

KDMC Alumnus Patrick Doyle wins the Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism.

By Kris Gibson, October 28, 2011

KDMC Alumnus Patrick Doyle wins the Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism.

KDMC Alumna Launches Online Tech Magazine.

By Kris Gibson, October 26, 2011

KDMC Fellow Launches Online Tech Magazine.

Five QGIS tips for Mac users

By Len De Groot, October 6, 2011

QGIS is a great tool but it helps to be aware of a few workarounds.

Intro to data cleaning tutorial

By Len De Groot, August 25, 2011

Learn how spreadsheets work, basic data-cleaning workflow and how to use formulas and functions to clean data.

Development ends for Protovis

By Len De Groot, June 30, 2011

Stanford visualization team drops development of Protovis, switches to D3.js.

Better timelines through editing

By Len De Groot, April 7, 2011

Tough editing makes TimelineSetter interactive timelines more effective.

Census maps that resonate: Q&A with Bob Rebach

By Len De Groot, March 1, 2011

Interactive map led NorthJersey.com in page views for February.

Data, journalism and your career

By Jerry Monti, October 11, 2010

What can a journalist do that provides high value to the news organization? What is the next tech skill that you can learn that will make you a "keeper" if there are more cutbacks? One answer to these questions is Data.

Protovis JavaScript Charts vs Google Gadgets

By Len De Groot, October 5, 2010

Can or should JavaScript data visualization libraries replace Google Gadgets?

Interactive Census Workshop

By Len De Groot, September 7, 2010

Interactive Census Workshop

 

The KDMC at UC Berkeley is offering a customized visual storytelling workshop to train journalists on new ways to process data from the 2010 Census. Fellows will illustrate the information using visualization and mapping tools to create a clearer, more meaningful picture of the complex statistics gathered in the national survey.

In this intensive six-day workshop, you will learn to ...

KDMC Wins DataSF Hack-a-Thon

By Scot Hacker, November 9, 2009

KDMC recently participated in the DataSF Hack-a-Thon - a competition which challenged developers to make use of a publicly available dataset in a short period of time. At the end of the day, KDMC's entry, which used a database of 64,000 SF trees, won the competition.

Finding longitude and latitude of a location using Google Maps

By Jeremy Rue, May 2, 2008

Using Google Maps, you can find the longitude and latitude coordinates of any location. The trick is to center the map on the point you want to retrieve and type some javascript code in the URL.

Interactive Map on Dangerous Intersections

By Paul Grabowicz, April 24, 2008

The Bay Area Newspaper Group has an interactive map on dangerous intersections for which users are generating the content, and there's quite a lot of it.

Here's the map.

And here's their story about it and how people are contributing to it.

Palm Beach Post - Data and Discussions on Neighborhood Level

By Paul Grabowicz, April 2, 2008

The Palm Beach Post has a Backyard Post section that provides databases, map mashups, news and online discussions organized down to the neighborhood level.

A great combination of hyper-local with a variety of information sources (thanks to Technolo-j for the tip on this)