Sometimes though its enough that they can go away and say with some authority that they are aware of what data journalism is and offer an informed opinion or make an informed choice.

As has been discussed in many conferences it is possible to go down a very technical route, which just isn’t suitable for many of our students who comes from arts backgrounds and often have quite weak existing data skills. Fear of numbers, past failure in this area, often resulting in lack of interest can be a problem. But it doesn’t have to be complicated. At the risk of ‘dumbing down’, I go in very gently.

My route in? Data journalism fits neatly with sessions I do on the creation of info-graphics in print (InDesign). IMHO students tend to have quite good skills on the ‘output’ side and can come up with increasingly creative ways to present data in attractive ways, but are less interested in some other bits that involves spreadsheets and getting hands dirty with databases. I need to get better at delivering this kind of stuff and am interested in discovering interesting routes at the back end.

But student feedback has been generally good and both tutor and students have had unexpected ‘light bulb’ moments. If nothing else, students understand the concept of ‘data smog’ and that there is an increasingly important role for journalists here. I take that to be quite a good first step on which to build.