All of your work for this class will be uploaded to a shared Google Drive folder rather than using a Moodle dropbox. This should address any upload issues you have experienced in the past using Moodle and makes it easier for me to comment on your shared documents. Please follow these instructions to create and share your Google Drive folder with me.

You will also be using Github and Medium to create and share content in this class. However, please don't create any new accounts until we have discussed creating an online presence in class.

You will have weekly assignments to complete before coming to class. These assignments will require you to attempt to use a variety (meaning, A LOT) of desktop and cloud-based tools to obtain, manipulate, and visualize data. You will be building a quiver of tools that will help you explore and support compelling data-driven stories and that will require patience and an ability to find online resources and tutorials to support your endeavors. We will talk more about this in class!

You will create two major projects for this course. The first will be a solo endeavor using data that I provide and that you use to create a visually compelling story. The second will require you to work in small groups - similar to the newsroom environment describe in The Data Journalism Handbook - to produce a high-quality, media-rich story from data that you obtain and manipulate. I will share both deadlines and guidelines for these projects during the second week of the semtester.