Course date

14 June - 21 June, 2021
The extended deadline has expired. Late applications will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis.
Course Director(s): 

Eva Bognar

Center for Media, Data and Society, Democracy Institute, CEU, Budapest, Hungary

Miklos Koren

Department of Economics and Business, CEU, Vienna, Austria/Budapest, Hungary
Course Faculty: 

Eric Barrett

Data Desk, Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, Tbilisi, Georgia

Alberto Cairo

School of Communication, University of Miami, USA

András Pethő

Direkt36 Investigative Reporting Center, Budapest, Hungary

Free media is essential to hold the less-than transparent governments of Central and Eastern Europe to account. Key political and business actors are increasingly obfuscating their actions and limiting data access to escape public scrutiny. Effective investigative journalism requires a set of skills for obtaining and working with large datasets, and interpreting the patterns emerging from such data. 

This course will bring together junior journalists and researchers from the CEE regions with global experts of data journalism with the aim of teaching the necessary tools and methods, as well as to build professional networks. 

Pedagogical Concept - Project Approach

Classes will be hands-on, where learners use their own computer to access the tools and technologies taught and discuss problems in small groups. A key component of several modules is “live demo,” where instructors and learners work on their problems together. This practice enables effective learning with frequent interaction and feedback from instructors and peers.

The program will be based on project-approach. Participants will be working in small groups on journalistic projects chosen from 3-4 options offered by the organizers. They will be able to apply the skills and knowledge acquired during the plenary sessions on their own projects, and consult with instructors and experts on a daily basis. The projects are

  • to be interesting for global audience

  • may foster cross-border collaboration 

  • will have been vetted by the organizers for technical/legal risks.

Weekly schedule

The course will cover the following topics in the life cycle of a data journalism project. The schedule is very tight, so we are mostly aiming for an introduction that is, however, directly useful to journalist students.In the course of the summer school legal concerns, ethical dilemmas of working with large datasets and data security will be touched upon, but not covered fully.

Daily schedule

Each day would consist of four types of activities. Times are indicated as CET and are approximate. 

Platform

Zoom + Slack