DJCamp2011

Submishmash Home Home Pricing Tour Blog Support Login How does it work? Submishmash empowers publishers and websites to accept any type of submission or easily run contests. In a few simple steps, you can immediately begin accepting manuscripts, artwork, applications, resumes, or multi-media like MP3s or videos. Be up and running in 5 minutes. Step 1: Sign Up Step 2: Customize your application (5 minutes) Step 3: Create a link in your website to your manager (i.e. http://ORGANIZATIONNAME.submishmash.com) Step 4: Immediately begin accepting submission, applications, or contest entries!

If you work with freelance contributions, this might be a helpful tool.

Sort the signal from the noise Newsbeat tracks the activity of every page you publish in real time, from the top performers to the diamond in the rough. But we don't just show you everything, we show you what's important. Our algorithms forecast the expected path of each story and alert you to unusual activity you might otherwise miss, so you always know what to act on, when it matters most.

Visual.ly - a new tool to create data visualisations July 28th, 2011Posted by Sarah Marshall in Data, Design and graphics, Handy tools and technology, Multimedia Visual.ly is a new platform to allow you to explore and share data visualisations. According to the video below, it is two things: a platform to upload and promote your own visualisations and a space to connect "dataviz pros", advertisers and publishers. Visual.ly has teamed up with media partners, including GigaOM, Mashable and the Atlantic, who each have a profile showcasing their data visualisations. You will soon be able to create your own "beautiful visualisations in minutes" and will "instantly apply the graphics genius of the world's top information designers to your designs", the site promises. Plug and play, then grab and go with our push-button approach to visualisation creation. The sample images are impressive, but journalists will have to wait until they can upload their own data.

Data journalism at the Guardian: what is it and how do we do it? Simon Rogers: Our 10 point guide to data journalism and how it's changing Share reddit this Comments (2) Data abstract Data journalism. What is it and how is it changing? Photograph: Alamy Here's an interesting thing: data journalism is becoming part of the establishment. Not in an Oxbridge elite kind of way (although here's some data on that) but in the way it is becoming the industry standard. Two years ago, when we launched the Datablog, all this was new. People still asked if getting stories from data was really journalism and not everyone had seen Adrian Holovaty's riposte. But once you've had MPs expenses and Wikileaks, the startling thing is that no-one asks those questions anymore. Instead, they want to know, "how do we do it?"

What is BuzzData? Data should be free-flowing, well-organized and easy to share. Wouldn't it be nice if there was a place where you could store, share and show off your data with just a couple of mouse clicks? BuzzData lets you publish your data in a smarter, easier way. Instead of juggling versions and overwriting files, use BuzzData and enjoy a social network designed for data."

Google Refine is a power tool for working with messy data, primarily for * detecting and fixing inconsistencies * transforming data from one structure or format to another * connecting names within your data to name registries (databases) Use Google Refine when you need something ... * more powerful than a spreadsheet * more interactive and visual than scripting * more provisional / exploratory / experimental / playful than a database

Human rights groups collect data containing details of human right abuses from various sources, including medical records, newspaper articles, witness testimonies, letters, interviews, and official reports and documents. Analyzer can be used to capture this data for analysis. Data is coded according to the "Who did what to whom" model and entered into the capture set of Analyzer. Data about the source of the information is entered in the source tab, shown in Figure 1. (Note: the data in the figures shown here, unless otherwise indicated, are from a sample, not an actual, dataset.)

We are committed to equal access to technology. Our software is freely available, and anyone may share our technology and modify it to suit their needs - all without asking our permission. Benetech created Martus and Analyzer specifically for human rights data collection, coding and processing. These tools include cryptographic security features and flexible data structures that can be adapted to the needs of each human rights project. By releasing our software as open source, we participate in the technological community where tools can be audited and improved by others, as well as enabling widespread access to our ideas.

Data Without Borders seeks to match non-profits in need of data analysis with freelance and pro bono data scientists who can work to help them with data collection, analysis, visualization, or decision support.

A good resource to extend the intellectual power and reach of your newsroom.

OpenAustralia.org is a non-partisan website run by a charity, the OpenAustralia Foundation and volunteers. It aims to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their representatives in Parliament.

Beautiful but Terrible Pyramids: Tableau Edition by Jorge Camoes on July 12, 2011 Well, here is my first chart in Tableau, finally! After publishing my experiments with population pyramids (using Excel), I thought I could try Tableau Public with the same dataset from the US Census Bureau. Here is the result. I never really played before with Tableau Public and it took my less than an hour to upload the data and make this chart, without reading a manual or watching a tutorial (changing line colors was the hard part). It says a lot about its usability. http://www.excelcharts.com/blog/beautiful-but-terrible-pyramids-tableau-edition/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+JCCharts+%28Excel+Charts+Blog%29

Select your favorite nation. Note how this could be used to illustrate population changes for a single nation over time or nation-to-nation comparisons.

10 ways to screw up your spreadsheet design Recommend +21 Votes 36 Comments 46Share more + By Susan Harkins June 23, 2011, 8:25 AM PDT Takeaway: How you set up a spreadsheet determines its efficiency, usability, and reliability. Avoiding these pitfalls during the design phase will save you a million headaches. Wrong references, missing values, and invalid data aren't the only things that will ruin a spreadsheet. The development process starts before you do a thing, while you're planning the design. These types of mistakes are worse than bugs because you can't troubleshoot them. All you can do is start over. Here are 10 mistakes to avoid early in the process, when you're still in the decision-making phase.

A good list and read down into the comments; additional good tips there.

Data Visualization Platform, Weave, Now Open Source Logo Open Source Initiative Image via Wikipedia Civic Commons, Contributors (Karl Fogel, Author) With more and more civic data becoming available and accessible, the challenge grows for policy makers and citizens to leverage that data for better decision-making. It is often difficult to understand context and perform analysis. "Weave", however, helps. A web-based data visualization tool, Weave enables users to explore, analyze, visualize and disseminate data online from any location at any time. We saw tremendous potential in the platform and have been helping open-source the software, advising on community engagement strategy and licensing. This week, we were excited to see the soft launch of the Weave 1.0 Beta, which went open-source on Wednesday, June 15. Weave is the result of a broad partnership: it was developed by the Institute for Visualization and Perception Research at the University of Massachussetts Lowell, with support from the Open Indicators Consortium, which is made up of over ten municipal, regional, and state member organizations. This consortium will probably expand now that Weave is open source, leading hopefully to greater collaboration, more development, and further innovation on this important platform. Early-adopter data geeks should give it a spin. One of Weave's key features is high-speed interactivity and responsiveness, which is somewhat unusual in web-based visualization software; try out the demo sites or watch the video below. Our congratulations and thanks to the Weave team! As city management is increasingly data-driven, so data analysis and visualization tools will continue to be an important part of every city manager's toolkit. We are excited to see this evolving toolkit enter the civic commons. http://govinthelab.com/data-visualization-platform-weave-now-open-source

City of Ottawa moves to formalize open data program http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/city-of-ottawa-moves-to-formalize-open-data-program/143323?sub=569517&utm_source=569517&utm_medium=top5&utm_campaign=TD+

An interesting example of yet another "next generation" data analysis and presentation tool. You can see the demos at http://www.lavastorm.com/ Emphasis is on visualizing the data analytic method while doing the analysis.

Jonathan Stray of the Associated Press on investigating thousands (or millions) of documents by visualizing clusters. Presentation is from February 2011 at the National Institute of Computer-Assisted Reporting. Visualizations built with multidimensional scaling algorithm Glimmer.

Welcome to the Improving data visualisation for the public sector project Good data visualisation can help users explore and understand the patterns and trends in data, and also communicate that understanding to others to help them make robust decisions based on the data being presented. This site supports public sector researchers improve the way that they visualise data, by providing good practice examples and case studies, practical and step-by-step guides on how to visualise data, and links to more detailed resources. http://www.improving-visualisation.org

A blog-ish site related to collaboration tools

New: World Health Organization (WHO) Releases Database on Nutrition, Obesity and Physical Activity (NOPA) Posted on June 5, 2011 by Gary D. Price From a WHO Announcement: The NOPA database has been created in close collaboration with health ministries and with support from the European Commission. It includes details on more than 300 national and sub-national policies that address nutrition, physical activity or obesity. Most of these policy documents have been developed in the past six years and refer to lifestyle trends such as the increasing consumption of industrially produced foods high in fat and sugar and declining physical activity. Physical inactivity and poor nutrition are considered to be risk factors to many non-communicable diseases, such as heart diseases and stroke, diabetes, cancer, and mental health disorders. The measurable indicators for policy development have been identified and monitored at the national level in accordance with the commitments made through the European Charter on Counteracting Obesity and the WHO European Action Plan for Food and Nutrition Policy 2007-2012. As an example of these commitments, the Nutrition, Obesity and Physical Activity Database shows that 28 Member States have stated that they plan to take action on physical activity in the school setting, 11 plan to address the adequate labeling of food products and 9 plan to deal with appropriate food marketing practices. Direct to NOPA Database http://infodocket.com/2011/06/05/new-world-health-organization-who-releases-database-on-nutrition-obesity-and-physical-activity-nopa/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter