Professional Diploma in Data Journalism
Program Specification
Field and Subfield: Media and Digital Journalism / Data Journalism
1. Program Overview:
An advanced professional and applied program extending over 3 months (80 accredited study-load hours), aimed at qualifying and training journalists, researchers, and content creators to transform complex numbers and data into engaging and influential visual and narrative journalistic stories. The program covers the development of data-driven newsrooms; research skills and access to government sources and open data (Open Data); data scraping (Data Scraping) techniques from websites; cleaning and organizing tables and processing errors; statistical analysis and pattern discovery through advanced Excel tables; the use of data visualization tools (Tableau & Flourish); designing interactive maps and infographics; formulating number-based storytelling; and, finally, the ethics of handling data and verifying its credibility.
2. Key Objectives:
- Understanding the concepts and environment of Data Journalism: Understanding the role of data in contemporary journalism and the shift toward investigations supported by digital and statistical evidence.
- Mastering data collection and scraping (Scraping): Accessing open-data repositories and official sources and using tools to automatically extract data from the web.
- Cleaning and analyzing statistical data: Processing raw data, removing duplicates and errors, and using advanced functions and Pivot Tables in Excel to discover relationships, patterns, and temporal trends.
- Data visualization and interactive graphic design: Mastering visualization platforms such as Flourish and Tableau and building interactive charts and digital maps.
- Formulating the data story and maintaining ethical standards: Writing rigorous journalistic texts that integrate numbers with the human context while observing documentation accuracy and the ethics of handling big data.
3. Target Audience:
- Journalists, editors, and investigative reporters wishing to support their reports with numbers and data analyses.
- Researchers at study centers, civil-society organizations, and human-rights and economic bodies.
- Graphic and infographic designers and web developers interested in visual data storytelling.
- Graduates and students of media, statistics, economics, social sciences, and data-related colleges.
4. Study Plan and Modules (12 Modules — 25 Interactive Lectures):
5. Organizational Structure and Assessment System:
- Duration and Schedule: 3 months (evening period), at a rate of two lectures per week, two hours per lecture = 25 lectures / 50 direct interactive hours.
- Training Language and Delivery Method: Arabic language | Fully online interactive and applied training (Online).
- Distribution of Accredited Hours (80 total hours):
50 hours: Direct and recorded online lectures.
20 hours: Practical applications and an applied Data Lab.
7 hours: Analysis and review of international data stories, reports, and investigations.
3 hours: Final graduation project (implementing the report and preparing it for presentation and publication).
- Assessment System and Attendance Requirements: Attendance at sessions and weekly submission of tasks, with continuous assessment through practical assignments and the Data Lab.
- Certificate and Graduation Project: The graduate is awarded the Professional Diploma in Data Journalism after completing and discussing the final graduation project, represented by formulating an integrated journalistic story based entirely on numbers and statistics, together with its charts and interactive maps, and preparing it for publication.
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