School of Data

School of Data
Name	School of Data
Type	Non-profit training initiative
Founded	2011
Founders	Open Knowledge Foundation; Pindrop Foundation
Location	Global (headquartered in Europe)
Focus	Data literacy; data journalism; data wrangling; civic technology

School of Data The School of Data was an international initiative dedicated to improving data literacy and data skills among activists, journalists, researchers, and civil society organizations. It offered training, resources, and community support to enable participants to use datasets from sources such as the World Bank, United Nations, European Commission, International Monetary Fund, and World Health Organization. The initiative engaged with projects and institutions including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Transparency International, Open Knowledge Foundation, and the Wikimedia Foundation to promote open data practices.

Overview

The programme focused on practical training in tools and techniques used by practitioners associated with The Guardian, ProPublica, Reuters, BBC, and Al Jazeera. It created workshops, curricula, and case studies leveraging datasets from USAID, The World Bank Group, United Nations Development Programme, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and Eurostat. Community hubs interacted with networks like Code for America, DataKind, Civic Hall, Knight Foundation, and Mozilla Foundation to expand capacities. It addressed data challenges relevant to actors connected with Human Rights Watch, Doctors Without Borders, Oxfam International, CARE International, and Greenpeace International.

History and Founding

Founded in 2011, the initiative emerged amid global movements around open data, alongside actors such as Open Knowledge Foundation, Sunlight Foundation, Transparency International, and MySociety. Early collaborators included activists from Brazil's Movimento Passe Livre, technologists from ScraperWiki, researchers at Harvard Kennedy School, and journalists from The New York Times. Donors and partners involved institutions like Open Society Foundations, Omidyar Network, Ford Foundation, and Google.org. The initiative intersected with events such as Open Government Partnership, International Open Data Conference, RightsCon, and DataHarvest.

Programs and Training

Training modules addressed tools and practices used at organizations such as Tableau Software, Microsoft, Google, GitHub, and Jupyter communities. Courses covered workflows familiar to practitioners at ProPublica, Guardian Data Blog, FiveThirtyEight, BuzzFeed News, and The Intercept. The curriculum included sessions on data visualization popularized by figures affiliated with Nate Silver, Edward Tufte, Hans Rosling, Florence Nightingale Museum projects, and projects connected to The Pudding. Trainers collaborated with educators from University of Oxford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, London School of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, and University College London.

Methodologies and Curriculum

Methodologies drew on reproducible research practices used by teams at RStudio, Python Software Foundation, NumFOCUS, Pandas development team, Apache Software Foundation projects, and OpenRefine communities. Lessons included data cleaning techniques used in projects by Wikidata, OpenCorporates, Global Justice Now, Humanitarian Data Exchange, and ReliefWeb. Pedagogical approaches referenced frameworks from Mozilla Foundation learning networks, Carnegie Mellon University instructional design, UNESCO open education resources, Creative Commons, and Peer 2 Peer University.

Partnerships and Collaborations

Collaborations spanned NGOs and media outlets such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Center for Investigative Reporting, and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. Technical partners included Open Data Institute, ScraperWiki, Data.gov.uk, European Data Portal, and CKAN maintainers. Funders and supporters included Open Society Foundations, Knight Foundation, Omidyar Network, Google.org, and Mozilla Foundation. Academic partners included Columbia Journalism School, Sciences Po, University of Cape Town, University of São Paulo, and National University of Singapore.

Impact and Reception

The initiative influenced investigative projects and capacity building credited in reporting by The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde, Der Spiegel, and El País. Its alumni contributed to projects at Transparency International, Global Witness, Investigative Reporters and Editors, Bellingcat, and Investigative Dashboard. Evaluations and commentary appeared in convenings like Open Government Partnership Summit, International Journalism Festival, Dataharvest, and academic conferences at IEEE and ACM. Critics and reviewers compared its approach to efforts by Open Data Institute, Sunlight Foundation, and DataKind.

Notable Projects and Case Studies

Case studies included collaborations on fiscal transparency using datasets from International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Transparency International; health data visualizations drawing on World Health Organization and MSF datasets; election monitoring projects linked to Election Commission of India, European Parliament, and Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe reports; and environmental analyses utilizing data from United Nations Environment Programme, Greenpeace International, and NASA. Other notable engagements connected to investigative collaborations with International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Panama Papers-related networks, Paradise Papers researchers, and local watchdogs like ProPublica partners.

Category:Data literacy Category:Open data