Wednesday, June 1, 2016

The first Data Journalism and Digital Humanities Symposium

This Fall (Sept. 30-Oct. 1) the University of Miami is hosting the first Digital Humanities+Data Journalism Symposium.

I'm part of the organization of the event, which intends to bring together two disciplines that use similar tools and techniques, and have them talk to and learn from each other. Besides the official schedule there will be plenty of time to engage in informal conversations.

The symposium was inspired by this article by Dan Cohen, from the Digital Public Library of America. Here's how we envision it:
Digital humanists and data journalists face common challenges, opportunities, and goals, such as how to communicate effectively with the public. They use similar software tools, programming languages, and techniques, and they can learn from each other. Join us for lectures and tutorials about shared data types, visualization methods, and data communication — including text visualization, network diagrams, maps, databases and data wrangling. In addition to the scheduled content, there will be opportunities for casual conversation and networking. The DH+DJ Symposium will take place in the Newman Alumni Center at the University of Miami (Coral Gables Campus).
The symposium will be a small gathering: Registration is limited to 150 people, so be quick. The speaker list (more names will be added soon) looks quite nice, I believe. I plan to sit in all these talks and classes myself! Also, the symposium hotel is the Sonesta, which is really nice. To book a room for a reduced rate, follow the instructions in the website.

Finally, in case you need more reasons to attend, Miami is warm and nice in that time of the year. Just sayin'...