Intro to Multimedia Web Skills (2017)

Course Objective

This not a full course, rather it's a collection of sessions in the First Year Seminar course. The objective of theses sessions is to teach every student some foundational skills in public records, data journalism, and investigative reporting skills.

These seven classes are part of a larger First Year Seminar course. The dates are as follows:

  • Tuesday Aug. 22, 8:30am–11:30am — Jeremy Rue - Web design, portfolio
  • Friday Oct. 6, 9am–11am — Tom Peele - Crime/Law enforcement, court records
  • Friday Oct. 13, 9am–11am — Tom Peele - Business records, local and national SEC
  • Friday Oct. 20, 9am–11am — Tom Peele - Property records, and campaign finance
  • Friday Oct. 27, 10am-12pm — Amanda Hickman - Introduction to data jouranlism and mapping
  • Friday Nov. 3, 10am-12pm — Lena Groeger - Charts, graphics and other visualizations
  • Friday Nov. 17, 10am-12pm — Cyrus Farivar and Jason Paladino - Digital Security, Investigative Journalism

Attendance Policy

Legitimate excused absences per California Education Code (CEC) include: Accommodation of Religious Creed, approved extracurricular activities (only will be considered if announced on the first day of class since the entire schedule is listed), accommodation for disability, pregnancy and parenting, approved CEC situations like funeral services or jury duty, and lastly due to minor illness with approved note from the UHS or other medical professional.

Students must inform the instructors about an absence, excused or not.

Making Up Missed Classes

As quoted by the UC Berkeley guidelines on absences:

Students are responsible for material covered during missed classes whether or not they have been formally excused; therefore it is the student’s responsibility to inform him/herself about the material missed....it is not the instructor’s or the GSI’s responsibility to tutor students in missed material. For this reason it is recommended that students absent from class for any reason make timely contact with several other students in the class to arrange for thorough briefing on the material they missed.

The tutors and instructor will make material available on this page as much as possible, and will attempt to help students when possible. However, it is the ultimate responsibility for students to make-up missed work on their own.

Aug 22
Introduction to Design — This session is about understanding the design of visual content on the Web. This lesson will specifically be aimed at helping students create a personal portfolio website. But the design concepts can be applied to many other creative endeavors.