We are seeking volunteers to take part in an ‘alpha cohort’, to test-run initial courses for the School of Data. Sign up below!

The Course

The very first School of Data course, ‘What is Data?’, will offer a basic introduction to Data Wrangling skills. Participants will explore how to find data, develop basic spreadsheet skills, and get to grips with how to interpret and create simple charts and diagrams.

The course will be structured around six individual learning modules:

1) Getting Started: Finding the Data
2) Sort and Filter: The basics of spreadsheets
3) ‘But what does it mean?’: Analysing data (& spreadsheets continued)
4) From Data to Diagrams: An introduction to plots and charts
5) Look Out!: Common misconceptions (and how to avoid them)
6) Tell me a story: Working out what’s interesting in your data

The Test Cohort

The test course will run for three weeks, from 3rd – 25th September. Each individual module should take no more than an hour or two to complete, and can be taken at any time before the relevant Hangout.

Twice a week, we will hold a short Google Hangout to discuss the experience of working through the learning modules. During these sessions, you will have the opportunity to share what you learned and to offer feedback on the course.

The Google Hangouts will take place at 6pm UTC (= 7pm in the UK, 8pm in Central Europe, 2pm EDT, 11am PDT) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If you would like to join the test cohort but can’t make the time slots we have suggested, please do get in touch!

Provisional timetable of Hangout sessions

• Thursday 6th September, 6pm UTC – Getting Started
• Tuesday 11th September, 6pm UTC – Sort and Filter
• Thursday 13th September, 6pm UTC – ‘But what does it mean?’ Analysing Data.
• Tuesday 18th September, 6pm UTC – From Data to Diagrams
• Thursday 20th September, 6pm UTC – Look Out! Avoiding common misconceptions
• Tuesday 25th September, 6pm UTC – Tell me a Story

Please Note: If you would like to join the alpha test cohort, we ask that you would commit to attend at least 5 of the 6 hangouts, and to offer feedback on a regular basis.

The ‘What is Data’ course is targeted towards beginners. However, we hope that the alpha cohort will include a mix of novices and experienced data wranglers, to allow us to gather feedback from a variety of perspectives.

Can you offer robust and critical feedback? Do you want to develop new data skills? Revive rusty ones? Help to improve the courses which will give many others an introduction to data? Fill in the form below!

PLEASE NOTE: Sign-up for the alpha test cohort is now closed

For more details, please contact schoolofdata [@] okfn.org