Learn about infographics and visualization of information with Knight Center course

Are you looking to have a better understanding of graphics and how to visualize information? The Knight Center has a course for you.

The course, “Introduction to Infographics and Visualization for Journalists,” will be taught in Spanish beginning January 30 and ending March 11, 2012 through the distance learning platform of the Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas.

The course will be taught entirely online by Spanish journalist Alberto Cairo. The course costs $60 for those who participate. Students have until January 18, 2012 to apply by 5 p.m. (Austin, Texas time).

Cairo will teach journalists how to work with graphics to communicate and analyze data. The course is aimed at journalists who don’t have design experience, who want to better understand how to plan news coverage using infographics, and for designers and artists interested in a more journalistic and functional vision through its use.

The course is divided into weekly modules containing audiovisual presentations and links to online resources. Exercises, online discussions and additional assignments will also be part of the curriculum. Participants can expect to spend 10-20 hours per week on the course.

More details about the course can be found here.

Alberto Cairo recently joined the University of Miami in the School of Communication to teach multimedia journalism in the graduate school. Prior to this position, he was the director of infographics for Época magazine in Brazil. Cairo was a professor in the Master em Jornalismo program in Brazil and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Spain. He was also the James H. Shumaker term assitant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and taught at the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid, Spain. Between 2000-2005 he was the director of interactive infographics at El Mundo (www.elmundo.es) where his design team won the most awards in the Society of Newspaper Design (SND) and Malofiej contests. He regularly blogs for Periodismo con Futuro de El Pais and is the author of two books on infographics.

The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas was created in 2002 by Professor Rosental Alves at the University of Texas at Austin School of Journalism. It was funded with a generous donation from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Center also receives contributions from other donors, including the Open Society Foundations and The University of Texas at Austin. The Center’s main goal is to help journalists in Latin American and the Caribbean improve the quality of journalism in their countries.