Free Online Course "Math For Journalists" (And Other Professionals)

I picked this up on Newslib, the mailing list of the News Division of the Special Libraries Association.

Reporters, researchers, librarians, we all certainly need information literacy skills but how often do we consider the need to maintain or upgrade our numeracy skills?

Debbie Wolfe, technology training editor at the St. Petersburg Times and Casey Frechette, course administrator at the top notch journalism foundation, the Poynter Institute, have created a free online course on math. Registration is free for this course.

It is part of the new "News University" training portal launched this week by the highly regarded Institute. For more information, read the interview with Poynter scholar Howard Finberg.

According to Wolfe, there are "six theme areas in the course packed with step-by-step formulas, recipes for double checking your work, pop-up screens with common English tips, story examples, public records data examples and skill drills".

The course covers percentages, averages, means and medians, ratios, ranks and rates, and advanced topics like cost of living and weighted averaging.