The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. Add to that more than 3,000 tipsheets from our national conferences on how to cover specific beats or do specific stories and you have a resource that no reporter or editor should be without. These stories and tipsheets are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Logged-in members can view the tipsheets free online:
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Build your first news app with Django
Once you have your Django installed, you can begin building an app by following the tutorial. Find more information here: http://ireapps.github.io/first-news-app/
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Excel 1
Start learning basic calculation and sorting with Microsoft Excel. Learn how to format your data, rank and sort numbers and filter information.
Tags: Microsoft Excel; software; calculation; sorting; formatting; filtering; data: CAR
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No complaints: Navigating the New American Fact Finder, improvements and updates
Learn more about how to use the new American FactFinder, or AFF, which has compiled several censuses and surveys. Check out the new enhancements and more user-friendly features of AFF.
Tags: American FactFinder; AFF; censuses; surveys
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Hone your Fusion Tables training skills
Get savvy with the new version of Fusion Tables and learn the newest features and share tips and tricks for smooth trainings. For those who are newer to Fusion Tables, learn what they are, see examples and what types of files can be used. Learn how to do mapping with Fusion Tables and how to style and display them. This tutorial also goes into customizing tables, how to add layers and how to combine maps. Find out more through this link: https://sites.google.com/site/fusiontablestalks/talks/car-2013
Tags: Google; Google Fusion Tables; data
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Practical machine learning: Tips, tricks and real-world examples for machine learning in the newsroom
Learn how to apply machine learning in the newsroom from examples from real-world projects, including building intelligent regular expressions with maximum entropy models; using Bayesian classifiers to filter documents; and linear and logistic regression.
Tags: Machine learning; news reporting; entropy models; filters; linear regression; logistic regression
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Wrangling web data with Google docs: beginner course
A great lesson on how to import web data into Google Docs (now known as Google Drive),fetch external data, create scripts to schedule fetches in batches and process the data.
Tags: Data; Google Doc; scripts; data processing
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The data-driven story part 3: bulletproofing and presentation
Learn how to "bulletproof" your data by doing integrity checks and learn tips to go beyond basic data checking.
Tags: Databases; sourcing; story visualization
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Mobile + DataViz: Friends or frenemies?
Look at how storytelling works on mobile devices in terms of design and building stories for "longevity."
Tags: Storytelling design; data visualization; mobile apps; news sites
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Dig deeper with social tools
Learn how to find people, companies, experts and other sources and how to use geo-location features to cover breaking news. Use the tipsheet to discover new ways to use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and mobile apps to improve your stories.
Tags: Social media; Twitter; Facebook; LinkedIn; mobile apps; sourcing; breaking news coverage
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Bringing Excel to the web with Excel 2013 and SkyDrive
Learn some of Microsoft Excel 2013's new features and talk about how to improve your stories and how to engage viewers with your sites for free. Look at different examples of how Excel has been implemented in storytelling.