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:
Search results for "scripting" ...
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Git and Github: Learning to commit to version control
You need version control, and git is the answer. This class will introduce basic git commands and walk you through using the social coding site Github to store and organize your projects. It's ideal for anyone working on web development, scraping and scripting to gather or clean data. You should set up an account on Github before the class, and it's recommended, but not compulsory, that you be comfortable navigating the command line.
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Developing reusable visualization components using D3 and Backbone
This session will step through a process for creating components for standards-based Web content, focusing in particular on the creation of common building blocks for data visualization in JavaScript. D3 is an increasingly popular choice for developing visual content and we will look at how items ranging from simple bar charts to custom graphics can be packaged up for easy reuse. Backbone is a widely used toolkit for creating browser-based applications and we will examine how its models and views can play a role in the creation of components. Consideration will be given to combination, customization and the power of reuse versus the perils of over-generalization. https://github.com/rflow/nicar-13-examples/blob/master/slides.key
Tags: data visualization; Java Script; D3; backbone
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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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Down and dirty with the DocumentCloud API
Welsh talks about how the Los Angeles Times uses DocumentCloud. Learn how to use DocumentCloud's API to interact with your documents and how to update or access documents' data with scripting.
Tags: DocumentCloud; DocumentCloud's API; documents; data; scripting
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Programming: Learn the basic lingo and gain new powers
DeBarros talks about basic programming skills that will unleash a wealth of potential for reporters. He defines a number of programming languages and explains the application of each.
Tags: programming; computer language; C#; JavaScript; Perl; PHP; Python; Ruby; SQL
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Web Scraping
Heath details web scraping. "'Scraping' means extracting data from websites. Thing about any site that lets you search a data set. How much better would it be if you could get the whole thing?" Heath explores the benefits and reasons for scraping, and what tools you'll need to accomplish the task.
Tags: web scraping; data set; database; excel; scripting; Perl; PHP; Ruby; VB; C#; Open Kapow; Yahoo Pipes
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Getting Started With Mapping on the Web
Hamman provides a list of Web sites to use for ideas when "creating interactive maps on the Web using Google and Yahoo APIs" (application programming interface). In addition, there are tips on what to know before making an online map, and explanations of some terminology associated with the task.
Tags: maps; google maps; yahoo maps; API (application programming interface); www.programmableweb.com; JSON (Java Script Object Notation); XML (eXtensible Markup Language); AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML)
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Web Scraping: Techniques and Challenges
Johnson discusses how to use Perl to scrape websites for data so you aren't stuck with a tedious cutting and pasting job whenever you look for new data online. She offers examples of scripts that she wrote for this purpose.
Tags: programming language; Perl; data extraction; scripts; computer programing
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So you want to be a Pythonista?
Python is an open source, interpreted scripting language. Its uniquely simple, intuitive and expressive syntax make it an excellent first language to learn, and its emphasis on readable code and object-oriented programming forces coders into good habits. Davis offers an overview of the language and several tips to getting started.
Tags: programming; scripting; languages; CAR resources
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Parsing House Vote Data using Python
This tipsheet is a step by step guide to using Python to analyze voting data. It begins with directions to download the program, then includes examples of scripts to write and finally explains how to interpret the program's results.
Tags: computers; internet; statistics; federal government; code; computer programming