Data Reporting

MPJO-722-01: Data Reporting

Working with PDFs; Military data

Links

• Analytics.usa.gov
• 2015 Peace Corps Rankings, coverage
• Military Personnel Statistics
• Bomb Database
• Veteran Population

Assignments for March 26

PDFs: Find the Peace Corps' rankings for large colleges and universities for 2010-2015 (6 years), and convert the PDF tables (using Tabula) into a single spreadsheet with the year, college, number and rank. Using either Excel or SQLite (save the excel file as a CSV and import), answer the following question:

• Which colleges have stayed in the top 25 all six years?

Veterans: Using this spreadsheet of living veterans by state, copy the totals from 2010 (the default view) and also the male and female breakdowns (using the gender filter) for the following age ranges: under-20, 20-24, 25-29, 30-34, along with the grand total, into a new spreadsheet. Then calculate the percent of the grand total that each category (total, male, female) represents. Which states do you see as unusual or possibly newsworthy?

Readings: USA Today on demographic changes in the past 20 years, Elliot Jaspin on using Census data to uncover racial cleansing in the United States.

Story Memo: Start keeping a log of your activities. Here's an example of a finished one from a previous class.