Purdue Digital Storytelling Network Launched, partners with Google News Lab University

Today I launch a new teaching and research initiative which will empower Purdue students aspiring to embrace careers in big data, social media analytics, or communication. The initiative starts with a partnership with Google News Lab University. The partnership, which includes other 40 universities,

will provide resources and support to the top universities around the world in exchange for feedback and input to help guide the future of curriculum and training at the Google News Lab more broadly.The News Lab University Network will provide resources and support to the top universities around the world in exchange for feedback and input to help guide the future of curriculum and training by the Google News Lab more broadly.

Through this network, we hope to foster discussion with educators and offer them an opportunity to review News Lab curriculum and training materials to ensure that it adheres to the right level of pedagogy for journalists and students. We also want to celebrate and promote academic journalism projects that use Google tools.

In addition to the Google News Lab partnership, the Purdue Data Storytelling Network initiative will also catalyze new research and learning partnerships. It will achieve this by:

1. Sharing training and sharing teaching materials related to big data across the curriculum
2. Enabling professional discovery and matching of interest for future collaborative teaching and research endeavors
3. Creating and leveraging partnerships with major social media organizations.
4. Identifying grant opportunities, team building and  writing support
5. Providing data and research tool sharing.  
6. Generating a hotbed of creativity that will stimulate new, cutting edge explanatory models for big data which may lead to a new mode of “data storytelling”