Run your own Data Storytelling workshop (or learn about our tips)

Amanda Miotto, QCIF eResearch Analyst at Griffith University, has made her and her colleague's Data Storytelling workshop slides publicly available, which you can use to run your own workshop.

Do you need to talk about your research and its related data to people not in your field, to media, funders and laypeople in general? 

Then you probably need help in Data Storytelling. 

Griffith Library Research Specialist Kylie Poulton and I recently ran a workshop about Data Storytelling and we’ve made our slides publicly and freely available in Google docs. You can even use our slides to hold your own Data Storytelling workshop at your institution.

In the slides, you’ll find information about Data Storytelling techniques and recommended data visualisation tools, such as Voyant, which can be found on Tinker, a Data Enhanced Virtual Laboratory (DEVL) for the humanities and social sciences. 

You’ll also find suggestions for hands-on activities, such as conveying the meaning of your research to a wider, non-specialised audience. For example, think of how you would explain your research or job to your grandmother (that is, if your grandmother didn’t study or work in your field!)

We’ve also included our references, i.e., links to all the webpages we used to learn about storytelling. 

Storytelling is important — you’ll see why in our case study about Dr Ignaz Semmelweis, a 19thCentury maternity clinic doctor. He discovered why so many mothers were dying of puerperal fever (childbed fever), but he was ignored. The reason: He simply wasn’t communicating his research findings in a way that people would listen and care.

If you’d like to join our workshop rather than run your own, we will be holding a Data Storytelling workshop as part of ResBaz Brisbane at QUT on Tuesday, 9 July 2019. Visit the ResBaz Brisbane website for more information.

This article was first published on 18/06/2019.