Data Storytelling Resource List
This is our list of recommended tools to help you collect, extract, clean, manage and visualize data. There are many more free tools and platforms available online; these are just a few of our favourites here at Bournemouth University’s Datalabs.
This set of tools and platforms enables you to collect data from the web and social media, as well as to file requests for public data that is not yet open.
Tools to bring data to you
These tools will deliver information on specific topics or websites to you.
RSS feeds: http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/BIOS/rss.html
Google News Alert: https://www.google.co.uk/alerts
Notify you if a website changes: https://www.changedetection.com/
Getting data from social media
These tools will help you pull data from social media.
http://www.gramfeed.com/ Instagram only
https://www.dataminr.com/ Twitter only
http://topsy.com/ Twitter only
http://www.samdesk.io/ General social media (Not Free)
https://geofeedia.com/ Location based social media monitoring
https://tweetdeck.twitter.com/ Twitter only
http://www.wolframalpha.com/examples/WeatherAndMeteorology.html Weather Info
http://keyhole.co/ Twitter and Instagram
Freedom of Information requests
These websites are easy to use and can help you file Freedom of Information requests.
EU – http://www.wobbing.eu/
USA – https://www.muckrock.com/foi/list/
UK – https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/
These tools will help you prepare your data for analysis by cleaning up repetition, spelling and formatting. They also have more powerful functions for analysis.
http://openrefine.org/index.html Beginner through Advanced
https://www.detective.io/tour/ Beginner
Communicating data through visuals can help with clarity, comprehension and making comparisons. These tools will help you liven up your datasets and make them more engaging for the audience.
Word Clouds
A simple to use visual for identifying word trends and patterns in text based data.
http://www.wordle.net/ Beginner
http://worditout.com/word-cloud/make-a-new-one Beginner
https://www.jasondavies.com/wordcloud/#%2F%2Fwww.jasondavies.com%2Fwordcloud%2Fabout%2F Beginner
Infographics
Present your information visually with these simple to use tools, perfect for beginners.
https://infogr.am Beginner
http://piktochart.com/ Beginner
https://www.silk.co/home Beginner to Intermediate
Timelines
Turn your chronological data into visual and interactive timelines with text, photos and videos.
http://www.dipity.com/ Beginner
http://timeline.knightlab.com/ Beginner
Mapping
Tools for creating maps and showcasing location-based data.
http://storymaps.arcgis.com/en/app-list/ Beginner
http://www.dataviz.org/ Beginner
http://cartodb.com/ Beginner through Advanced
http://www.qgis.org/en/site/index.html Advanced
Graphs and Network Analysis
Useful tools for making more complex graphs and visualisations for both analysis and communicating findings.
https://public.tableau.com/s/ Beginner to Advanced
http://www.r-project.org/ Advanced
*Thanks to Malachey Brown for social media tips and Ozlem Demirkol for compiling this list!