For the course project, you will communicate a story to an audience in a 3-5 minute recorded presentation.

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APPLY: course project

The course project is your opportunity to holistically apply the various lessons we cover over the course. We leave the details up to you. This is intentionally open-ended so that you can choose a topic and scenario that are interesting to you and aligned with the specific skills you want to practice and develop. 

You are welcome to use a work project if you can discuss the topic freely (don’t use anything confidential; anonymize appropriately so you can share openly). If you don’t have a work project readily available, pick a topic of personal interest and create a clear call to action for your intended audience. If unsure what direction to take, you might try identifying data first, and then imagine a real-world scenario for communication purposes (this list of publicly available data sources may help). 

In the “Practice on your own” or “Practice at work” sections of Let’s Practice! you will find datasets you could consider for your course project. Take a look and see if any subjects resonate with you—below are some examples that could work and there are more in the book to consider. Data for these are available on the book downloads page.

  • Exercise 6.11 on page 276: Evolve from report to story

  • Exercise 8.1 on page 359: Diversity hiring

  • Exercise 8.7 on page 366: Errors and complaints

  • Exercise 8.10 on page 371: Store traffic

You may use data that has already been analyzed (by you or another credible source). This project is not about exploring data, but rather explaining data clearly. Use your preferred tool(s) of choice to create your materials.

Feel free to make assumptions and contrive the specifics of the scenario. This includes who your audience will be, their needs, your relationship with them, the action you would like them to take, and the situation in which you’ll communicate. Also feel free to simplify these details if using a real example. 

While we welcome you to take liberties when it comes to the situation in which you’ll communicate, the content you deliver should show thoughtful application of the lessons we cover throughout the course. This is not meant to be an experimental space to try novel approaches; rather, we encourage a focus on clarity of communication, making use of the various strategies that we cover during the 8-week course.

The culmination of your project will be a 3-5 minute presentation.

Examples

While keeping things intentionally open-ended, we also recognize that having examples to draw on as you identify and complete your project may be helpful. The case studies in Chaper 7 of Let’s Practice! illustrate the sort of business-focused examples that we have in mind for this project (your project does not need to be business-focused, but would ideally have similar breadth and depth as these examples). You’ll see some of these presented during lectures and also additional examples in your weekly video assignments.

The examples we share are primarily slide-based (presentation decks). You can follow this approach for your project and create slides to present. That said, if another communication mechanism (for example, an interactive visualization that you guide your audience through, or an online scrolling story you present) would better suit your scenario and skills you wish to develop or practice, we welcome other approaches, too.

We are happy to provide input on your project choice and approach if helpful. Join an office hour or email us to discuss.

Grading

The course project will not be graded. However, it will be assessed by Amy and Simon using the rubric in Let’s Practice! Exercise 9.6. They will also offer feedback on your work and delivery.

Recommended schedule

We strongly encourage making progress on your project throughout the course. Each week the lecture activities and synthesize assignments are meant to help you make progress on your project. For reference, we’ve listed the summaries below (we don’t recommend working ahead of this schedule, since weekly lectures and assignments will establish helpful foundation).

  • WEEK 1: choose your topic, identify your data

  • WEEK 2: sketch & create graphs

  • WEEK 3: determine your audience & craft your Big Idea

  • WEEK 4: storyboard

  • WEEK 5: finalize your graphs

  • WEEK 6: frame your story

  • WEEK 7: build your communication

  • WEEK 8: deliver final presentation

What you need to turn in & when

There are two parts to the final deliverable: 

  1. Your presentation of the materials—record your delivery to turn in to share with the group.

  2. Your self-assessment: for this, we will use the assessment rubric in Let’s Practice! Exercise 9.6. Download the assessment rubric.

Officially turn in your project through the course project exercise.

While we encourage you to complete and deliver your project by the end of the course (March 9th, 2025), we have built in some flexibility. Your final project must be turned in by March 30, 2025.*
*Required for certificate of course completion.

Have fun and reach out with questions!