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Students work with regional daily on care homes probe

A group of journalism students worked alongside reporters on a regional daily to investigate care home provision on its patch.

Students from the University of Central Lancashire joined journalists from the Lancashire Evening Post in the data journalism initiative.

The Lancashire Care Homes Data Project began in February, over the past week, the LEP has been running the stories uncovered as a result of the collaboration.

Over the course of three months, the students interviewed people, worked through data sets, wrote freedom of information requests and analysed financial reports relating to care homes in the county.

Mike Hill, Associated Editor of the Lancashire Evening Post, commented: “This has been a great opportunity to work with students across disciplines in a ‘real world’ environment and it has been really interesting to see how the project progressed.

“The standard of work was very high and the students approach was very professional throughout from conception to final delivery.

“The end result provided an illuminating insight into the world of care homes in what has been a topical subject in the national news.

“I think we can mark this as a success and it would be great to look at similar link ups in the future.”

UCLan lecturer Francois Nel, who developed and led the project, said: “We are told that we are surrounded by data and that it’s growing exponentially. A

“All of this data is generated and stored, by businesses, governments and individuals, and unlocking it is the key to understanding modern society, and grappling with the problems we face.

“This aim of this project was to understand data, and how it can inform our daily lives, and influence our decisions. It’s not enough to have the data, it’s about making sense of it, and knowing what it can tell you that matters.

“It was also important for us to consider the resource implications and opportunities for the media company.”

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  • June 17, 2014 at 1:42 pm
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    A great example of a resource-strapped local paper harnessing user- generated content, hopefully in the pursuit of further newsroom efficiencies. Well done all concerned.

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  • June 18, 2014 at 9:56 am
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    If they want a dose of the real world let them spend six months shovelling press releases on a weekly where staffing is too thin even to be called skeleton.
    But well done paper for looking at care issue. There is probably plenty of material on this to be had anywhere in country.

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