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An article by the data journalism team at Kwangwoon University, which consists of students from the Department of Media Communication, is the talk of the town. The article on "Women's Safe Return Home Service Scouts," was published in OhmyNews on June 1, 2021.

This is a project of students taking "Data Science and Article Writing" course, which was opened in the first semester of 2021. "Data Science and Article Writing" course is taught by Professor Kim Sang-yeon (Department of Media Communication), a big data expert, and Professor Jeong Il-kwon (Department of Media Communication), a media expert. Professor Kim Sang-yeon teaches data collection, coding, and visualizatione whereas, Professor Jeong Il-kwon lectures on journalism and article writing.

To see if the Seoul Metropolitan Government's safe return home service has been well established, the data journalism team at Kwangwoon University analyzed the number of secure return home service scouts, the number of rape and indecent assault crimes, and the number of five major crimes from 2015 to 2019, when all autonomous regions in Seoul started safe return home service. By utilizing Seoul's public data, this article was created after the process of extracting data, coding, visualizing data, and writing.

Kwangwoon University Data Journalism Team

Hwang Jaemun (Media Communication 17) said, "Originally, it started as a gender-related issue, and we decided on the theme of women-related policies that can secure data. We knew about the Women's Safe Return Scout service from the past, but it was very meaningful that we could check the service by analyzing data on actual usage rate and crime prevention effects."

Kim Dongchan (Media Communication 15), said, "This class was very meaningful because I learned data coding and visualization using the R program and learned various data utilization and expression methods that I could not experience in other journalism classes." He added, "I plan to prepare the next data journalism article for the submission of the Data Journalism Awards after the process of using my insights in a large amount of data."

Professor Jung Il-kwon, who was in charge of the lecture, said, "Data journalism is a combination of the use of big data and reporting," and added, "The difference between data journalism so far is that data is not an auxiliary means, but itself is the topic and the core." He added, "The fact that students experienced the process of convergence that introduced ICT to humanities through courses will be a good opportunity for students to access data with accurate perspectives and judgment in the future."

Professor Kim Sang-yeon said, "All the students were beginners in R basic management and data visualization, and they showed great performance in a semester, confirming our students' potential," adding, "These days, ironically, finding the truth has become more difficult." He added, "It will be a more important education task in the future to observe the vast amount of data related to the target issue in a calm manner and to help improve the analytical power to reach a valid conclusion based on this, and the imagination to develop interesting and social implications."

Lastly, student Kim Gyuri (Media Communication 18) said, "Through this experience, I got an opportunity to think about what process I should go through to apply it in the IT marketing job. Many students have vague fears that data will be difficult, and I hope they can understand the technology and achieve results through these courses conducted in school."

Meanwhile, the data journalism team at Kwangwoon University is preparing for a follow-up article that says, "(Tentative) Seoul Metropolitan Government's increase in self-sufficiency improvement and management of existing infrastructure” The report will be made public in mid-June. 

< Kwangwoon University Data Journalism Team >

  Eo Hyeongu (Media Communication 13)

  Hwang Jaemun (Media Communication 17)

  Kim Yongu (Media Communication 15)

  Kim Dongchan (Media Communication 15)

  Kim Gyuri (Media Communication 18)

  Lee Yeonghyeon (Media Communication 19)