The mission of the IAJ is to find better ways of doing journalism.  That rarely means turning to others practicing – and writing about how to practice -- the same old classic journalism.  Instead, we in the profession must make a greater effort to seek other methods to know more about a variety of phenomena.  All professions and academic disciplines have journals and trade magazines.  These can go a long way to teaching how those practitioners think and what they think about, along with the methods of those disciplines.

Education is surely among the most data-rich of the professions.  [The flock of newspapers publishing scorecards of school performance and salaries is evidence of how we can use this.]  And a good many educational administrators spend a lot of time trying to figure out what that data means.  Data mining is one of their tools.

The current issue of Technology & Learning carries the first of a two-part series on data mining in education.  The story, of course, is aimed at educators, so the enterprising journalist will have to do some translation and seek opportunities for intellectual-technology transfer.  Be sure to read the sidebars.

Data: Maximize Your Mining
By Todd McIntire
 http://www.techlearning.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=160400818