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