Data Skills test

 Graph 1

Graph 2

UCAS UK applications have fallen compared to those last year. Graph 1 demonstrates that 59,413 applications were received for 2011 entry. It also shows that this figure dropped by nearly 7,000 this year with only 52,321 submitting an application for study. 

Graph 2 breaks down the severity of the fall in each UK region. The blue bar represents the  amount of applications received for 2011 entry and the red bar represents applications for 2012 entry. The graph proves that every region in the UK has suffered a decrease in applications. East Midlands felt the biggest decline at 20% with their applications dropping from 4,109 in 2011 to 3,286 in 2012. Whereas the South East gets off lightly with just a 8.10% decrease from 9,805 2011 entry applications, to 9,006 2012 entry applications. 

It is interesting to see first how the overall applications for the UK has differentiated and have the region breakdown to see which parts of the country have suffered from the biggest decrease. 

Last November the government implemented a plan to allow universities to raise tuition fees up to £9,000. Whether the sharp increase in fees has had a direct impact on the number of people applying for university is yet to be proved, but it's coincidental to say the least.

I sourced the above data from the Guardian Data Blog website. Click here to see the specific article which I used to download the data. I created the graphs myself using Microsoft Excel and believe they are effective in telling the story of the UCAS application drop.

For more information on this story click here and here. 

This post was written by Stacey Ford. You can contact Stacey at: SFord1@uclan.ac.uk

Map Skills test

View Lancashire Evening Post: 20th October News Stories in a larger map

Above is a Google map showing the locations of four Lancashire Evening Post news stories on Thursday 20th October 2011. 


I chose the stories I did as their geo-locations were specific to locate on the map to make it clear to readers where exactly the event/incident happened. This is important as it gives people who live in Lancashire an idea of where news is most frequent and where it is not. As you can see from my map, three out of the four news stories I chose to geo-locate are located in and around Preston city centre. I also chose these stories as their topics are all important issues and are different to one another. Below is an explanation of each pin on the map and why I chose that story: 


Yellow pin: I chose the 'CCTV appeal for supermarket thief' story as unlike the others, the story is geographically quite distant, being located in Lancaster rather than Preston. I also chose it for it's tone - it's not a soft news story but at the same time, it's not as hard a news story as say a murder investigation. I wanted to ensure that the tones of each of my four stories differed as well as the topic. 


Red pin: I chose the 'Schoolboy suffers minor injuries after crash' story as not only is it an emotive human interest story, but it also combines the education topic. A point is made in the story as to the boy's educational background at Fulwood Academy. I also chose it for it's tone. It is a hard and serious news story but the outcome was positive as the boy luckily only suffered minor injuries including bruises.


Pink pin: I chose the 'Preston nursery running Halloween fundraiser' story as it is an upbeat, positive news story but at the same time has been published for a serious reason - to raise awareness and funds for the LEP Lifesaver Appeal. 


Blue pins: As explained in the information of the blue pins, I geo-located both the hit-and-run location and the address of the hit-and-run killer as although the news story is about the killer himself appealing for a reduced sentence, I thought it important to contextualise the story and pin point the location of the hit-and-run, as without this previous news story, this 20th October news story wouldn't exist. I decided to draw a blue shape around both of these blue pins to highlight that this is one ongoing continuous story. 


This exercise has been beneficial to my Journalism skills as I now have a new and alternative way to present a news story as opposed to the conventional text story. 

This post was written by Stacey Ford. You can contact Stacey at: SFord1@uclan.ac.uk

Images Skills test

Above is the original image I took of Lancashire County Council. I took it from a corner angle to incorporate both views of the building and to add depth. I also wanted to ensure that I included the Lancashire County Council logo to make it clear exactly what building I had photographed. 

Above is my cropped image to the specification of: 200 pixel wide by 500 pixel high version in jpeg format. After setting the size to crop, I then 'Saved for web and devices' under the 'File' tab. This then took me to a menu where I selected to save the image as a jpeg and included the meta data before finally saving all of these options to my cropped image. I decided to focus my cropping primarily on the logo as I wanted to cut away the front facing side of the building as I felt it distracted away from the Lancashire County Council text. The 500 pixel high measurement allowed me to include all of the 'Lancashire County Council county hall' text which was my objective. I didn't want to include some of the logo and miss another part as I felt this would look messy and unprofessional. 

Above is my cropped image to the specification of 400 pixel wide by 300 pixel high version in jpeg format. After setting the size to crop, I then 'Saved for web and devices' under the 'File' tab. This then took me to a menu where I selected to save the image as a jpeg and included the meta data before finally saving all of these options to my cropped image. This time I cropped out the top part of the building that was shown in the previous focus to again direct the attention towards the Lancashire County Council logo. The only issue with this crop is that the window to the left is a little distracting which I have addressed in my final crop below. 

Above is my final cropped image to the specification of 100 pixel wide by 100 pixel high version in jpeg format.  After setting the size to crop, I then 'Saved for web and devices' under the 'File' tab. This then took me to a menu where I selected to save the image as a jpeg and included the meta data before finally saving all of these options to my cropped image. My main objective through cropping all of these images was to focus purely on the Lancashire County Council text as although the County Council building is architecturally beautiful, it could be easy to forget the purpose of the building without this logo. This is why for my final crop, I removed the window from the image which was shown in the previous crop and focused entirely on the text. Although the stunning contours of the building are no longer visible when you compare this 100 pixel wide by 100 pixel high image to the original, I think I have successfully met my objective and I feel this is an effective image and could be used as a thumbnail for Lancashire County Council e.g. as part of a letterhead or as a logo for their website. The logo is clearly visible and their are no distractions to the image. 

From this images skills test I have learnt how to successfully and effectively crop images to change the meaning and focus of the image. The meaning of the original image is significantly different to that of the final 100 pixel thumbnail image. The original image is filled with the architecture of the building, giving it quite an artistic meaning, whereas with the thumbnail, the meaning is simple and straight-forward - it's all about the logo and the Lancashire County Council. Like I mentioned previously, without this logo, this stunning building could be a building anywhere in the world and not mean anything to anybody but I think with my cropping based entirely on the logo, the meaning of the images as a whole changes. 

This post was written by Stacey Ford. You can contact Stacey at: SFord1@uclan.ac.uk