Gumshoe: a model for undergraduate computational journalism education

Abstract

This paper describes a collaboration between computer science and journalism students and professors at our small, primarily undergraduate college, and a large metropolitan newspaper. Our students' work was a catalyst for a hard-hitting series of investigative stories, with far-reaching consequences. The Gumshoe project is a model for computational journalism at an undergraduate institution. The project demonstrates that when computer scientists and journalists reach out across disciplinary boundaries, computational thinking and collaboration can solve a real problem, and have a substantive impact on society.