From the website:
Welcome to Sunlight Academy, a collection of interactive tutorials for journalists, activists, researchers and students to learn about tools by the Sunlight Foundation and others to unlock government data.
Be sure to create a profile to access our curriculum, track your progress, watch videos, complete training activities and get updates on new tutorials and tools.
Whether you are an investigative journalist trying to get insight on a complex data set, an activist uncovering the hidden influence behind your issue, or a congressional staffer in need of mastering legislative data, Sunlight Academy guides you through how to make our tools work for you. Let’s get started!
The Sunlight Foundation has created tools to make government data more accessible.
Unlike some governments and software projects, the Sunlight Foundation business model isn’t based on poor or non-existent documentation.
Modules (as of 2012 September 10):
- Tracking Government
- Scout Scout is a legislative and governmental tracking tool from the Sunlight Foundation that alerts you when Congress or your state capitol talks about or takes action on issues you care about. Learn how to search and create alerts on federal and state legislation, regulations and the Congressional Record.
- Scout (Webinar) Recorded webinar and demo of Scout from July 26, 2012. The session covered basic skills such as search terms and bill queries, as well as advanced functions such as tagging, merging outside RSS feeds and creating curated search collections.
- Unlocking Data
- Political Ad Sleuth Frustrated by political ads inundating your TV? Learn how you can discover who is funding these ads from the public files at your local television station through this tutorial.
- Unlocking APIs What are APIs and how do they deliver government data? This tutorial provides an introduction to using APIs and highlights what Sunlight’s APIs have to offer on legislative and congressional data.
- Lobbying
- Lobbying Contribution Reports These reports highlight the millions of dollars that lobbying entities spend every year giving to charities in honor of lawmakers and executive branch officials, technically referred to as “honorary fees.” Find out how to investigate lobbying contribution reports, understand the rules behind them and see what you can do with the findings.
- Lobbying Registration Tracker Learn about the Lobbying Registration Tracker, a Sunlight Foundation tool that allows you to track new registrations for federal lobbyists and lobbying firms. This database allows users to view registrations as they’re submitted, browse by issue, registrant or client, and see the trends in issues and registrations over the last 12 months.
- Lobbying Report Form Four times a year, groups that lobby Congress and the federal government file reports on their activities. Unlock the important information contained in the quarterly lobbying reports to keep track of who’s influencing whom in Washington. Learn tips on how to read the reports and how they can inform your reporting.
- Data Analysis
- Data Visualizations in Google Docs While Google is often used for internet searches and maps, it can also help with data visualizations via Google Charts. Learn how to use Google Docs to generate interactive charts in this training.
- Mapping Campaign Finance Data Campaign finance data can be complex and confusing — for reporters and for readers. But it doesn’t have to be. One way to make sense of it all is through mapping. Learn how to turn campaign finance information into beautiful maps, all through free tools.
- Pivot Tables Pivot tables are powerful tools, but it’s not always obvious how to use them. Learn how to create and use pivot tables in Excel to aggregate and summarize data that otherwise would require a database.
- Research Tools
- Advanced Google Searches Google has made search easy and effective, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be better. Learn how to effectively use Google’s Advanced Search operators so you can get what you’re looking for without wasting time on irrelevant results.
- Follow the Unlimited Money (webinar) Recorded webinar from August 8, 2012. This webinar covered tools to follow the millions of dollars being spent this election year by super PACs and other outside groups.
- Learning about Data.gov Data.gov seeks to organize all of the U.S. government’s data, a daunting and unfinished task. In this module, learn about the powers and limitations of Data.gov, and what other resources to use to fill in Data.gov’s gaps.