Websites using Knightlab.northwestern

Okay, let s break down Knight Lab at Northwestern University, focusing on your requested points:

Overview

The Knight Lab is a collaborative team of technologists, designers, editors, and students at Northwestern University s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. They focus on innovation in digital media and journalism. They are not a for-profit company but rather a research and development lab.

Key Aspects of Knight Lab:

• Mission: To experiment with new technologies and storytelling methods to advance the practice of journalism and digital media.
• Focus: They develop and release open-source tools, educational resources, and research findings for the media community.
• Projects: The Lab s work is diverse, often centered around data visualization, interactive storytelling, multimedia, and exploring emerging technologies.
• Open Source: A core principle is making their tools and findings accessible to all through open-source licenses (typically MIT or Apache 2.0).
• Educational Component: Students actively participate in projects, gaining hands-on experience and contributing to the development of new tools.
• Funding: Their work is primarily supported by grants from foundations (like the Knight Foundation), universities, and other philanthropic organizations.

Revenue

Since the Knight Lab is a non-profit, academic research and development lab, it does not generate revenue in the traditional sense. They do not sell software or services.

• Funding Sources: Their funding comes from external grants, university support, and donations.
• No Commercial Products: They do not have products or services that users pay for.

Alternatives

While Knight Lab doesn t have direct competitors because it s not a business, here are some categories of tools and organizations that offer similar types of functionality or services:

• Data Visualization Libraries:

  • D3.js: A highly popular JavaScript library for creating custom data visualizations.
  • Chart.js: An easy-to-use library for basic chart types.
  • Plotly: Offers interactive charting and data visualization.
  • Tableau: A commercial, user-friendly platform for data visualization and analysis.
  • Google Data Studio: A free online tool for data visualization.

• Interactive Storytelling Tools:

  • Shapely.js: (Developed by the Knight Lab) Provides an interactive storytelling format based on scrolling and layers of content.
  • StoryMap JS: (Also developed by the Knight Lab) Great for creating map-based narratives.
  • Genially: A commercial platform offering interactive presentations, infographics and storytelling.
  • Adobe Express: Another commercial platform offering templates for a variety of digital content.

• Journalism and Media Innovation Organizations:

  • Poynter Institute: Provides training and resources for journalists.
  • The Tow Center for Digital Journalism: At Columbia University, research and analysis of digital journalism.
  • Mozilla Open Source Support: Supports projects focused on open-source software and the web.
  • Data Journalism Organizations: Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN), for resources and community on data journalism

• Open-Source Software Development Communities:

  • GitHub: A popular platform for open-source project hosting and collaboration.
  • GitLab: Another similar platform.

Pricing

Knight Lab tools and resources are generally free and open-source.

• No Costs: There is no charge to use their tools, libraries, or resources.
• Open-Source Licenses: They release their projects under licenses that permit users to freely modify and distribute them.

Customer Care Details

Knight Lab does not offer traditional customer care in the way a commercial company would.

• Community Support: The primary mode of support is through the open-source community.
• GitHub Issues: Users can report issues and contribute to projects via the Knight Lab GitHub repositories.
• Documentation: They provide documentation for their tools and projects on their website.
• Social Media: They sometimes provide updates on social media and might answer questions.
• No Dedicated Support Team: They do not have a formal team for troubleshooting or personalized customer support.

In Summary:

The Knight Lab is a valuable resource for the media and technology community. They are focused on developing innovative, free, and open-source tools to advance digital media. Unlike a traditional business, they don t have revenue or pay customers, instead relying on grants and philanthropic support. For assistance with their tools, you rely on the open-source community and their documentation.

If you are looking for a specific type of tool that you know Knight Lab provides, let me know, and I can provide more targeted information on alternatives.