Interested in creating an informative, eye-catching chart, graph, or map to help explain a complex dataset?
Launched in February 2026, the OVA website, openvisualizationacademy.org, now offers at least a dozen different courses along with tutorials from data visualization experts.
“Essentially, this is an educational platform offering free video courses and educational resources about information design,” said Cairo, professor and Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the School of Communication Department of Journalism and Media Management. “There’s nothing like this anywhere in the world,” Cairo added, “so my aim is that for data and graphical literacy the OVA will become what Khan Academy is to math education.”
As AI and data become increasingly embedded in everyday work, Cairo understands that many people—beyond news outlets—may be hungry for these skills. It could include people working in the business or data analytics field, those in environmental science professions, or even instructors of statistics and data science.
“We’ll take your graphic or chart designing skills to the next level.”
“For anyone who uses charts, graphs, and maps in their job, and who is curious about how to better communicate that information, our courses can benefit you,” said Cairo. We’ll take your graphic or chart designing skills to the next level.”
Cairo has spent his career working to improve data literacy—the ability to read, analyze, and communicate data to gain new insights, often illustrated through charts, maps, and infographics. Cairo first honed his expertise in the field as a graphics director at global news publications (Editora Globo, El Mundo), and then, began sharing his knowledge as a professor and author of four books on the topic [“The Truthful Art: Data Charts, and Maps for Communication (2016)” “How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information” (2019), “The Functional Art: An Introduction to Information Graphics and Visualization” (2012), and “The Art of Insight: How Great Visualization Designers Think” (2023)].
In 2012, Cairo posted a basic course called “Introduction to Data Visualization” on the massive open online course platform (MOOC) and got an overwhelming response—attracting thousands of students from more than 100 countries. That inspired him to create the OVA as an enhanced and more extensive educational tool, with support from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. “I figured, why don’t I take that model and make it much more ambitious and collaborative?” he said. “I see the OVA in the same way as the public lectures I have been doing for years, but this is a way to do it at scale.”
Cairo plans to keep adding new video classes each month with the help of his collaborators. His introductory course—which is one of the longest—covers fundamental concepts of information design in five chapters, but other offerings are more specific and shorter. They include topics such as accessibility, while others are software tutorials on design programs like Figma, Adobe Illustrator, or QGIS—a program used for building maps. Instructors come from both academia and the private sector, including experts from Northeastern University, Emory University, Kaseya, and even The Washington Post.
“This open educational platform strengthens data-driven critical thinking—a crucial skill for journalists, designers, and other emerging professionals who must increasingly interpret, visualize, and compose complex information.”
“My collaborators are worldwide leaders in the field and are all very well-known in data journalism, data analytics, and the digital humanities,” Cairo said.
Colleagues at the School of Communication are glad that Cairo has created this new platform. A few former and current faculty members and students are also involved in the project. “This open educational platform strengthens data-driven critical thinking—a crucial skill for journalists, designers, and other emerging professionals who must increasingly interpret, visualize, and compose complex information,” said Karin Wilkins, dean of the School of Communication, adding that it fits in with the school’s Digital Dialogue Initiative*.
While the OVA is still new, Cairo believes it will help spur a new generation of informed graphic artists, and he hopes it will bolster anyone’s ability to discern between misleading and truthful informational graphics. He also plans to translate some of the videos into other languages so that more people can take advantage of the courses.
“This is the most ambitious project I have put together, and I hope it will have the biggest impact worldwide,” he said.
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SOURCE: NEWS@TheU story “Making Sense of Data” by Janette Neuwahl Tannen | February 10, 2026
* The University of Miami Digital Dialogue Initiative (often associated with the Digital Humanities Interdisciplinary Research Group) fosters collaboration through workshops on data literacy, digital resources, and visualization techniques. It aims to connect, analyze, and communicate complex data through digital tools, supporting research and interdisciplinary projects across the University.
