The Open Visualization Academy—a first-of-its-kind platform recently launched by a faculty member at the University of Miami—offers free courses on designing data-backed charts and maps to communicate information more effectively.

By Janette Neuwahl Tannen
2-10-2026
This story originally appeared in News@TheU

Interested in creating an informative, eye-catching chart, graph, or map to help explain a complex dataset?

There are now several free courses to learn these skills, all offered on a new website created by a University of Miami faculty member, with help from many other data visualization experts. Called the Open Visualization Academy (OVA), the site was launched recently and now offers at least 12 different courses.

“Essentially, this is an educational platform where we will offer free video courses and educational resources about information design,” said Alberto Cairo, a professor and the Knight Chair in Visual Journalism at the University’s School of Communication.

“There’s nothing like this anywhere in the world,” Cairo said, “so my aim is that the OVA will become for data and graphical literacy what Khan Academy is to math education.”

With the advent of big data everywhere today, 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.

“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, who also serves as director of visualization at the University’s Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing. “It will take your graphic or chart designing skills to the next level.”

Cairo

Cairo has spent his career working to improve data literacy—the ability to read, analyze, and communicate data to gain new insights. This is often illustrated through charts, maps, and infographics. Cairo first honed his expertise in the field as a graphics director at global news publications and then began sharing his knowledge as a professor and author of four books on the topic. In 2012 Cairo posted a basic course called Introduction to Data Visualization on the massive open online course platform, or MOOC, and got an overwhelming response—attracting thousands of students from more than 100 countries. That inspired him to create OVA as an enhanced and more extensive educational tool, with support from the 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.”

While several courses are already available, 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.

“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.

His colleagues at the School of Communication are glad that Cairo has created this new platform. A few current and former faculty members and even 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 OVA is still new, Cairo believes it will help spur a new generation of informed graphic artists and hopes it will bolster anyone’s ability to discern between misleading and truthful informational graphics. He also hopes to translate some of the videos into other languages soon 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.