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To elaborate the nature of fact-checking in the domain of political information by examining how fact-checkers assess the validity of claims concerning the Russo-Ukrainian conflict and how they support their assessments by drawing on evidence acquired from diverse sources of information.

Descriptive quantitative and qualitative content analysis of 128 reports written by the fact-checkers of Snopes – an established fact-checking organisation – during the period of 24 February 2022 – 28 June, 2023. For the analysis, nine evaluation grounds were identified, most of them inductively from the empirical material. It was examined how the fact-checkers employed such grounds while assessing the validity of claims and how the assessments were bolstered by evidence acquired from information sources such as newspapers.

Of the 128 reports, the share of assessments indicative of the invalidity of the claims was 54.7%, while the share of positive ratings was 26.7%. The share of mixed assessments was 15.6%. In the fact-checking, two evaluation grounds, that is, the correctness of information and verifiability of an event presented in a claim formed the basis for the assessment. Depending on the topic of the claim, grounds such as temporal and spatial compatibility, as well as comparison by similarity and difference occupied a central role. Most popular sources of information offering evidence for the assessments include statements of government representatives, videos and photographs shared in social media, newspapers and television programmes.

As the study concentrated on fact-checking dealing with political information about a specific issue, the findings cannot be extended to concern the fact-checking practices in other contexts.

The study is among the first to characterise how fact-checkers employ evaluation grounds of diverse kind while assessing the validity of political information.

Data storytelling courses position students as agents in creating stories interpreted from data about a social problem or social justice issue. The purpose of this study is to explore two research questions: What themes characterized students’ iterative development of data story topics? Looking back at six years of iterative feedback, what categories of data literacy pedagogy did instructors engage for these themes?.

This project examines six years of data storytelling final projects using thematic analysis and three years of instructor feedback. Ten themes in final projects align with patterns in feedback. Reflections on pedagogical approaches to students’ topic development suggest extending data literacy pedagogy categories – formal, personal and folk (Pangrazio and Sefton-Green, 2020).

Data storytelling can develop students’ abilities to move from being consumers to creators of data and interpretations. The specific topic of personal data exposure or risk has presented some challenges for data literacy instruction (Bowler et al., 2017). What “personal” means in terms of data should be defined more broadly. Extending the data literacy pedagogy categories of formal, personal and folk (Pangrazio and Sefton-Green, 2020) could more effectively center social justice in data literacy instruction.

Implications for practice include positioning students as producers of data interpretation, such as role-playing data analysis or decision-making scenarios.

Data storytelling has the potential to address current challenges in data literacy pedagogy and in teaching critical data literacy.

Course descriptions provide a template for future data literacy pedagogy involving data storytelling, and findings suggest implications for expanding definitions and applications of personal and folk data literacies.