Overview is an open-source tool to help journalists find stories in large amounts of data, by cleaning, visualizing and interactively exploring large document and data sets. Whether from government transparency initiatives, leaks or Freedom of Information requests, journalists are drowning in more documents than they can ever hope to read.

There are good tools for searching within large document sets for names and keywords, but that doesn’t help find stories we’re not looking for. Overview will display relationships among topics, people, places and dates to help journalists to answer the question, “What’s in there?”

We’re building an interactive system where computers do the visualization, while a human guides the exploration. We will also produce documentation and training to help people learn how to use this system. The goal is to make this capability available to anyone who needs it.

Overview is a project of The Associated Press, supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as part of its Knight News Challenge. The Associated Press invests its resources to advance the news industry, delivering fast, unbiased news from every corner of the world to all media platforms and formats. The Knight News Challenge is an international contest to fund digital news experiments that use technology to inform and engage communities.

Research and design work began in November 2010, resulting in a working prototype. Want to know more? See the FAQ.

We are looking for two talented Java/Scala developers!