Information Visualization Digital Social Research: Methods Options - Group B

Academic Year: 2016-17, Hilary Term Day and time: Weeks 6-9, TBC Location: TBC

Course Convener Dr Scott A. Hale, Data Scientist, [email protected]

Background Information visualization has been a fundamental tool in scientific communication since the early work of William Playfair and Charles Joseph Minard at the turn of the nineteenth century, particularly serving as means to convey the result of statistical analysis and complex information, while the practice of map making dates back thousands of years, and cartography has always been a key means to represent and understand the environment that surrounds us. Geographic information analysis emerged from the work of John Snow in the second half of the nineteenth century, as formal approach in studying spatial patterns, and flourished in the last twenty years, with the introduction of computer-based geographic information systems and the development of geographic information science. The last decades have witnessed unprecedented advances in the availability of visualization tools as well as the availability of data. The aim of this course is to provide students with the skills to take advantage of those tools and data, through an introduction to information visualization theory, as well as basic practical skills in creating effective visuals, including the visualization of geographic data.

Course Objectives The objective for the students is to learn the fundamental principles of perception, symbolisation, and cartography, as well as to develop a basic knowledge of the design practices and tools that can be used to create informative graphics, maps and diagrams using information visualization tools.

This will provide social science students with a set of skills that will enable them to produce effective visualizations of their data, and thus better represent, support, and communicate their findings. Students will also be introduced to visualization as a data exploration method useful in the early stages of research to get an overview of data.

Learning Outcomes Upon successful completion of this course students will be able to:

•

Understand and discuss fundamental concepts related to:

o

Visual perception

o

Visual representation

o

Cartography

•

Understand advantages and issues of main visualization methods

•

Have basic knowledge of geographic information systems tools

•

Effectively visualise quantitative data

Note Students should note that over the course of the year, small changes may be made to the content, dates or teaching arrangements set out in this reading list, at the course provider's discretion. These changes will be communicated to students directly and will be noted on the internal course information website.

Summative Assessment Students will be assessed through a final project. The project will focus on the analysis and visualization of a dataset to be selected by the students in consultation with the course tutor. The submission must include one main visualization, which may combine multiple elements together (e.g., a map and a graph). The visualization should be submitted for evaluation alongside an essay not to exceed 2,500 words in length. The essay shall include a description of the research question and findings (not to exceed 500 words), a description of the data and analysis methods (not to exceed 500 words), and a description of the visualization, including, most importantly, a justification of the design choices made (not to exceed 1,500 words). The essay shall explain the choice of the kind of visualization used, how it was produced (e.g., specific software used), and justify the positioning of elements, use of dimensions, colours, textual content (if present), labels, and any other important aspect of the visualization—in the case of a map, these shall at least include scale and map projection.

The report is due Friday of Week 10 of Hilary Term (24 March) by 12:00 noon, and should be submitted via WebLearn. The report should also be submitted electronically by 5:00 pm on the same day (Friday of Week 10 of Hilary Term) to [email protected]. The report should follow the normal OII formatting guidelines. Students should pay particular attention to the print versions of the submission as assessors will only have access to these versions.

Submission of Summative Assignments The summative assignment for this course is due on Friday of Hilary Term Week 10 (24 March) by 12.00pm and should be submitted electronically via the Assignment Submission WebLearn Site.The assignment should also be submitted electronically by 5:00 pm on the same day to [email protected]. If anything goes wrong with your submission, email [email protected] immediately. In cases where a technical fault that is later determined to be a fault of the Weblearn system (and not a fault of your computer) prevents your submitting the assessment on time, having a time stamped email message will help the Proctors determine if your assessment will be accepted. Please note that you should not wait until the last minute to submit materials since Weblearn can run slowly at peak submission times and this is not considered a technical fault. Full instructions on using WebLearn for electronic submissions can be found on Plato under General Information. There is also an FAQ page on the Assignment Submission WebLearn Site. Please note that work submitted after the deadline will be processed in the standard manner and, in addition, the late submission will be reported to the Proctors' Office. If a student is concerned that they will not meet the deadline they must contact their college office or examinations school for advice. For further information on submission of assessments to the examinations school please refer to http://www.ox.ac.uk/students/academic/exams/submission/. For details on the regulations for late and non-submissions please refer to the Proctors website at https://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/proctors/examinations/candidates/. Any student failing this assessment will need to follow the rules set out in the OII Examining Conventions regarding re-submitting failed work.

List of Topics

1. Perception and representation (Week 6) 2. Semiotics (Week 6) 3. Visual salience (Week 6) 4. Visualization methods (Week 7) 5. Cartography (Week 8) 6. Geographic information systems (Week 8) 7. Advanced topics in geo-visualization (Week 9)

General Readings Ware, C

Information Visualization: Perception for Design. 2012. Morgan Kaufmann. [IVPD]

Yau, N

“Visualize This: The FlowingData Giude to Design, Visualization, and Statistics”. 2011. Wily. [VT]

Slocum, T McMaster, R Kessler, F Howard, H MacEachren, A.M. Kraak, M.-J.

Thematic Cartography and Geovisualization: Pearson New International Edition. 2013. Pearson. [TCGV]



Exploring Geovisualization. 2004. Elsevier. [EGV]

Dykes, J

Key to Readings and Assignments A reading list is given below for each class. Those items marked with an asterisk (*) are essential reading and MUST be read by all students in preparation for the class. Items which are not marked with an asterisk are additional suggested readings which can be consulted by students with relevant interests.

All assignments shown below should be prepared in advance of the class session for which they are assigned, and submitted to the course convenor via Plato by the deadlines given.

Week 6 (I): Information visualization The basics of information visualization lie in understanding the possibilities and limitations of how to effectively communicate information through a two-dimensional graphic, accounting for the possibilities and limitations of the human vision system as well as semiotics. This session will start with a history of the development of the field of information visualization from Playfair to current advances in visual analytics. This will be followed by a brief excursus on the issues of change and inattention blindness, and the human vision system. The main part of the session will then be devoted to the concept of representation, perception, and the theory of signs.

Assignment 1

(due Tuesday, Week 7, 23:59) Write a short essay (500 words) presenting a research question of your interest, related to the Internet, and how you think these could be effectively communicated to the general public through a visualization or a map. Include a brief description of the kind of visualization you would use. Make sure you have access to a series of data related to the selected topic, and at least one data series should include geographical references (e.g., latitude and longitude or values aggregated per country), and preferably include data varying over time.

Readings

*

IVPD

Chapters 1 & 5



IVPD

Chapters 2, 3, 4 & 7



TCGV

Chapters 1 & 2



Chandler, D

Semiotics: The Basics. 2007. Routledge.



Bertin, J

Semiology of Graphics. 1983. University of Wisconsin Press.

Eysenck, M

Cognitive Psychology: A Student's Handbook, 6th Edition. 2010. Psychology Press. (chapters 2 - 8)



Keane, M. T.

Week 7 (II): Visualization methods The second session will start with an overview of visualization methods and design practices, discussing possibilities and issues of common types of graphs. Three main topics will be discussed: the visualization of both discrete and continuous data over time; the visualization of data in terms of proportion, or parts of a whole; the use of graphics to illustrate relationship between different variables describing a phenomenon. For the second part, we look at developing and disseminating visualizations via the Web, including the affordance of interactivity. A set of tools will also be briefly introduced, including the base graphics package and the library ggplot2 in R.

Assignment 2 (due Tuesday, Week 8, 23:59)

Write a short essay (500 words) discussing how the data you collected can be statistically analysed, aggregated, and/or combined, possibly with further data (e.g., census data or open data) to answer the question you presented in the previous essay. Perform the proposed analysis, and briefly present your findings in the same essay.

Readings

*

VT

Chapters 4, 5 & 6



Wickham, Hadley

ggplot2: Elegant Graphics for Data Analysis



Tufte, E

“The Visual Display of Quantitative Information”. 2001. Graphics Press USA.



Murray, S

“Interactive Data Visualization for the Web”. 2013. O’Reilly. (chapter 5)



Norman, D

"The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition". 2013. Basic Books.

Rogers, Y



Sharp, H

"Interaction Design: Beyond Human - Computer Interaction". 2011. Wiley.

Preece, J Butler, J



Holden, K

"Universal Principles of Design". 2010. Rockport Publishers.

Lidwell, W



Dewar, M

"Getting Started with D3". 2012. O'Reilly.



Zhu, N.Q.

"Data Visualization with D3.js Cookbook". 2013. O'Reilly.



Murray, S

"Interactive Data Visualization for the Web". 2013. O'Reilly. (online version: http://chimera.labs.oreilly.com/books/1230000000345/index.html)

Finlay, Janet E. Dix, Alan



Beale, Russell

Human Computer Interaction. 2003. Prentice Hall.

Abowd, Gregory

Week 8 (III): Geographic information visualization and analysis This session focuses on the geographical component of the course. The session will start with an introduction to the statistical foundations of cartography, followed by a discussion of the principles of symbolization, visual variables, and the most common thematic mapping techniques. In the second part of the session, the fundamental concepts of scale and generalization will be introduced, followed by a description of geographic coordinates, map projections, and the difference between raster and vector data. This will lead to a practical part introducing a geographic information system tool and its basic usage, which will also allow room for students to experiment with the presented tools.

Assignment 3 (due Tuesday, Week 9, 23:59) Create a visualization to present the results obtained in the analysis conducted for the previous assignment. Keep in mind that the visualization should be designed for the general public (i.e., nonexperts). Prepare a short essay (500 words), briefly explaining your design choices, including at the minimum the reason for selecting the visualization method you did, the positioning of the elements, the use of dimensions, colours, textual content (if present), labels, and any other important aspects of your visualization—in case of a map, these shall at least include scale and map projection.

Readings

*

TCGV

Chapters 3, 5 & 9

*

Montello, D

Scale and multiple psychologies of space. In Spatial Information Theory: A theoretical basis for GIS (pp. 312-321), Berlin, Springer Verlag, Lecture Notes in Computer Science 716. (1993).



Brunsdon and Comber

An Introduction to R for Spatial Analysis and Mapping

Chapter 4, 6, 7, 8 & 10



TCGV



O'Sullivan, David Unwin, David

Geographic Information Analysis. 2010. Wiley.



Goodchild, M. F.

Twenty years of progress: GIScience in 2010. Journal of Spatial Information Science, (1), 3-20. (2014)



Longley, P.A.



Goodchild, M

"Geographic Information Systems and Science". 2010. Wiley.

Maguire, D.J. Rhind, D.W.



Anselin, L

What is special about spatial data?: alternative perspectives on spatial data analysis (pp. 63-77). Santa Barbara, CA: National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis. (1989).

Dodge, M



McDerby, M

The power of geographical visualizations. Geographic Visualization: Concepts, tools, and applications, 1-10. (2008).

Turner, M

Week 9 (IV): Advanced topics in information visualization This session will cover advanced methods and paradigms of information visualization, discussing the introduction of new dimensions to visualization, including their advantages and limitations. The session will briefly cover the following topics: the use of animation, interactivity, 3D and stereoscopic visualizations, the use of sound, mobile cartography, new paradigms in collaborative visualizations, visual analytics, and spatialization. The course will conclude with a practical session, presenting examples of the topics mentioned above implemented as online visualizations and allow time for students to experiment with and construct their own visualizations.

Readings

*



EGV

Chapters 14, 28, & 35

Skupin, A

Spatialization methods: a cartographic research agenda for nongeographic information visualization. Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 30(2), 99-119. (2003).

Fabrikant, S.I.

Andrienko, G Andrienko, N



Demsar, U Dransch, D

Space, time and visual analytics. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 24(10), 1577-1600. (2010).

et al Zanola, S



Fabrikant, S.I. Çöltekin, A

The effect of realism on the confidence in spatial data quality in stereoscopic 3D displays. In Proceedings of the 24th international cartography conference (ICC 2009), Santiago, Chile. (2009, November).

Andrienko, G



Andrienko, N Jankowski, P Keim, D

Geovisual analytics for spatial decision support: Setting the research agenda. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 21(8), 839-857. (2007).

et al



Reichenbacher, T



DiBiase, D MacEachren, A.M. Krygier, J.B. Reeves, C

Adaptation in mobile and ubiquitous cartography. In Multimedia Cartography (pp. 383-397). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. (2007).

Animation and the role of map design in scientific visualization. Cartography and geographic information systems, 19(4), 201-214. (1992).