Exercises for CHASE's Introduction to Information Visualisation

These exercises were prepared for the CHASE Arts and Humanities in the Digital Age event's workshop on Information Visualisation but they're also useful for people who want to learn more about data visualisations in cultural heritage and the humanities.

Exercise 1: compare simple text tools

Time: c. 5 minutes.

Goal: compare the ability of two different tools to help you understand a new text corpus

1.     Load the word cloud site

2.     Then, grab some text:

  • Open another browser tab
  • Go to http://pastebin.com/Nd0a86tm
  • Select and copy the 8 lines of text. The easiest way is to click into the box under 'RAW Paste Data'
  • Paste them into the text box on the Wordle site and hit 'go'
  • You can customise your visualisation using the menu. Which options create a more informative visualisation?

3.     Load the word tree site

  • Go to http://www.jasondavies.com/wordtree/
  • Paste the text into the 'Paste Text' box and hit 'Generate WordTree!' (Grab the text again from Step 2 if necessary)
  • You can click on words on the screen – which words produce the most options?

4.     Discuss

Bearing in mind that this is an unusual corpus, which tool gave you a better sense of its content? Why?

Are these tools better for exploring or explaining data? Why?

If tidying up the data provided – removing punctuation, making spelling consistent, etc – would improve the visualisation, then try editing the text and re-running the visualisation. Did it help? What else could you do?

Exercise 2: exploring scholarly data visualisations

Time: c. 10-15 minutes.

Goal: get hands-on experience and practice critical analysis.

Pair up with your neighbour to explore and discuss one of the visualisations listed on the following page.

Instructions

  1. In your browser, go to one of the sites below
  2. Take a few minutes to explore the visualisation
  3. Then discuss with your neighbour:
    • What do you think is being presented here?
    • Can you easily see where to start and how to use it?
    • What stories or trends can you start to see?
    • Does it work better at one scale over another?
    • Do you find it more effective at aggregate or detail level?
    • Does it present an argument or provide a space for you to explore and develop one?
    • What arguments (statements about the data) does the site present?
    • What have you learned from visualisation that you might not have learned from looking at the data or reading a description of it?
  4. Be prepared to report back to the group. e.g. summarise the site's purpose, visualisation formats and data types, or share unresolved questions or the most interesting parts of your discussion

 

University of Richmond, 'Visualizing Emancipation'

http://www.americanpast.org/emancipation/

Further information: http://dirt.terrypbrock.com/2012/04/visualizing-emancipation-examining-its-process-through-digital-tools/

Stanford 'Mapping the Republic of Letters'

http://www.stanford.edu/group/toolingup/rplviz/rplviz.swf

Further information: http://openglam.org/2012/03/21/mapping-the-republic-of-letters/, http://danbri.org/words/2010/11/22/603

Locating London's Past

http://www.locatinglondon.org/

GAPVis Ancient Places

http://gap.alexandriaarchive.org/gapvis/index.html#index

Further information: http://googleancientplaces.wordpress.com/

Digital Harlem :: Everyday Life 1915-1930

http://digitalharlem.org/

Further information: http://digitalharlemblog.wordpress.com/ http://writinghistory.trincoll.edu/evidence/robertson-2012-spring/

Digital Public Library of America's timeline, map, bookshelf

http://dp.la/

Further information: https://dp.la/about and http://dp.la/info/news/blog/

Orbis

http://orbis.stanford.edu/

Further information: http://hestia.open.ac.uk/updating-orbis/

Lost Change

http://tracemedia.co.uk/lostchange/

Further information: http://blog.britishmuseum.org/2014/02/19/lost-change-mapping-coins-from-the-portable-antiquities-scheme/

The State of the Union in Context

http://benschmidt.org/poli/2015-SOTU

Further exercises

Learn more: explore and analyse more visualisations

Sketch out ideas for a visualisation

  • Work out what data you need and the best way to prepare and present it. http://www.dear-data.com has some lovely examples of creative sketches.

Create your own visualisations

These sites can be used with your own or public data:

If you have sensitive data you must check whether any data you load will be made public.

HILT Summer School 2015: 'Crowdsourcing Cultural Heritage'

Photo

Resources for the course on Crowdsourcing Cultural Heritage at HILT 2015 I'm teaching with Ben Brumfield.

Course Google Doc for collaborative note-taking, links, etc.

Flickr Group for HILT 2015 Crowdsourcing photos

Mia's storify of the week and the class presentation for the HILT Show and Tell.

Projects made in the class

Well done @cmderose_wisc @nebrown63 @ElizHansen @ESPaul @vac11 @kmthomas06 @WendyJ1226 @HistorianOnFire @Jim_Salmons @TimlynnBabitsky + Nancy!

Monday: overview, speed dating

HILT Crowdsourcing Slides and Exercises for Monday

Session 2: links to find a project you love! For non-English language projects, try Crowdsourcing the world's heritage.

Prompts for thinking about projects:

  • How clear was the purpose of the site? How well was it reflected in the 'call to action' and other text?
  • How easy was it to get started?
  • Were the steps to complete the task clear?
  • How enjoyable was the task?
  • Did the reward (if any) feel appropriate?
  • Looking at the site overall, does the project appear to be effective?
  • What is the input content? What is the output content?
  • What validation methods appear to have been used?
  • Who is the probable audience and what motivates them to participate?
  • How does the project let participants know they're making a difference?
  • Does the site support communication between participants?
  • How was the site marketed to potential participants?
  • Did the site anticipate your questions about the tasks?

HILT Crowdsourcing Slides and Exercises Tuesday

http://tinyurl.com/EminentScotsmen

http://tinyurl.com/Graves1845

HILT Crowdsourcing Slides Wednesday

HILT Crowdsourcing Slides Thursday

HILT Crowdsourcing Slides Friday

Photo
HILT 2015 Crowdsourcing class

Continue reading "HILT Summer School 2015: 'Crowdsourcing Cultural Heritage'"

HILT Summer School: 'Crowdsourcing Cultural Heritage'

In August 2014 I taught 'Crowdsourcing Cultural Heritage' with Ben Brumfield at HILT (Humanities Intensive Learning + Teaching) at MITH in Maryland. Thanks to all the participants for making it such a great workshop!

The Course Syllabus and Slide Decks are available for download below.

If you found this post useful, you might be interested in my book, Crowdsourcing Our Cultural Heritage.

Continue reading "HILT Summer School: 'Crowdsourcing Cultural Heritage'"

Workshop: Data Visualizations as an Introduction to Computational Thinking

I gave a half-day pre-conference workshop on ‘Data Visualizations as an Introduction to Computational Thinking’ for the University of Manchester.

From the event blurb:

Digital Humanities (DH) has grown rapidly in importance in recent years, as interest turns away from technology as an instrumental tool simply for resource discovery and access and towards the need to identify and solve new research challenges for the humanities. As one of the largest concentrations of humanities scholars in the UK, surrounded in turn by the enviable breadth of expertise provided by the University’s technologists and librarians, the University could be a fertile ground for Digital Humanities research.

On 7 November 2013, the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures will be hosting an afternoon workshop for University academics and post-graduates; the event is aimed at exploring the skills and literacies researchers might need as potential digital humanists. This informal, hands on event will provide an opportunity for academics, post-grads to start to ‘think like a programmer’ and learn some computational thinking. Participants will be introduced to new methodologies and tools, including those for manipulating and analysing data using visualization tools. No technological expertise in these areas, only a laptop, curiosity and a willingness to experiment.

Goals of session

  • Provide opportunity for academics, post-grads to start to ‘think like a programmer’ and learn some computational thinking
  • Learn and put into practice some skills for accessing, manipulating and analysing data using visualisation tools
  • Introduce new methodologies and tools
  • Demystify tools, think critically about what’s happening ‘under the hood’, understand the impact of tool choice and data structures
  • Enable dialogue with technologists about project design and tool choice
  • Think about the skills, literacies Digital Humanists need