Online Course | A Thousand Words and a Picture: Storytelling with Data
Part 1: March 13, 2019 | 1:00–2:30 p.m. ET
Part 2: March 20, 2019 | 1:00–2:30 p.m. ET
Part 3: March 27, 2019 | 1:00–2:30 p.m. ET
A picture is worth a thousand words, but developing a data picture worth a thousand words involves careful thought and planning. IT leaders are often in need of sharing their story and vision for the future with campus partners and campus leadership. Delivering this message in a compelling way takes a significant amount of thought and planning. This session will take participants through the process of constructing their story, how to (and how not to) incorporate data and anecdotes effectively, how to design clear data visualizations, and how to present their story with confidence.
During this course, participants will:
- Develop a story that elicits a specific outcome
- Identify and effectively use data elements to support a compelling story
- Learn how to tell your story in a clear and effective way
NOTE: Participants will be asked to complete assignments in between the course segments that support the learning objectives stated below and will receive feedback and constructive critique from course facilitators on how to improve and shape their work.
Leah Lang, Director of Analytics Services, EDUCAUSE
Leah Lang leads EDUCAUSE Analytics Services, a suite of data services, products, and tools that can be used to inform decision-making about IT in higher education. The foundational service in this suite is the EDUCAUSE Core Data Services (CDS), higher education’s comprehensive IT benchmarking data service.
more Educause webinars in this IMS blog
Storytelling with Data: An Introduction to Data Visualization
Mar 04 – Mar 31, 2019
Data visualization is about presenting data visually so we can explore and identify patterns in the data, analyze and make sense of those patterns, and communicate our findings. In this course, you will explore those key aspects of data visualization, and then focus on the theories, concepts, and skills related to communicating data in effective, engaging, and accessible ways.
This will be a hands-on, project-based course in which you will apply key data visualization strategies to various data sets to tell specific data stories using Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. Practice data sets will be provided, or you can utilize your own data sets.
Week 1: Introduction and Tool Setup
Week 2: Cognitive Load and Pre-Attentive Attributes
Week 3: Selecting the Appropriate Visualization Type
Week 4: Data Stories and Context
Upon completion of this course, you will be able to create basic data visualizations that are effective, accessible, and engaging. In support of that primary objective, you will:
- Describe the benefits of data visualization for your professional situation
- Identify opportunities for using data visualization
- Apply visual cues (pre-attentive attributes) appropriately
- Select correct charts/graphs for your data story
- Use appropriate accessibility strategies for data tables
Basic knowledge of Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets is required to successfully complete this course. Resources will be included to help you with the basics should you need them, but time spent learning the tools is not included in the estimated time for completing this course.
What are the key takeaways from this course?
- The ability to explain how data visualization is connected to data analytics
- The ability to identify key data visualization theories
- Creating effective and engaging data visualizations
- Applying appropriate accessibility strategies to data visualizations
Who should take this course?
- Instructional designers, faculty, and higher education administrators who need to present data in effective, engaging, and accessible ways will benefit from taking this course
more on digital storytelling in this IMS blog
more on data visualization in this IMS blog
Mapping 1968, Conflict and Change
An Opportunity for Interdisciplinary Research
When: Friday, September 28, 8:30am-3:00pm
Where: Wilson Research Collaboration Studio, Wilson Library
Cost: Free; advanced registration is required
1968 was one of the most turbulent years of the 20th century. 2018 marks the 50th anniversary of that year’s landmark political, social and cultural events–events that continue to influence our world today.
Focusing on the importance of this 50 year anniversary we are calling out to all faculty, staff, students, and community partners to participate the workshop ‘Mapping 1968, Conflict and Change’. This all-day event is designed to bring people together into working groups based on common themes. Bring your talent and curiosity to apply an interdisciplinary approach to further explore the spatial context of these historic and/or current events. Learn new skills on mapping techniques that can be applied to any time in history. To compliment the expertise that you bring to the workshop, working groups will also have the support of library, mapping, and data science experts to help gather, create, and organize the spatial components of a given topic.
To learn more and to register for the workshop, go here.
Workshop sponsors: Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS), U-Spatial, Liberal Arts Technologies & Innovation Services (LATIS), Digital Arts, Science & Humanities (DASH), and UMN Libraries.
Posted by Plamen Miltenoff on Friday, September 28, 2018
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5114403-early-thematic-mapping-in-the-history-of-cartography – symbolization methods, cartographers and statisticians.
Kevin Ehrman-Solberg email@example.com PPT on Mapping Prejudice. https://www.mappingprejudice.org/
Henneping County scanned the deeds, OCR, Python script to search. Data in an open source. covenant data. Local historian found microfishes, the language from the initial data. e.g. eugenics flavor: arian, truncate.
Dan Milz. Public Affairs. geo-referencing, teaching a class environmental planning, spatial analysis, firstname.lastname@example.org @dcmlz
Chris ancient historian. The Tale of Mediterranean, City: Mapping the history of Premodern Carthage and Tunis.
College of Liberal Arts
from archives to special resources. archaeological data into GIS layers. ESRI https://www.esri.com/en-us/home how interactive is ESRI.
mapping for 6 months. finding the maps in the archeological and history reports was time consuming. once that data was sorted out, exciting.
Kate Carlson, U-Spatial Story Maps, An Intro
patters, we wouldn’t see if we did not bring it up spatially. interactivity and data visualization, digital humanities
making an argument, asking questions, crowdsourcing, archival and resources accessibility, civitates orbis terrarum http://historic-cities.huji.ac.il/mapmakers/braun_hogenberg.html
storymaps.arcgis.com/en/gallery https://storymaps.arcgis.com/en/gallery/#s=0 cloud-based mapping software. ArcGIS Online. organizational account for the U, 600 users. over 700 storymaps creates within the U, some of them are not active, share all kind of data: archive data on spreadsheet, but also a whole set of data within the software; so add the data or use the ArcGIS data and use templates. web maps into the storymap app, Living Atlas: curated set of data: hunderd sets of data, from sat images, to different contents. 846 layers of data, imagery, besides org account, one can create maps within the free account with limited access. data browser to use my own data – Data Enrichment to characterized my data. census data from 2018 and before,
make plan, create a storyboard, writing for the web, short and precise (not as writing for a journal), cartographic style, copyright, citing the materials, choosing the right map scale for each page. online learning materials, some only thru org account ESRI academy has course catalogue. Mapping 101, Dekstop GIS 101, Collector 101, Imagery 101, SQL 101, Story Maps 101,
Awards for UMN undergrad and grad students, $1000
history, anthropology, political science,
Melinda, Kernik, Spatial Data Curator email@example.com Jenny McBurney firstname.lastname@example.org
University Digital COnservancy
civil rights information from the U (migrants blog)
DASH Digital Arts, Sciences and Humanities. text mining data visualization,
data repository for the U (DRUM)
DASH director, https://dash.umn.edu/. Ben Wiggins
The “Mapping 1968, Conflict and Change” planning committee is very pleased with the amount of interest and the wonderful attendance at Friday’s gathering. Thank you for attending and actively participating in this interdisciplinary workshop!
To re-cap and learn more on your thoughts and expectations of the workshop we would be grateful if you can take a few moments to complete the workshop evaluation
. Please complete the evaluation even if you were unable to attend last Friday, there are questions regarding continued communication and the possibility for future events of this kind.
Below is a list of presented workshop resources:
U-Spatial | Spatial Technology Consultant
Research Computing, Office of the Vice President for Research
University of Minnesota
Blegen Hall 420
Room 414 SocSci
more on GIS in this IMS blog
3 Reasons Why Data Storytelling Will Be A Top Marketing Trend of 2018
that looked at reader engagement across articles that contained charts and infographics vs. articles that were text-only found that those with graphical storytelling, or what I like to call data storytelling, had up to 34 percent more comments and shares and a 300 percent improvement on the depth of scroll down the page.
Using storytelling techniques to present data not only makes it more visually appealing but also enables easy spotting of key trends, seamless results-tracking, and quick goal-monitoring.
Here are things that can help you build a bridge from your current methods to effective data storytelling–
- Choose a topic by identifying your target audience, the goal of your visual, what you would like to achieve.
- Organize your data by thinking about what you want to convey and then get rid of anything that doesn’t help you tell that story.
- Spend time making your visualization look sharp by keeping it simple, using color and interactivity.
A few bonus tips to make your data visualizations really pop–
- Don’t use more than two graphs at a time so as not to confuse participants.
- Stick with one color per graph; making things multicolored will cause data to look jumbled.
- Give context to your concept. Introduce your idea slowly and tell the story of what you want your data to reveal instead of assuming everyone in the room is on the same page.
- Try using interactive data storytelling techniques to support your data.
more on digital storytelling in this IMS blog
Finch, J. f., & Flenner, A. (2016). Using Data Visualization to Examine an Academic Library Collection. College & Research Libraries, 77(6), 765-778.
Visualizations of library data have been used to: • reveal relationships among subject areas for users. • illuminate circulation patterns. • suggest titles for weeding. • analyze citations and map scholarly communications
Each unit of data analyzed can be described as topical, asking “what.”6 • What is the number of courses offered in each major and minor? • What is expended in each subject area? • What is the size of the physical collection in each subject area? • What is student enrollment in each area? • What is the circulation in specific areas for one year?
libraries, if they are to survive, must rethink their collecting and service strategies in radical and possibly scary ways and to do so sooner rather than later. Anderson predicts that, in the next ten years, the “idea of collection” will be overhauled in favor of “dynamic access to a virtually unlimited flow of information products.” My note: in essence, the fight between Mark Vargas and the Acquisition/Cataloguing people
The library collection of today is changing, affected by many factors, such as demanddriven acquisitions, access, streaming media, interdisciplinary coursework, ordering enthusiasm, new areas of study, political pressures, vendor changes, and the individual faculty member following a focused line of research.
subject librarians may see opportunities in looking more closely at the relatively unexplored “intersection of circulation, interlibrary loan, and holdings.”
Using Visualizations to Address Library Problems
the difference between graphical representations of environments and knowledge visualization, which generates graphical representations of meaningful relationships among retrieved files or objects.
Exhaustive lists of data visualization tools include: • the DIRT Directory (http://dirtdirectory.org/categories/visualization) • Kathy Schrock’s educating through infographics (www.schrockguide.net/ infographics-as-an-assessment.html) • Dataviz list of online tools (www.improving-visualisation.org/case-studies/id=5)
Eugene O’Loughlin, National College of Ireland, is very helpful in composing the charts and is found here: https://youtu.be/4FyImh2G7N0.
p. 771 By looking at the data (my note – by visualizing the data), more questions are revealed, The visualizations provide greater comprehension than the two-dimensional “flatland” of the spreadsheets, in which valuable questions and insights are lost in the columns and rows of data.
By looking at data visualized in different combinations, library collection development teams can clearly compare important considerations in collection management: expenditures and purchases, circulation, student enrollment, and course hours. Library staff and administrators can make funding decisions or begin dialog based on data free from political pressure or from the influence of the squeakiest wheel in a department.
more on data visualization for the academic library in this IMS blog
The Prospect project at UNC’s DIL
Prospect is a WordPress plugin. In an overly wordy sentence, Prospect is a domain-agnostic framework for data visualization in support of the digital humanities.
The concept is a simple one. We take data, and we represent it with images. We all get that part of it. The importance of that kind of work relies on the fact that we are humans, and we understand visual structures better and with more fidelity than we do tables of data.
Digital humanities isn’t just limited to the humanities – the design concepts that guide that field are relevant to all domains. At that level what we’re really talking about is a digital literacy, and one that will be instrumental in many of the possible futures that exist for our students.