meets Tuesday and Thursday from 0800-0915
office hours in Manning 112
Class Schedule
10 Jan | intro
15 Jan | clients
17 Jan | servers
22 Jan | networks
24 Jan | basics lab
29 Jan | structural layer
31 Jan | presentational layer
05 Feb | working with layers
07 Feb | behavior layer |
12 Feb | images & design
14 Feb | website lab
19 Feb | document markup
21 Feb | graphics
26 Feb | document markup lab
28 Feb | spreadsheets
05 Mar | formulas & functions
07 Mar |
thoughts about data display |
creating graphical data displays |
next session
19 Mar | database tools
21 Mar | spreadsheets lab
26 Mar | relational databases
28 Mar | tables
02 Apr | relationships
04 Apr | input & output
09 Apr | SQL
11 Apr | complex queries
16 Apr | databases lab
18 Apr | presentation design
23 Apr | presentation delivery
25 Apr | presentation lab
30 Apr | 0800-1100 | final in class presentation
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The history of data visualization is not extremely long.
There are a few names to know and things to think about.
Quoting Edward Tufte in the Introduction of The Visual Display of Quantitative Information
Data graphics visually display measured quantities by means of the combined use of points, lines, a coordinate system, numbers, symbols, words, shading, and color ... Modern data graphics can do much more than simply substitute for small statistical tables. At their best, graphics are instruments for reasoning about quantitative information. Often the most effective way to describe, explore and summarize a set of numbers - even a very large set - is to look at pictures of those numbers. Furthermore, of all methods for analyzing and communicating statistical information, well-designed graphics are usually the simplest and at the same time the most powerful.
Visualization of data has a long history, but the addition of more powerful computing and newer programs has given us the opportunity to display data in ways that are enlightening.
How to Lie with Statistics and The Best and Worst of Statistical Graphics by Michael Friendly at York University, Canada
Jacques Bertin and his classic book, The Semiology of Graphics
Edward Tufte and his three classics
Scholars at York University in Canada have put together a useful gallery of good methods of display and also of ideas to avoid
Lessons for data analysts from the Challenger disaster tells us good data display could be a life or death issue.
But there are always several different ways to view the same situation and not everyone agrees with Tufte.
Let's re-iterate our points again.