CPSC 371 Syllabus

Readings are to be done before the class period where they are listed. Dates for assignments shown in gray are tenative and are subject to change.

		Assignments
Week 1: 1/20-1/22 Topics: introduction; the power of representation

Wed	Links: Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen (video) Gapminder

Fri	Reading: (journal question) Tufte. Visual Explanations, chapter 2. [on reserve and Blackboard] Optional Reading: Zhang, Norman. "The Representation of Numbers", Cognition, 57, pp. 271-295, 1995. [on Blackboard] This reading gets a bit complicated in places. If you get lost, just skip to the next section and start again. Slides: [on Blackboard]
Week 2: 1/25-1/29 Topics: marks and data

Mon	Reading: (journal question) Cleveland, McGill. "Graphical perception and Graphical Methods for Analyzing Scientific Data", Science, New Series, vol. 229, no. 4716 (Aug. 30, 1985), pp. 828-833. [link] The last section ("Graphical Methods") is optional. Slides: [on Blackboard]

Wed	Reading: (no specific journal question) Tufte. Envisioning Information, pages 81-96. [on reserve] Rogowitz, Treinish. "Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color?" [link] Slides: [on Blackboard]

Fri	Reading: read at least one of the following articles (journal question) Stephen Few. "Graph Designs for Reviewing Transactions and the Changing Balance". [link] Stephen Few. "Graph Designs for Rapidly Assessing Budget Performance". [link] Slides: [on Blackboard]	homework #1 due Mon 2/1
Week 3: 2/1-2/5 Topics: protovis; matching marks to data

Mon	Reading: (no specific journal question) Browse through the Protovis documentation, paying particular attention to the following pages: Introduction ReadMeFirst How-To: Get Started Example Charts You can also check out the Examples Gallery to see the kinds of things that are possible. Reference: Protovis wiki (information on marks, concepts, data, scales, layouts) Protovis API Example Charts handy data utilities Javascript arrays Examples: iris9.php (scatterplots, protovis basics)	homework #2 due Fri 2/5

Wed	Reading: (journal question) Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, "Graphical Excellence", pages 13-52. [on reserve] Examples: iris10.php (map, ordinal scales, bar chart) abalone.php (data manipulation: nest, flatten) iris11.php (stacked bars, data manipulation: map, nest, flatten)

Fri	Slides: [on Blackboard]	homework #2 (problem 2) due Mon 2/8
Week 4: 2/8-2/12 Topics: matching marks to data

Mon	Reading: (journal question) Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, "Data-Ink and Graphical Redesign", pages 91-105. [on reserve] Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, "Chartjunk: Vibrations, Grids, and Ducks", pages 106-121. [on reserve] Examples: autos1.php (sample solution for hw2 #1) autos2.php (sample solution for hw2 #2) Slides: [on Blackboard]	homework #3 due Fri 2/12

Wed	Reading: (journal question) Tufte. Envisioning Information, "Color and Information", pages 81-95. [on reserve] Reference: ColorBrewer (old version) Examples: abalone2.php (stacked bars) iris11.php (stacked bars) Slides: [on Blackboard]

Fri	Slides: [on Blackboard]	homework #4 due Wed 2/17
Week 5: 2/15-2/19 Topics: designing visualizations; truthfulness; technique toolbox

Mon	no reading

Wed	Reading: (journal question) Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, "Graphical Integrity", pages 53-77. [on reserve] Examples: cereal.php, cereal2.php (two visualizations for hw3 - discuss them on the course blog on Blackboard) Slides: [on Blackboard]		midterm #1 due Wed 2/24 in class (information)

Fri	Reading: (journal question) Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, "Multifunctioning Graphical Elements", pages 139-159. [on reserve] Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, "Small Multiples", pages 170-174. [on reserve] Slides: [on Blackboard]
Week 6: 2/22-2/26 Topics: technique toolbox; interaction

Mon	Slides: [on Blackboard]

Wed	Slides: [on Blackboard]		project #1 checkpoint #1 due Fri 3/5

Fri	Reading: (journal question) Yi, Kang, Stasko, Jacko. "Toward a Deeper Understanding of the Role of Interaction in Information Visualization", IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 13(6): 1224-1231, 2007. [on Blackboard] Focus on sections 4 and 5. Slides: [on Blackboard]
Week 7: 3/1-3/5 Topics: interaction

Mon	Reading: (journal question) Stephen Few. "BizViz: The Power of Visual Business Intelligence". [link] Slides: [on Blackboard] Examples: interaction1.php

Wed	Examples: interaction3.php (mouseover - change size, color, and have a label appear when the mouse hovers over a mark) interaction3b.php (tooltips - may not work in all browsers) interaction4.php (clicks - clicking on a mark triggers filtering) interaction4b.php (mouseover triggers filtering; not ideal because even with jittering, some marks are drawn on top of each other) interaction4c.php (using nested panels to arrange multiple plots, clicking on mark in one plot triggers filtering in the other)

Fri	Reading: (no journal entry) overview of interaction in Protovis Protovis examples (which include interaction) HTML forms (different ways of getting user input) Examples: interaction5.php (focus+context - selecting a region on the screen, updating scales in another visualization) interaction6.php (brushing)	homework #5 due Fri 3/12	project #1 checkpoint #2 due Fri 3/12
Week 8: 3/8-3/12 Topics: space and time

Mon	Slides: [on Blackboard]

Wed	Slides: [on Blackboard]

Fri	Reading: (journal question) Liu, Stasko, Sullivan. "SellTrend: Inter-Attribute Visual Analysis of Temporal Transaction Data", IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 15(6): 1025-1032, 2009. [on Blackboard] Slides: [on Blackboard]
Spring Break
Week 9: 3/22-3/26 Topics: graph drawing			project #1 checkpoint #3 due Fri 3/26

Mon	Slides: [on Blackboard]

Wed	Reading: (journal question) Herman, Melancon, Marshall. "Graph Visualization and Navigation in Information Visualization: a Survey", IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 6: 24-43, 2000. [on Blackboard] Slides: [on Blackboard]

Fri	Examples: graphviz.php (graph layout) Slides: [on Blackboard]	homework #6 due Wed 3/31	project #1 final handin due Fri 4/2
Week 10: 3/29-4/2 Topics: giving presentations; visualizing text

Mon	Slides: [on Blackboard]

Wed	Reading: (journal question) van Ham, Wattenberg, Viégas. "Mapping Text with Phrase Nets", IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics, 15(6): 1169-1176, 2009. [on Blackboard] Slides: [on Blackboard]

Fri	Reading: (journal question) Collins, Viégas, Wattenberg. "Parallel Tag Clouds to Explore and Analyze Faceted Text Corpora", IEEE Symposium on Visual Analytics Science and Technology, pp. 91-98, 2009. [on Blackboard] Slides: [on Blackboard]
Week 11: 4/5-4/9 Topics: visualizing text and documents; project presentations and discussion

Mon	Examples: making labels display on mouseover and varying edge weight and/or color can reduce clutter and improve readability: cluttered, clutter reduction displaying edge directions and weights in the World Cup graph: using the labelx and labely fields computed by the drawing algorithm color to show direction (line colored according to color of winner), thickness to show win margin color and segmented edges to show direction segmented edges to show direction, thickness to show win margin the effect of other layout styles: force-directed method reveals the tournament structure Slides: [on Blackboard]		project #2 topic ranking due Tue 4/6
			project #2 topic ranking due Tue 4/6
Wed	In Class: project presentations		project #2 specifications gathering should be complete by Thu 4/15

Fri	Reading: read all of the following (and watch the videos if you can) (journal question) LaBRI, INRIA Bordeaux Sud-Ouest (award: innovative visualization and excellent description) HRL-AnomalyAnalysis (award: intuitive visual presentation of alibis; best "one-screen shot" of the solution) University of Maryland - Mindlab Space Dynamics Laboratory - ProxIPVis Optional Reading: all of the submission writeups		midterm #2 due Fri 4/16 in class (information)
Week 12: 4/12-4/16 Topics: practicalities

Mon	Reading: be sure to have looked at the data for the project

Wed

Fri			project #2 final handin due Sat 5/8
Week 13: 4/19-4/23 Topics: design challenges

Mon

Wed

Fri
Week 14: 4/26-4/30 Topics: design challenges; societal impacts

Mon

Wed	Reading: (journal question) Viégas, Wattenberg, McKeon, van Ham, Kriss. "Harry Potter and the Meat-Filled Freezer: A Case Study of Spontaneous Usage of Visualization Tools", Proc. 41st Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Science, 2008. [link (PDF)] Viégas, Wattenberg, Feinberg. "Participatory Visualization with Wordle", IEEE InfoVis, 2009. [link (PDF)]

Fri	(no reading)
Week 15: 5/3-5/4 Topics: societal impacts and ethical issues

Mon	Reading: (journal question) especially page 77 of: Tufte. The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, "Graphical Integrity", pages 53-77. [on reserve] - this is review of reading previously assigned section 4.2.4 of: Viégas, Wattenberg, Feinberg. "Participatory Visualization with Wordle", IEEE InfoVis, 2009. [link (PDF)] - this is review of reading previously assigned especially pages 38-53 of: Tufte. Visual Explanations, chapter 2. [on reserve and Blackboard] - this is review of reading previously assigned Tufte. PowerPoint Does Rocket Science - and Better Techniques for Technical Reports. [link] Slides: [on Blackboard]
Exams: 5/8-5/11

Sat		end-of-semester super deadline no work accepted after 5/8 10pm

Sun

Mon

Tue

CPSC 371 Syllabus

Week 1: 1/20-1/22

Week 2: 1/25-1/29

Week 3: 2/1-2/5

Week 4: 2/8-2/12

Week 5: 2/15-2/19

Week 6: 2/22-2/26

Week 7: 3/1-3/5

Week 8: 3/8-3/12

Spring Break

Week 9: 3/22-3/26

Week 10: 3/29-4/2

Week 11: 4/5-4/9

Week 12: 4/12-4/16

Week 13: 4/19-4/23

Week 14: 4/26-4/30

Week 15: 5/3-5/4

Exams: 5/8-5/11