Seek and Find Assignment 2: Why Vis This?

by Mike Gleicher on January 22, 2015

Assignment due: Wednesday (that means before Thursday), January 28th (for your initial submission)

Turn-in link: ‘Seek and Find 2’ on Canvas

This is a seek and find assignment. You need to find a visualization and bring it back to us (that is, put it on Canvas). Please be sure to see the general seek and find assignment instructions.

For this seek and find, you need to find a visualization for which you can say why this visualization was made. What is the task that required a visualization? Why couldn’t this have been just done with a few numbers or a little text? Why did the designer bother to make a visual representation?

Unlike last time, we will turn these in on Canvas as a discussion. This means you can make a posting where you embed an image, as well as provide a link to the visualization in context.

Note: it is important that you capture an image (a png, jpg or svg file) – even if this is a picture of an interactive visualization. (we’ll see that from the link). You need to upload the image (so it doesn’t go away if the link breaks).

To upload a picture to Canvas, do the following (updated 1/25):

  1. Navigate to your user profile by clicking your name in the top-right of any Canvas page (see below)
    find-username
  2. Once in your profile, click the ‘Files’ option from the left sidebar.
  3. Upload your picture to your files by clicking the ‘Add Files’ link and selecting your captured image.
  4. Return to the discussion.
  5. In your reply, embed the image by clicking on the tree icon (‘Embed Image’), clicking the ‘Canvas’ tab, and expanding the ‘Group files’ folder to find your image.  Select the image and click ‘Update’.

In your posting, please provide:

  1. An embedded image of the visualization
  2. A link to where this comes from
  3. A brief description of what it is, and what the visualization shows
  4. Your explanation of why it needed to be a visualization.

Turn your assignment in on Canvas here.

Discussion (e.g. commenting on others) is optional for this assignment, but welcomed (and considered in grading).

We’ll map Canvas’ 5 point scale to:

0 = Nothing turned in
1 = Initial posting turned in late
2 = Partially Done (missing some aspect)
3 = Mininimally Done
4 = Done Well
5 = Above and beyond the call of duty

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