In grading the first few assignments, we noticed a common pattern. We wanted to give people an opportunity to make a fix if they need to.
As the assignment says: We look for signs of students making explicit good choices to make what they want the viewer to see easy to see. (you can explain your choices in the documentation)
In class, I was more explicit: I told you that your “story” should be “something that is easy to see in the visualization”, and that the assignment is about making explicit choices to make the story be the thing that is easy to see.
I think I even phrased it in class as “the way to get an A is to make design choices that make it easy to see the thing that you want to be easy to see, and to explain what these design choices are.” (Aditya remembers me discussing this).
When we looked over the first few assignments (warning – it could be that we just saw 5 bad ones and 1 good one – and the other 50 will be good), people seemed to miss the point that the “story” should be something that the visualization makes “easy to see.” Maybe I wasn’t clear enough that you should be explicit to explain this. Very few designs were so good that it was obvious (both what stands out and what choices were made to cause it).
In many of the assignments we looked at (from the small sample), we weren’t sure what should be easy to see – and the caption / description didn’t tell us what we were supposed to see, and the description/rationale didn’t explain what was done to make it easy to see!
So, in the event that it was just me not being clear, I am going to give people a chance to do this more explicitly. If you want, you may add an extra page to your DC1. This is optional. If you do it, it can help your grade (although not as much as if you had done it explicitly in the first place). For a specific design or two (at most two), please tell us:
- Which of the 5 of your designs are you describing.
- What does this design make easy to see? This should be a fact about the data (the “story” – or the finding of the story). The fact should be specific – not just “we can see variable X and Y” – but something like “we can see the positive correlation” or “we can see the pattern that there are more yelp check ins on weekends.” And it should be something that really is easy to see (look at your visualization!)
- Why is it easy to see? What choices did you make that makes it easy to see?
You can provide a description in the type in box on this Canvas Assignment. You must do it on or before Monday, October 21st. This is optional. Do not turn anything else in if you think your assignment is good enough (e.g., you already answered this for all of your designs, or the thing that is easy to see is so obvious that we won’t miss it), or don’t think it will help (you realize that your visualization doesn’t make anything easy to see).
Note: one of the first 5 assignments we looked at did this very well and explicitly. They said “here is the thing we can see clearly in the visualization” and described the design decisions they made that caused it to happen. Definitely an A – not just because they followed the instructions, but also because they were good designs (I believe there is a correlation – if you think about “what am I trying to make easy to see” you will be more likely to make good choices to make that thing easy to see). You may not need to add anything if your assignment is already good. This is optional.
Unfortunately, this will delay grading (we want to give people a chance to do this before grading).