It’s the summer of data and visualization!

Registration is now open for the summer schedule of free workshops in data and visualization. Taught by Libraries staff, these workshops get you up and running with Tableau and R, and offer skills like data cleaning and thematic mapping.

“Beginning R”
Friday, June 29 from 1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. in the ITTC2 Lab in the D. H. Hill Library
R is a language and computing environment for statistical analysis and graphics that is free and open-source. R can be used for multiple purposes, including statistics, data cleaning, visualization and creating data-driven web applications. R is very useful for producing publication-quality graphs from data. This workshop provides an introduction to R using the RStudio environment. No experience with coding is expected.

July

“Tableau Lab: Bring Your Own Data”
Wednesday, July 11 from 2:00 p.m.-3:45 p.m. in the ITTC2 Lab in the D. H. Hill Library
Think of this workshop as a lab or studio; it is designed to give you the opportunity to experiment with Tableau using your own data. You may be a first-time user to Tableau with the desire to explore your data for insights, or you might need help with refining an existing Tableau project. Regardless of your need, instructors will be there to work with you individually in this small-group setting. There will be no pre-planned activity or lecture, so make sure to bring your own data to get the most out of this workshop!

“Creating Thematic Maps in Tableau”
Friday, July 13 from 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. in the ITTC2 Lab  in the D. H. Hill Library
This workshop will introduce some of the basic mapping features in Tableau through the exploration of a geospatial dataset. Participants will learn how to create several different types of thematic maps and we will discuss best practices in geospatial visualization. While this workshop will not provide a broad overview of Tableau, no previous experience with Tableau is required to attend.

“Visualizing Sound with Code”
Wednesday, July 18 from 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. in the Creativity Studio in the Hunt Library
What does sound look like? Create real-time, generative visualizations using the p5.js web programming language and the sounds from your environment. Participants will write code to view some of the visually observable properties of audio and explore creative coding techniques. Previous programming experience will be helpful but is not required.

“Coding 3D Landscapes of Sound”
Friday, July 20 from 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. in the Creativity Studio in the Hunt Library
In this workshop participants will use A-Frame, a web framework for building virtual reality experiences, to create audio-responsive 3D landscapes in a web browser with HTML markup. We will provide a basic template for creating generative landscape features that can be customized and animated with sound. Previous programming experience will be helpful but is not required.

“Elements of Visualization Design”
Wednesday, July 25 from 10:00 a.m.-11:00 a.m. in the ITTC2 Lab in the D. H. Hill Library
This workshop will introduce core design elements based on accepted best practices grounded in current visualization research. Tools for color and chart selection will be presented and participants will gain practice doing a visualization ‘makeover.’

“Beginning Tableau”
Friday, July 27 from 10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m. in the ITTC2 Lab in the D. H. Hill Library
This workshop will provide a hands-on introduction to creating interactive visualizations with Tableau Public, a free tool for creating data visualizations and dashboards. Participants will learn what Tableau is, along with strengths and limitations, as well as resources for how to continue learning beyond the workshop. When you leave the workshop, you should be familiar with the Tableau interface and how to make and style basic charts and dashboards. No prior experience is required.

“Data Cleaning with R”
Friday, August 3 from 1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m. in the ITTC2 Lab in the D. H. Hill Jr. Library
Often one of the most time-consuming aspects of doing research is cleaning your data. This workshop will provide participants with an overview and hands-on practice using data cleaning functions in R, specifically from the Tidyverse set of packages (https://www.tidyverse.org/). Topics will include loading data, subsetting, filtering, creating new columns, merging data, stripping out unwanted characters, reshaping data, and by-group processing. This hands-on workshop is most suited to participants who have some prior familiarity with R.