Data and Visualization workshops for spring 2019

The NC State University Libraries offers a wide variety of Data and Visualization workshops for students, many of which require no prior experience. Participants will learn modeling and analytics tools such as Tableau and R, create data visualizations, clean data, and much more. Data and Visualization workshop titles this semester include “Graphing in Excel,” “Data Cleaning with Python,” and “Elements of Visualization Design.”

Here are the Data and Visualization workshops for the spring 2019 semester:

Beginning Tableau
Friday, Mar. 22, 12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m.
ITTC 2 (D. H. Hill Jr.)
This workshop will provide a hands-on introduction to creating interactive visualizations with Tableau, software 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.

Intermediate Tableau
Friday, Mar. 29, 12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m.
ITTC 2 (D. H. Hill Jr.)
This is an intermediate-level workshop in Tableau (basic knowledge recommended). In this workshop we will cover topics including calculated fields, filtering, animations, and more.

Creating Thematic Maps in Tableau
Friday, Feb. 15, 1:00 p.m.-2:30 p.m.
ITTC 2 (D. H. Hill Jr.)
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.

Visualize Survey Data in Tableau
Wednesday, Mar. 6, 10:00 a.m.-11:30 p.m.
ITTC 2 (D. H. Hill Jr.)
Basic knowledge of Tableau
Making charts and graphs from survey data is a great way to communicate findings to an audience for quick analysis and interpretation. In this workshop, we will provide hands-on activities for participants to visualize survey data in Tableau using a sample data set. Data structuring, cleaning, and visualizing steps will be covered.

Graphing in Excel
Friday, Mar. 1, 1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
ITTC 2 (D. H. Hill Jr.)
Sometimes the best tool is the one you already know. Sure, Tableau would look great on your resume, but your project is due tomorrow and you need a data visualization now! Microsoft Excel can do the job, and this workshop will help you make graphs that don't look like Clippy designed them for you. We'll discuss the various chart types available in Excel and how to choose one. We'll talk about how to apply best practices for data visualization design in Excel. You'll learn how to use Excel charts in Word and PowerPoint documents. You will also learn a few advanced visualization techniques like using conditional formatting to make heat maps.

Introduction to Humanitarian Mapping and OpenStreetMap
Thursday, Jan. 31, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.
Friday, Apr. 5, 12:00 p.m.- 2:00 p.m.
ITTC 2 (D. H. Hill Jr.)
OpenStreetMap is a free and open crowd-sourced map of the world that anyone can contribute to. In addition to being used by government and private companies for web applications, OpenStreetMap is used by many humanitarian organizations who need reliable information about the roads, buildings, and other information about regions experiencing crisis. In this workshop you will learn how to edit OpenStreetMap and contribute data to any region in the world! Together, we will improve the basemaps of Raleigh and other cities in North Carolina, adding sidewalks and information that will be used by apps designed to map accessible routes through our cities. This workshop will prepare you to participate in humanitarian mapping and introduce you to the open source web mapping community.

GIS-powered Data Visualization with Insights
Thursday, Apr. 4
ITTC 2 (D. H. Hill Jr.)

Insights is a new data analysis and visualization tool from Esri for creating and presenting multiple maps and charts in a single interface. With Insights you can connect visualizations such as bar charts and scatter plots to complex maps that take advantage of Insights’ spatial analysis capabilities, such as calculating density and proximity. And since Insights is connected to ArcGIS Online, it gives you the ability to join data spatially and access the ArcGIS library of world boundaries, basemaps, and other spatial data for your maps. In this introductory workshop, participants will learn how to analyze a dataset with maps and charts, use the built-in spatial analysis tools, and share the resulting visualizations and analysis model with others.

Mapping and Geospatial Visualization in QGIS
Friday, Apr. 12, 12:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m.
ITTC 2 (D. H. Hill Jr.)
QGIS is a free and open source software for analyzing and visualizing your geo data, also known as GPS, georeferenced, geocoded, or GIS/Geographic Information System data. QGIS can be installed on multiple operating systems and has greater analytical capabilities than online mapping sites. We'll learn some GIS fundamentals, how QGIS compares with other GIS software, and how to get started using it.

Data Cleaning with Python
Wednesday, Feb. 6, 1:00 p.m.-2:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Feb. 27, 1:00 p.m.-2:30 p.m.
Game Lab (Hunt)
This hands-on workshop will teach you how to use the pandas package in Python to do common data cleaning and manipulation tasks. No prior experience with Python is necessary. Please bring a laptop to this workshop -- you are welcome to check out one from the library's AskUs desk or bring your own!

Integrating APIs in Python
Wednesday, Feb. 13, 1:00 p.m.-2:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Mar. 20, 12:00 p.m.-1:30 p.m.
Game Lab (Hunt)
An application programming interface (API) provides a set of methods and protocols for interacting with software. APIs are often utilized as the connection between a program or codebase and an external data source. As specific datasets typically have a defined structure, a data API provides the user with a convenient way to query and access structured data of interest. Many organizations, from the US Census Bureau and NOAA to YouTube and Giphy, provide APIs to interact with their data collections. In this workshop you will get hands-on experience interacting with data APIs using the Python programming language. We will cover connecting to a dataset using an API, querying and parsing data using a defined protocol, and basic analysis of acquired data.   

Elements of Visualization Design
Friday, Feb. 8, 1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
ITTC 2 (D. H. Hill Jr.)
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 'make over'.

Beginning R
Friday, Mar. 8, 1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
ITTC 2 (D. H. Hill Jr.)
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 will provide an introduction to R, including some basic functions for data exploration, manipulation, visualization and doing basic statistics.

Data Visualization with R
Friday, Feb. 1, 1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
ITTC 2 (D. H. Hill Jr.)
This workshop will provide an introductory overview and hands-on practice with making data visualizations with R, a statistical computing language. Topics covered will include an overview of visualization packages, including ggplot2, plotly, leaflet, and others, and considerations for creating publication-quality graphics using R. The hands-on activity will consist of creating a few visualizations using R in the RStudio development environment.

R for Data Science: Importing Data
Tuesday, Feb. 5, 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m.
Game Lab (Hunt) and online
This workshop is part of a series intended to help you go from R novice to someone who is comfortable using R for data-related tasks. Each workshop in the series follows chapters of Hadley Wickham's free online textbook, R for Data Science (https://r4ds.had.co.nz/), but also includes additional topics. In this session, you'll learn how to import data from various sources into R, including files, spreadsheets, Google sheets and databases.

R for Data Science: Data Joining and Tidying
Tuesday, Feb. 12, 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m.
Game Lab (Hunt) and online
This workshop is part of a series intended to help you go from R novice to someone who is comfortable using R for data-related tasks. Each workshop in the series follows chapters of Hadley Wickham's free online textbook, R for Data Science (https://r4ds.had.co.nz/), but also includes additional topics. In this session, you'll learn how to join and reshape datasets in R for analysis and visualization.

R for Data Science: Graphing
Tuesday, Feb. 19, 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m.
Game Lab (Hunt) and online
This workshop is part of a series intended to help you go from R novice to someone who is comfortable using R for data-related tasks. Each workshop in the series follows chapters of Hadley Wickham's free online textbook, R for Data Science (https://r4ds.had.co.nz/), but also includes additional topics. In this session, you'll learn how to create graphs from data using R, specifically the ggplot2 library.

Storytelling with GIS
Wednesday, Feb. 20, 10:00 a.m.-11:30 a.m.
ITTC 2 (D. H. Hill Jr.)
In this workshop, you will learn how to create a compelling story map using a combination of interactive ArcGIS Online maps, images, and text. Using Esri Story Maps, you will learn how to design a web-based map narrative with sample geographic data, text, and images. Together, we will take a look at several example story map application templates and build an interactive linear online map that tells a geographic story.

R for Data Science: Data Transformation
Tuesday, Feb. 26, 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m.
Game Lab (Hunt) and online
This workshop is part of a series intended to help you go from R novice to someone who is comfortable using R for data-related tasks. Each workshop in the series follows chapters of Hadley Wickham's free online textbook, R for Data Science (https://r4ds.had.co.nz/), but also includes additional topics. In this session, you'll learn how to do common data transformation tasks using R, including filtering, subsetting, grouping, and creating new variables.

Bringing Historical Maps into GIS
Thursday, Feb. 28, 1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
Friday, Apr. 19, 1:00 p.m.-3:00 p.m.
ITTC 2 (D. H. Hill Jr.)
Interacting with historical maps in their proper geographic space allows for a more accurate representation of a particular place and the changes it has undergone over time. This workshop will provide you with the steps to align geographic data to a digitized historical illustrated map and create a georeferenced historical map. Participants will work with simple tools like Map Warper and MapBox to overlay the georeferenced historical map on top of a GIS modern basemap for use in an interactive web mapping application.

R for Data Science: Functions
Tuesday, Mar. 5, 1:00 p.m.-2:00 p.m.
Game Lab (Hunt) and online
This workshop is part of a series intended to help you go from R novice to someone who is comfortable using R for data-related tasks. Each workshop in the series follows chapters of Hadley Wickham's free online textbook, R for Data Science (https://r4ds.had.co.nz/), but also includes additional topics. In this session, you'll learn how to write your own functions in R.

R for Data Science: Vectors
Tuesday, Mar. 19, 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m.
Game Lab (Hunt) and online
This workshop is part of a series intended to help you go from R novice to someone who is comfortable using R for data-related tasks. Each workshop in the series follows chapters of Hadley Wickham's free online textbook, R for Data Science (https://r4ds.had.co.nz/), but also includes additional topics. In this session, you'll learn how to create and manipulate vectors, a basic data type, in R.

R for Data Science: Loops and Map Functions
Tuesday, Mar. 26, 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m.
Game Lab (Hunt) and online
This workshop is part of a series intended to help you go from R novice to someone who is comfortable using R for data-related tasks. Each workshop in the series follows chapters of Hadley Wickham's free online textbook, R for Data Science (https://r4ds.had.co.nz/), but also includes additional topics. In this session, you'll learn how to write your efficient loops for iterating through data in R.

R for Data Science: Modeling
Tuesday, Apr. 2, 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m.
Game Lab (Hunt) and online
This workshop is part of a series intended to help you go from R novice to someone who is comfortable using R for data-related tasks. Each workshop in the series follows chapters of Hadley Wickham's free online textbook, R for Data Science (https://r4ds.had.co.nz/), but also includes additional topics. In this session, you'll learn how to create linear and generalized linear statistical models in R.

R for Data Science: Reporting
Tuesday, Apr. 9, 12:00 p.m.-1:00 p.m.
Game Lab (Hunt) and online
This workshop is part of a series intended to help you go from R novice to someone who is comfortable using R for data-related tasks. Each workshop in the series follows chapters of Hadley Wickham's free online textbook, R for Data Science (https://r4ds.had.co.nz/), but also includes additional topics. In this session, you'll learn how to create documents for communicating your research using R Markdown.