UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Institute for CyberScience (ICS) will be holding a series of monthly workshops on creating static and interactive data visualizations. The first workshop will be held at 4–5:30 p.m. on Feb. 26 in 101 Althouse Laboratory.
These free workshops are open to researchers and students who wish to create their own graphics from a variety of data sources. Discussions will typically focus on making projects with D3.js, an open-source JavaScript library for data visualization, or general best practices in visualization design.
“Transforming complex data sets into accessible graphics is valuable both for obtaining new insights into data and expressing the story of your research to others,” said ICS Director Jenni Evans. “These workshops are an excellent learning opportunity and stepping stone for data-intensive researchers at Penn State.”
Beginners are welcome; very minimal coding experience is required. Participants will be utilizing open-source and free software tools that are easy to install and can run all code without external applications.
The Feb. 26 workshop will provide an introduction to developing D3.js projects. More information is available, and seats can be reserved, here. Space is limited, so register by Feb. 22. Participants should bring a laptop.
All workshops will be 4–5:30 p.m. 101 Althouse Laboratory. The dates and topics of upcoming workshops are:
- Feb. 26: Introduction to Developing D3.js Projects
- March 26: Let’s Make a Map and Network Graph!
- April 23: Going Beyond Graphics
- May 21: TBA
- June 18: TBA
The workshops will be led by Patrick Dudas, a research and development engineer at ICS and an expert in data visualization. Dudas received his doctorate from the University of Pittsburgh in Information Science, specializing in visualization and social networking. He has taught courses such as human factors in system design, data manipulation and exploratory data analysis. Any questions about these workshops can be directed to him at pmd19@psu.edu.