IML440 Interdisciplinary Thesis, Data Visualization Assignment

data visualization

a few models

IML440 Spring 2015

Professor Virginia Kuhn, PhD

These abstracts and images are drawn from previous Honors thesis projects, in which data visualization began cropping up over the last few years.

While there is no mandate to include such data visualization, it is an increasingly important practice with which graduating Honors students need familiarity.

We will look more carefully at these projects and the data viz assignment together in class.

Each project begins with the student’s

name, the project abstract and the

project URL where applicable and is

then followed a few screenshots that

demonstrate the inclusion of visualized

data.

Lights, Camera, Inaction

by Nicole Ro

http://storm.usc.edu/~nro/about.html

http://storm.usc.edu/~nro/about.html

Anonymous Identities

by Ian Malave

Over the past decade, the internet has grown at an astounding rate. In this time, advertisers have leveraged new technologies to shape the online economy and to dramatically strengthen their power. At the same time, countless companies have sprung up and begun vying for a limited source of advertising dollars, reducing their individual power. In turn, these companies have been pressured to adopt new methods of tracking users in order to secure advertising funding. Consequently, anonymity has become non-existent for internet users, and even more significantly, advertisers have begun exploiting their knowledge of users to filter what users see online.

While this data economy has enabled many people to access advanced technologies and web platforms for free, they come at a cost: Internet users’ activity is helping to shape a future in which conglomerates and advertisers dominate and can profoundly impact the online economy through small changes. Anonymous Identitiesprovides a representative look at the progression of the online economy over the past ten years. The project provokes users to think more critically about their online identities, and to thoughtfully consider how their online activity can help to shape the future of the internet.

http://ianmalave.com/IML_Thesis/landing.html

Equality < Equity

by Soo-ah Rho

This project explores educational disparity in the United States and the stark differences between schools in urban and suburban settings. Public schools, traditionally funded heavily by local property taxes, continue to widen the gap between education quality in high and low poverty neighborhoods. By examining how poverty affects a student’s education as well as the funding systems of public schools in key states such as Illinois and California, Equality < Equity reveals the injustice and segregation in the public education system of the United States.

While many states have undergone substantial reform, they have yet to ensure equal and adequate funding. Poorer schools struggle to gain state level funding that will make up for the lack of local revenue, but in the words of California Governor Jerry Brown, “equal treatment for children in unequal situations is not justice,” –nor is it equity. The larger problem is that not only do children in urban, high-poverty schools receive less funding, they also face challenges that schools are unable to address. By juxtaposing the fundamentally unequal funding systems with the challenges children in urban areas face, this project will highlight an injustice that can no longer be ignored.

http://storm.usc.edu/~srho/

Tiffany Chen’s overview video re: her thesis

which blends info viz with physical space:

https://vimeo.com/53113798

Kelley Chittendon’s thesis on data privacy in

Facebook: http://whostolethecookie.net/

(see pane 3 for visualizations)