Data Selection and Visualisation - SIMP59

Overview

About the course

There are two parts in the course: i.) questions related to data selection and data wrangling and ii.) data visualisation and communication. Both parts will be discussed not merely as technical exercises but rather as choices to be grounded in arguments in relation to particular research questions as well as practical constraints. The selected exercises will be implemented where relevant with a modern programming language.

The part of the course dealing with data selection and preparation will focus primarily on data that can be analysed through quantitative and computational methods. Data sources as well as their sampling will be discussed in relation to building arguments that link them to particular scientific aims/research questions. The student will also learn how to 'wrangle' their data in order to ready it for analysis /visualisation. This may include cleaning, transforming (e.g. long vs. short formats, network vs. non-network data), and/or integrating data.

In the part dealing with data visualisation, the student will learn about a wide variety of data visualisations and exploratory data analysis. The student will be instructed and practice to creatively evaluate, implement, and adapt them in relation to the communication of scientific insights. This will be implemented using a programming language.

Online course platform

This course uses Canvas as the online course platform. The course platform will be opened two weeks before the course begins to all students who were accepted. Here you will be able to access literature, assignments, announcements, as well as participate in discussions and communicate with teachers. 

Schedule

The course schedule can be found under the course information on the right. Please note that the final version of the schedule will be made available four weeks before the course begins, and changes may occur until that point. A more detailed schedule will be available on the course platform on Canvas.