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Final project

The purpose of the final project is to apply principles of visual design and technical skills rendering graphics in R and/or D3 to a topic of your own substantive interests. Student may work individually or in teams of two. Students should identify early in the term a research question or topic of substantive importance to themselves, then use the skills developed in this course to design and present a visualization which explains the results. The form of this deliverable can take any number of forms:

  • A research paper with a substantial visualization component
  • A web site with a substantial (static) visualization component
  • An interactive web page built using R Markdown, Shiny, or D3

Deadlines

By the end of the fourth week (April 21), students should select a topic and submit a proposal. Students will present their projects to the class on Wednesday, March 31. Projects must be fully complete and submitted for grading by Sunday, June 4 at 11:59 pm.

Assessment

Projects will be assessed on the following criteria:[1]

  • Is it truthful?
  • Is it functional?
  • Is it beautiful?
  • Is it insightful?
  • Is it enlightening?

The final project is worth 30 points, or roughly the weight of two assignments.

Final Deliverables

Submit final deliverables to your GitHub repo by Sunday, June 4 at 11:59 pm.

The final deliverables include:

  • Visualization: the final product of your project. This could be a Markdown/HTML/PDF file of your research paper, a link to a Shiny app or web page hosting your visualization, etc. If this is located outside of the GitHub repository, make sure to include a link in your README.md file.
  • Paper: a 4-6 page paper to supplement your visualization. This should include the major components of a research paper, including an abstract, intro, literature review/theory, methods, analysis, and conclusion. As the paper itself is relatively short, these sections will likely be compressed.[2]
  • Readme: In the repository's README.md, include a brief project description and instructions for a user to execute your code on their own computer (e.g. what software/packages to install, instructions to obtain data if not included in repo). Aim for your project to be reproducible. If you work with a partner, include a description of which components each of you contributed to the project. Also include a commentary on the research/development process, answering questions such as (but not limited to):
    • On what parts did you struggle or excel?
    • How did you consider visual design principles when developing the visualization?
    • What resources did you find helpful when working on the project outside of the course materials?
  • Code: an implementation of your source code. Make sure your code is well-documented and interpretable to outsiders.

Getting started

All work will be performed inside a version-controlled GitHub repo. Create your project repo by going to this link.

[1] Drawn from chapter 2 of The Truthful Art: Data, charts, and maps for communication by Alberto Cairo.

[2] Note that if your visualization takes the form of a research paper, then this deliverable is combined with the one above. Furthermore, I expect the research paper to take a more traditional form, so I expect to be closer to 15-25 pages with the full contents of a research paper in your discipline.