DB Roundup
This week you posted your topics for your literature review. Many of you will need to do a bit of research and reading in order to refine your topic & question, or to adequately tie your proposed topic to the themes of the course. I will provide feedback and suggestions individually on how to refine your topic for those who need it. If you have questions about your individual topic, please email me. If you have questions about the assignment in general, post them in general questions.

You can also drop in anytime to either office hours (10-11am) or the class meeting (11am-12:15pm) tomorrow, Wednesday 10/14. Zoom info for both was sent via email.

The literature review assignment is divided into four parts. The next step will be due as DB 10, on November 12. You can see the assignment timeline with all four due dates here.

Weekly Readings & Assignment
This week’s reading is an introduction to visual literacy. Data visualizations are a regular part of our current information environment, and learning to read and interpret them with a critical eye is an important skill set. As with everything, data isn’t neutral, and neither are data visualizations. Two different people with the same starting data set can make different decisions on what parts of that data to include, exclude, and highlight in their visualizations that will tell different stories, or lead viewers to draw differing conclusions. As always, find the reading in the course schedule.

Your assignment this week is to create a data visualization of your own. The details are up in the DB post. In addition to your visualization, you’ll write a short reflection, in which you’ll tell us what data you choose, why you decided to use the visualisation you did, any design and data inclusion/exclusion choices you made, how you feel about how it came out, and any other thoughts on the process.

Course Admin
Over the next two weeks, I’ll be scheduling your mid-semester check-in meetings. These will be short, and we’ll use the time to talk about your literature review topic, as well as your progress in the course in general. Use this link, and under the photo there is a Schedule Appointment button. Choose a time between 10/15 and 10/29. Once you make an appointment, I’ll email you a Zoom link.