Articles
[en] Creative Data Literacy: A Constructionist
Approach to Teaching Information Visualization Catherine D'Ignazio, Emerson College; Rahul Bhargava, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
[en]
Data visualization has rapidly become a standard approach to interrogating and
understanding the world around us in domains that extend beyond the technical
and scientific to arts, communications and services. In business settings the
Data Scientist has become a recognized and valued role . Journalism has re-oriented itself around
data-driven storytelling as a potential saviour for an industry in peril . Governments are moving to more data-driven decision
making, publishing open data portals and pondering visualization as an
opportunity for citizen participation . This
journal itself has numerous examples that use visualization tools and techniques
within the digital humanities as a tool for exploration
.
This boom in attention has led large new populations of learners into the field.
Formal educational settings have rushed to create new approaches and
introductions to this content, but often they fall back on traditional
approaches to things such as scientific charting and graphing
. Many view data visualization as a new technology,
which runs the risks of replicating old approaches without acknowledging the
unique affordances and domains that data visualization relies upon. Data
visualization is not simply another technology to integrate into education. It
is visual argument and persuasion, far more closely associated with rhetoric and
writing than spreadsheets .
In this paper we present novel approaches to learning technologies and
activities, focused on novice learners entering the field of data driven
storytelling. We begin with a deeper dive into the problems we see with
introducing new learners into a field characterized by inequality, continue with
a discussion of approaches for introducing technologies to education, and
summarize the inspirational pedagogies we build on. We then offer some design
principles and three activities as examples of the concept of creative data
literacy. We assert that creative approaches grounded in constructionist
educational theories are necessary to empower non-technical learners to be able
to tell stories and argue for change with data.
[en] Critically engaging with data visualization
through an information literacy frameworkSteven Braun, Northeastern University Library, Digital Scholarship Group
Abstract
[en]
The proliferation of tools that enable anyone to create visualizations of their
data, even with limited experience or skills, has made data visualization more
accessible than ever before. This is true in its use in both teaching and
learning, as data visualization has increasingly taken on an important
pedagogical role in the classroom and in scholarly research. However, with this
proliferation of tools there has been a concomitant awareness that visualization
needs to be employed through a critical lens that acknowledges its
constructedness as explanatory medium and as a product of situated knowledges.
Here, I describe one approach to teaching this notion of constructedness via a
framework oriented around information literacy, which encourages critical
engagement with data, the tools we use to interrogate them, and the
visualizations we design to represent them. I describe this approach through a
collection of “critical dichotomies” used to evaluate the
authority and value of visualizations, which are mapped to a subset of the core
information literacy competencies defined in the ACRL
Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education. To put these
dichotomies into practice, I further describe an interactive activity called
“Choose Your Own Adventure, with Data
Visualization,” in which participants are given paper and markers to
create booklets in the style of Choose Your Own
Adventure books and asked to consider the relationship between
active choices in the design process of a visualization and how a given
visualization is interpreted. In the process, I explore how this framework can
encourage us all, as critical practitioners of visualization, to think about the
practical relationship between data visualization and information literacy more
generally.
[en] Making and Breaking: Teaching Information Ethics
through Curatorial PracticeChristina Boyles, Michigan State University
Abstract
[en]
For many years, digital humanists have responded to Alan Liu’s call for critical
digital humanities. Projects such as #TornApart/Seperados and
#PuertoRicoMapathon and pieces like “Where is Cultural
Criticism in the Digital Humanities?”
, “All the Digital Humanists Are
White, All the Nerds Are Men, but Some of Us Are Brave”
, and “Beyond the Margins:
Intersectionality and the Digital Humanities”
have paved the way for socially conscious
developments in the field. At the same time, pressures from administrators,
institutions, and funding agencies often discourage critical engagement in favor
of tool development and/or “high tech” projects . As such, we often attempt to adapt highly rewarded
tech skills, like text, sentiment, and big data analyses, for use in social
justice projects. While it is possible for these two aims to be compatible, we
do ourselves a disservice when we try to force them together. So, how should
teacher-scholars implement an intersectional digital humanities framework in the
classroom? Using my own classroom as a case study, I assert that one effective
strategy is through curation, which helps students investigate topics such as
race, gender, sexuality, disability, and socioeconomic status through the
careful selection, arrangement, and presentation of materials. Doing so teaches
students to think more critically about the act of curation, by encouraging them
to participate in knowledge construction as well as the dismantling of harmful
narratives and power structures. While this approach differs from the tool-based
pedagogy often utilized in the field, its emphasis on knowledge production,
critical thinking, digital literacy, and social justice gives students
proficiency in socially conscious methodologies that can be applied to any
project. Linking curation to making and breaking, two digital humanities
approaches to meaning-making, provides a method for interrogating “archives of humanity” and
developing a pedagogy grounded in cultural critique and social justice .
[en] Placing Graphic
Design at the Intersection of Information Visualization FieldsYvette Shen, Ohio State University
Abstract
[en]
The popularity of information visualization in academia and practice brings a
renewed emphasis on aesthetic values and visual applications to ensure its
appeal to a wider audience. This paper focuses on visualization aesthetics and
perception by making the case for using graphic design techniques and design
languages to understand and create more aesthetically pleasant and functionally
effective information design and visualization. It uses cross-disciplinary
reviews of background research to demonstrate the value of graphic design
principles and methods in the realm of visualization education. A user-centered
design framework and student projects are discussed by adapting graphic design
elements into the visualization process. It shows that the practice of
developing a visualization should be executed with an understanding of graphic
design basics in mind, and with a balanced consideration of tangible and
conditional design elements, as well as how these design elements fulfill the
purpose of the objective, context, content, audience, and the knowledge of the
design outcomes.
[en] Best Practices: Teaching Typographic Principles
to Digital Humanities AudiencesAmy Papaelias, SUNY New Paltz
Abstract
[en]
Typography, the arrangement and use of type, permeates our visual landscape, from
printed pages and digital interfaces to physical environments and interactive
experience. Those who study and work in the digital humanities are called upon
to make typographic choices everyday, yet few have any training in how to
effectively design with type. Over the past several years, I have been involved
in several initiatives that seek to help educate digital humanities scholars,
technologists and students about the value of information design, including
typography. This paper will discuss these experiences and some guiding
principles for helping a digital humanities audience understand the basic
principles of typography and apply them to their projects and research.
[en] Visual Communication and the promotion of
Health: an exploration of how they intersect in Italian educationViviana De Angelis, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro; Patricia Mannix McNamara, University of Limerick; Rosa Gallelli, Università degli Studi di Bari Aldo Moro; Gemma Pichierri, Media Training Expert
Abstract
[en]
The use of new technologies, media and computational methods in Humanities may
evolve and indeed it is already changing the “contents” and
“forms” of contemporary education, opening new scenarios
previously unimaginable. Nowadays Visual Mobile Devices, smartphones, tablets,
etc, contribute to a range of computer-mediated activities, which are related to
specific locations and times. But for such critical reflection, we need a closer
look to deeper layers of our culture to unveil the characteristics of new
technologies and devices. This paper describes some emerging aspects of the
teaching use of visual communication techniques in primary and secondary
schooling. In particular it reviews the evidence of the efficiency of visual
communication for learning both in varied curriculum disciplines and of
transversal socio-ethical affective skills necessary for the promotion of health
and the construction of a planetary citizenship. The paper illuminates the
didactic applicability and unique potential of images for the epistemological
peculiarities of different disciplines, highlighting how educational use of
images in creative pedagogy can be more focused given the function they perform
in the more general cognitive process of individuals. The theoretical analysis
of the teaching validity of the use of visual communication, as reported in the
international literature, seems to receive confirmation from a case study, which
provides detailed analyses of how this technique can enhance specific projects
and demonstrates its significance for wider practitioners.
[en] Defining scholarly practices, methods and tools
in the Lithuanian digital humanities research communityIngrida Kelpšienė, Vilnius University, Lithuania
Abstract
[en]
The article discusses the current situation in the adoption of digital tools and
practices in the humanities and arts in Lithuania, based on a major European
survey conducted by the Digital Research Infrastructure for the Arts and
Humanities (DARIAH) in 2014 and 2015. The survey was aimed at understanding
existing scholarly practices, methods and tools that are applied by researchers,
as well as attitudes towards digital technologies in research and scholarship.
This article analyzes specific aspects of scholarly research activities and
digital needs in Lithuania, and provides evidence-based insights on the national
digital humanities landscape.
[en] Renaissance Remix. Isabella
d’Este: Virtual StudioloDeanna Shemek, University of California, Irvine, USA; Antonella Guidazzoli, VisitLab - Cineca Interuniversity Consortium, Italy; Maria Chiara Liguori, VisitLab - Cineca Interuniversity Consortium, Italy; Giovanni Bellavia, VisitLab - Cineca Interuniversity Consortium, Italy; Daniele De Luca, VisitLab - Cineca Interuniversity Consortium, Italy; Luigi Verri, VisitLab - Cineca Interuniversity Consortium, Italy; Silvano Imboden, VisitLab - Cineca Interuniversity Consortium, Italy
Abstract
[en]
Among the most elaborate and coherent instances of Renaissance self-fashioning
and female self-determination through culture was a suite of rooms designed by
Isabella d’Este in what is now the Ducal Palace museum of Mantua, Italy: a
full-blown personal studiolo (study) and an
adjoining smaller chamber she called the grotta
(grotto). Isabella’s studiolo is a regular point of reference in the study of
Renaissance history and art, yet for centuries it has been accessible only in
dispersed pieces and in spaces depopulated of major works and artefacts. Digital
technology offers the possibility of creating a “remastered”
studiolo, a virtual space in which both visual and acoustic elements may be
enhanced with respect to previous attempts at its representation. At the same
time, historical uncertainty about numerous details in the arrangement of the
objects in this collection requires a high level of flexibility in the digital
remix, allowing for the programming of a customisable virtual environment. In
anticipation of the project’s full construction and in order to facilitate
discussion with potential users about the Virtual Studiolo’s backward design,
the authors have developed a concept-demonstration video within the open-source
Blender environment (www.blender.org). Among the concerns we aim to address in this phase
of the project is how to combine historical accuracy, emotional power, and
creative possibilities for users. This case study presents some of the
opportunities, constraints and challenges we confronted during the production of
our video as we strove within the Blender open environment for a result that
will be historically accurate, emotionally compelling, and creatively flexible.
[en] Racism in the Machine: Visualization Ethics in
Digital Humanities ProjectsKatherine Hepworth, University of Nevada, Reno; Christopher Church, University of Nevada, Reno
Abstract
[en]
Data visualizations are inherently rhetorical, and therefore bias-laden visual
artifacts that contain both explicit and implicit arguments. The implicit
arguments depicted in data visualizations are the net result of many seemingly
minor decisions about data and design from inception of a research project
through to final publication of the visualization. Data workflow, selected
visualization formats, and individual design decisions made within those formats
all frame and direct the possible range of interpretation, and the potential for
harm of any data visualization. Considering this, it is imperative that we take
an ethical approach to the creation and use of data visualizations. Therefore,
we have suggested an ethical data visualization workflow with the dual aim of
minimizing harm to the subjects of our study and the audiences viewing our
visualization, while also maximizing the explanatory capacity and effectiveness
of the visualization itself. To explain this ethical data visualization
workflow, we examine two recent digital mapping projects, Racial Terror
Lynchings and Map of White Supremacy Mob Violence.
