One COURSE DATA VISUALIZATION

SYNOPSIS

Be a smarter consumer and creator of data visualizations.

What Students Learn

“Students are immersed in digital media today,” Hejeebu says. “Data graphs can be misleading and consumed hastily, not allowing enough time to separate the useless parts from the meaningful parts.”

The course aims are twofold: to help students consume content more patiently and coherently by explaining how intentional design choices influence viewers; and to enable students to create more honest and impactful visualizations, through questioning datasets and exploring quantitative relationships.

She starts with the history of data visualization and the basics of visual perception. She then shares broad principles of effective design and develops essential quantitative literacy skills. Hejeebu also instructs students to use data visualization in equitable and inclusive ways.

“We are responsible for the implicit messages our visualizations portray,” she says. “We have to be mindful of how our graphs will be used.”

How They Learn

Students learn through the daily practices of reading visualizations and creating them. Students use tools like Excel and Tableau, Hejeebu says, as a means to an end and not the end itself. Data visualization tools change over time, but the underlying design principles and quantitative identities remain steady. By the end of the course, even the “numbers shy” students will be comfortable working with quantitative data.

Hejeebu’s interdisciplinary approach draws on economics, descriptive statistics, visual design, and other fields.

“By learning to distinguish between good and bad vizzes, you begin to internalize the Gestalt principles of visualization and understand how the eye sees,” she says.

Students Say

“A visualization becomes great when you can communicate the takeaways that are of interest to the target audience.”

—DREW LOGEL ’23

“Effective visualizations tell the story I want to tell about the data.”

—MIKE KNIGHT ’23

“Data Visualization taught me how to illustrate quantitative data in a way that maximizes the speed and depth of viewer comprehension.”

—KIMBERLY MAITLAND ’24

The redline map (the practice of outlining areas with sizable Black populations in red ink on maps as a warning to mortgage lenders) of Richmond, Virginia, was developed for the Homeowners’ Loan Corporation (1923). This data visualization, Hejeebu says, did a lot of economic harm to the communities depicted.

WEB EXTRA Watch Do No Harm: Equity Awareness in Data Visualization, one of the videos Hejeebu assigns to her students. crnl.co/noharm

Hilltop Hot Sheet

17 projects in 18 days!

Cornell students share a course in common, the Second-Year Seminar: Citizenship in Practice. At the end of Block 1, they put on an event in the Thomas Commons for the entire campus to showcase their problem-solving and communication skills, with 17 exhibits representing the full range of the liberal arts. A few of the projects on exhibit:

Memes, Art, and Internet Culture Housing is a Human Right Earth Resources and Sustainability Philosophy of Home Modern Migration: Constructing Citizenship

The SAW is the hot new place

Fitness classes at the SAW are hopping. Kinesiology Professor Lewis Kanyiba is teaching two new classes: Martial Arts for Fitness and Aerobics for Fitness on Mondays and Wednesdays. Yoga is on Tuesday afternoons and the room is so completely packed they might need to find a bigger space.

Stoner House, the coffee emporium

Stoner House has new modern furniture in the living room, plus a big TV and a coffee bar with coffees from around the world, increasing the chances of finding the perfect brew. The Office of Intercultural Life knows how to bring people together with free quality coffee. Their backyard BBQs aren’t bad either.

Esports takes on Coe, Cornell U

While fall 2022 marked the 131st football game against Coe, it also brought the first matchup between the rivals’ esports teams. Cornell won the overall series 3-1. A few weeks later the Rams Esports team branched out again to host the first Cornament, taking on Cornell University in five different games. The Rams lost 3-2, after which the teams sparred on Twitter and Cornell (College) vowed a rematch.

Cornell’s Esports team hosted the first Cornament with Cornell University.

1922 or 2022?

Mehrdad Zarifkar ’09 captured this moody shot in December 2022. “I noticed some low fog over Cornell early one morning. I scrambled with the drone and positioned it to frame iconic King Chapel with McLennan College Hall in the background,” he said. “The fog was patchy so it took a bit of waiting for a cloud bank to roll in. I slowed down the shutter speed a bit and overexposed slightly to give the fog a bit more haze and motion. The early morning sunlight casting shadows helps make the shot.”