Round 3 is open for submissions. Deadline is 20 November at 23:59 GMT! http://ttdatavis.onthinktanks.org
Join other think tanks from Latin America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia in the competition for a chance to: Get greater national and international visibility for your project and your think tank See how other similar think tanks are approaching new communication techniques Build institutional capacity to create data visualisations Receive private feedback from the judging panel
Prizes
Qualifying round winner o Round 3 winner: US$500
Finalists o First prize overall: US$2,000 plus up to $5,000 to attend a relevant conference or training. o Second prize overall: US$1,000 o Third prize overall: US$500
Voting and judging
After each round closes, all valid entries will be posted on the competition website for a two-week public voting. The five data visualisations with the most votes will be sent to the judging panel, who will select the top three visualisations of the round, and one prize winner among them. The three shortlisted submissions from each round will be entered into a final round, where the public scoring will be weighted 50/50 with judge’s scores to determine the final winner.
Eligibility
Who is eligible? Any individual or team working in a developing country* think tank can submit. The entire team submitting a data visualisation need not work at a think tank. However, the lead applicant must be currently employed at a think tank at the time of submission. Which data visualisations are eligible? Submitted visualisations must appear on the lead applicant’s think tank’s website. All submitted data visualisations should be of high quality, accurate and peer reviewed. In all cases, the source data of the visualisation must be fully referenced. The data visualisation should have been first published no earlier than 18 July 2012. Non-English entries are accepted and encouraged. However, an English translation of any relevant text should be included in the submission to facilitate understanding from voters and the judging panel.
Top tips and reflections from the competition judges: Jeff Knezovich: In a data visualisation it’s very important to keep to scale. Shifting scales in different parts of a visualisation is bad practice (but can be workable), but doing so without clearly indicating the shift is unforgivable.
Leonora Merry: A good data visualisation needs to be beautiful, fun and interesting. It should use the aesthetics to grab your attention, and the content to tempt you in further.
Andrej Nosko: In the context of policy research the thing that can really drives me crazy when it comes to data visualisation is, if after I look at it, I want to ask 'so what?' Always keep your 'ask' in mind.
John Schwartz: The Periodic Table of the Elements is the greatest ever data visualisation. By arranging the elements by atomic weight Dmitri Mendeleev was able to identify recurring trends and even predict some then undiscovered elements.
Enrique Mendizabal: The best visualisations always encourages you to search for more information on a subject. They have to be connected to a wider communication effort.
Data visualisation resources
Find out more
A number of tools, blogs, open data sets and sample data visualisations are available on the competition website at:
We’ve also compiled great articles and resources on the on think tanks blog, including interviews with round winners and more tips and tricks from our judges. See:
http://ttdatavis.onthinktanks.org/datavisualisation-resources/
http://onthinktanks.org/tag/datavisualisation/