Explaining the concept of “data visualization” is easier shown than said – which, ironically, is the point of data visualization.
Cansu Tatar makes this clear when she navigates her browser to an interactive table that allows her to compare math and reading proficiency statistics with employment rates.
Numbers are available to her not only for the United States but also for the more than 200 other nations on Earth. With just a couple clicks, she’s able to choose countries to view and contrast side by side on her screen.
One, two, three, four, more; it’s all possible, and results are immediate.
She can easily drill down even further, pulling up high school graduation rates of males and females for a deeper examination of the connection between education and employment.
“Data visualization is a powerful way of telling a story,” says Tatar, an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Technology, Research and Assessment since last August. “Sometimes, people say it’s a piece of art – but it’s more about creating a narrative story with your data.”
And, Tatar says, it’s key to professional success in the online era if the assignment is to posit comprehensible and effective arguments on social, economic, political and scientific topics.
“We live in a data-driven world right now, and almost every job is requiring some analytical skills,” she says.
“Most people believe that they either need to have an understanding of statistics, or know how to do some programming on statistical software, but not that is not always the case with data visualization,” she adds.
“You can create great stories, and analyze the data, without using any programming. This is a well-demanded skill that you can see from the health sector to the military or on the New York Times website. People usually go for visual things to understand the content because they grab their attention right away, and after you’re interested, you’re reading the rest of the story.”
Twenty-three NIU students at the undergraduate and master’s levels are now learning those skills this summer, thanks to Tatar’s newly launched ETR 492/592: Introduction to Data Visualization course.
Her example that provides math and reading proficiency statistics along with employment rates came, in fact, from one of this summer’s students who tapped into the World Education Open Data to populate the dashboard with facts for the asking.
Like the others in the class, that student used Tableau software to complete the project. Tatar is also teaching about open information sources, learning analytics, data scatter plots, visualization techniques and knowing your audience.
“I want to show them what they can do,” Tatar says, “and that it’s not hard to develop such things and to add that your résumé to be a good candidate for the jobs you’re looking. I believe they were expecting less from a class like this.”
For Tatar, who earned her Ph.D. in Learning, Design and Technology from North Carolina State University in 2023, it’s a full-circle moment.
After completing her bachelor’s degree in her native Turkey in 2016, she put her instructional technology background to use in the private sector working as a full-time designer of educational modules.
“I was in the business to create some games and simulations for adult learners, and I saw that they were having some challenges understanding the material itself,” Tatar says, “so I decided to back to school to learn more about how I can provide better learning experiences, and then I decided to come back to school to learn more about those instructional technologies.”
link