Save the date: SIS Quantitative Analysis Festival Friday April 20

Save the Date: Research Workshop on LaTeX Friday April 6 and April 13

Data Visualize Your Life With Visual.ly

I admit, this is probably not 100% related your research, but this is totally related to another great data visualization tool that is available on the web, especially if you are a social media junkie like me.  That is my self portrait on the left there.

Not really, of course.  But if you are regular on Twitter or Facebook (and these days, who isn’t?), there is a neat website that will allow you to take the information that you have on those social media sites and turn it into a wonderful piece of data visualization.  Two great things are associated with this: the website offers free service and you don’t have to hunt for data, because you already have it.

The website is called Visual.ly. This is an online community for people who love data visualizaiton (like yourself) and offers great tips on how to make yours better, links to other blogs and resources on the web related to data vis, and also gives you the chance to show off your original graphics.  Just a heads up, this website isn’t totally for novice data visualizers.  Many of the showcase graphs were created by professionals, especially those who know how to code.  It’s a good idea to look through the gallery anyway to get a sense of how data visualization can be used, maybe even for your own research project.

But this post isn’t meant to discourage you!  As I mentioned before, you already have data that Visual.ly can use to create a cool graphic.  Visual.ly also has a “Create” section where you can make graphics from templates provided by the website.   You can sign up for free with your Facebook or Twitter accounts.

After signing up with my Facebook account, I chose one of the Facebook graphic templates and created a graphic that expressed the data on my friends, photos, and other info.  For my example, I chose the Facebook Monster. I could tell how many of my friends are male, how many are female, and how many times, on average, I have friends in my photos with me.  (The answer is 3.4.) Below is a visual example of the number of friends I have on each continent. I wonder who that lone Australian is.

If you have a Facebook page that showcases a business or an organization you have, Visual.ly has great templates to express the data of those pages as well.  Below is an example from the website that shows the demographics of people who visit a Facebook page.

Visual.ly has similar graphic templates for Twitter.  An interesting one is a graphic that analyzes hashtags.  When you use Visual.ly for Facebook or Twitter, make sure that your account settings will allow Visual.ly to access the information or else you won’t be able to see all analytic parts of the graphic. This website is especially interesting if you want to make a fun, easy, and quick showcase of your personal data.

If you decide to try it out, let us know what you think!

Save the Date: Research Method Seminar Wed. April 4

Graduate Student Research Symposium

This coming Monday select SIS graduate students will be presenting their research at the Spring Research Symposium. This is a great opportunity to listen to original research conducted by other graduate students at AU. If you are a first year graduate student contemplating topics for your thesis or SRP, this might be an excellent opportunity to hear what others have done. Presenters will have ten minutes to share their research followed by five minutes for questions from the audience.

Come to learn about research. Come to support your friends.
Come to learn more about a particular topic.
Sponsored by the Graduate Student Council and the Journal of International Service
Founders Room, SIS

11:30  Crystal Corman
Leadership Spaces and Potential for Women within Islam in Malaysia:Professional Women’s Experiences and Perceptions
11:45  Linh Nguyen
Does urbanization increase access to improved sanitation for all? An analysis of the role of urban poor in explaining variation in access to improved sanitation
12:00  Mohsin Ali
Troubled Frequencies: Pakistan’s Media War Against Militant Ideologies
12:15  Sarah Chu
A Cautious Pendulum: The Momentum of Taliban Negotiations
12:30    Lunch
1:30  Sarah Howell
Research Award Presentation: South Africa for the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference of the Parties (COP17)
1:45  Rebecca Novick 
The Private Sector as a Strategic Partner for Peace: How Business Can Overcome Violence in Colombia and Ciudad Juárez
2:00  Nadia Bulkin
Regionalism in the Mind of Sukarno: Regional Communities in Post-Colonial Context
2:15  Inu Barbee
Regulatory Convergence and North American Integration: Lessons from the European Single Market
2:30  Johannes Langer
A Specter is Haunting Kenya: The Construction of Identity and Electoral Violence
2:45  Anna Fox
Women’s Political Participation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Producing Policy that is Important to Women and Gender Parity?

Three Easy Tricks You Probably Didn’t Know About Pie Charts in Excel

You’ve probably used Excel a lot, especially when cleaning up your data and making little bar and pie charts here and there when you need to.  If you need a quick pie chart, and you don’t spend any time trying to make it look nice, you’ll probably end up with something like this:

HEY WAKE UP!  Don’t let that boring pie chart put you to sleep.  Here are three simple tricks to make it look much more interesting.  It’s as easy as pie. 

(Yes. I went there.)

Tip # 1. Give it a little dimension. 
Excel has six different pie graph options for you to choose from. Four are 2-D and two are 3-D.  There is nothing wrong with a 2-dimensional pie graph, especially if you have many categories that could get lost in a 3-dimensional graph.  Use good judgement when choosing which pie chart is right for your data. If you have fewer categories that are better represented in a 3-D pie graph, go for it.

Tip # 2. Rotate your pie so that the smaller categories are seen. 

For some reason, when you make a pie chart on Excel, Excel tends to stick the smaller categories toward the back and bring the big piece to the front.  I suppose Excel’s logic is that you would want to see the larger value up front.  But what if the smaller values are what you’re really trying to show?

This can be fixed.  Right-click the pie chart and choose “Format Data Series.”  Under “Series Options” in the “Angle of the First Slice” section, slide the rotation notch to the right (somewhere between 90 and 100 should be fine, but you can play around with this). Viola.  Your small value slices have gotten upgraded to front and center.

Tip # 3. Make one piece of the pie explode

Who doesn’t want to see a slice of pie explode?  Not only is this great clown comedy, it’s a good way make one category or value of your pie stand out from the rest.  Earlier when you chose the type of pie graph you wanted, you could choose one that already has all the slices exploded.  Here is how you can make just one slice explode:

When you click on the pie graph, you’ll see that little “handles” appear on the edges. When you click on just one slice of the pie, the same thing happens.  Drag that piece of the pie out…and bam. Pie slice explosion.

Next time you need to make a pie graph on Excel, consider some ways to  make it look more interesting.  Your audience will appreciate it.

By the way, that first pie graph shown above (the gray, bland one) is intended for giggles, but believe it or not, that is an actual color scheme by Excel.  Please, please, please, stay away from that option.  While you’re at it, stay away from single-color schemes, where pieces of the pie are different shades of green or orange, for example.  To make each of your pieces stand out, use different colors.  And stick with solid colors.  Patterns can get distracting.

Save the Date: Research Method Seminar Wed. March 21

Using Commercial Satellite Imagery to Increase Transparency of Nuclear Forces

Wed. March 21, noon-1:30pm in Hurst 202. A light lunch will be served!!

The advent of high-resolution commercial satellite imagery has revolutionized the ability of people to monitor activities anywhere on surface of the planet. Only a decade ago, access to satellite imagery with better than one meter resolution required top secret access to military spy satellites. Now, anyone with a laptop computer can use GoogleEarth and several other free providers of free commercial satellite imagery to monitor developments in anything ranging from urban sprawl to deforestation to nuclear weapons deployments. As director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, Hans Kristensen uses commercial satellite imagery to monitor and document the nuclear forces of the world’s nine nuclear weapons states. His presentation will showcase some of his discoveries and give advise on how to use this unique technology to strengthen analysis and writing on nuclear weapons and non-proliferation issues.


About the speaker: Hans Kristensen is the director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists where he focused on researching and describing the status of the world’s nuclear forces and the government policies that guide their potential use. His work is frequently published on the FAS Strategic Security Blog. He is a co-author to the Nuclear Notebook in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and the World Nuclear Forces overview in the SIPRI Yearbook. Before he joined the Federation in 2005, Kristensen worked as a consultant to the Nuclear Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C., and before that as a project officer at the Nautilus Institute in Berkeley, California.

Four (Free) Online GIS Programs

Need a GIS program but don’t have access to ArcGIS for Desktop? Check out four GIS programs available online. You can be using mapping software within minutes!

Why GIS? A GIS (geographic information system) allows you to study relationships between different layers and detect causal relationships between different variables. Using a GIS, you can create dynamic maps that show change over time, and you can create predictive models. GIS has been used in many industries for decision-making and policy formulation. It has been prominent in the environmental and agricultural sector (how does climate change affect crops?), but has recently flourished in the business sector (i.e.: where to open a new bakery?) and is rapidly expanding into new sectors such as conflict management (i.e.: crisis mapping).

Google Earth

Google Earth maps the Earth by using superimposed images obtained from satellite imagery and aerial photography. You can explore layers created by other Google Earth users or create your own layers to display data and other information on the Google Earth maps. Using the place mark feature, you can pinpoint a location on the map and edit information about a specific location, even add an image or video to your place mark “bubble”.  Likewise, you can create polygon shapes, paths, and image overlays to represent areas on the map.  You can save your work as a .jpeg image or as a .kml or .kmz file (special file formats by Google Earth).  Use the history tool to go explore past satellite imagery available for a location, or create a tour of all your place marks while recording your voice.

Open Street Map

OSM creates and provides free geographic data and mapping to anyone around the globe. It’s the Wiki of maps. OSM was created to allow people around the world to share and create maps in creative, productive, or unexpected ways OSM includes more detailed maps than other sites, however, it does not offer the ability to analyze data. For example, you can find an address in a small town of Thailand and you can edit the map to add your favorite restaurant, but you cannot add a layer that shows robberies in that city (even if you have that layer saved somewhere).

GeoCommons 

GeoCommons is the public community of GeoIQ users who are building an open repository of data and maps for the world. The GeoIQ platform includes a large number of features that empower you to easily access, visualize and analyze your data for free.

Crowdmap

Crowdmap is a tool that allows you to crowdsource information and see it on a map and timeline. It does not require software installation and allows you to visualize information on a map in a quick and easy way. Crowdmap works in three simple steps: 1) Collect information from cell phones, news and the web; 2) aggregate the information collected into a single platform; 3) visualize the information on a map and timeline. For example, Crowdmap is often used to monitor elections or for crisis mapping.

Which one do you prefer?

Chat Online with a Lab Consultant!

Chat Hours: 10:00 am - 3:00pm, Monday - Friday

There’s a new way to communicate with the lab if you find yourself unable to visit us in the flesh.

Introducing LIVE Chat with the SSRL!  From here, you can type in your burning questions and a consultant will be on the other end to answer them. This way, you’ll be able to get quick answers about our services without travelling all the way to the lab.

Our online chat service will be available between 10:00 am – 3:00 pm,  Monday – Friday.  During these hours there will be a consultant around to answer you.  If you have a question or issue that is too complex to answer quickly via chat, please email  or call us instead!  As always, drop by the lab too if you need face-to-face assistance.

Overwhelming quantity for qualitative

I am excited to see the positive response to RSG’s NVivo workshops! Within hours of sending out initial email announcements of workshops, we had RSVP steadily emailed to us. Last week I led two introductory workshops with 22 people RSVP’d for each! Due to this high demand and space limitations of 22 computers in our training room in Anderson Lab, we had to turn some people away. But I also promised we’d schedule additional workshops. Now I can share the dates.

Consider using NVivo to analyze your qualitative research

Introduction to NVivo
Wed. Mar. 21, 2:30-4:00 pm
Thurs. Mar. 22, 12:00-1:30pm
Anderson Lower Level, B-13
RSVP at ssrl AT american.edu

There are many students across AU who prefer to do qualitative research for their SRP, thesis or when working for professors as research assistants. Of course it would be awesome to find a software program that could aid the process! Many of the people who attended last week fell into these prior categories: I’m preparing to analyze for my SRP now; I hope to use it next year on my SRP; I’m working with a professor’s research project this semester; I’m a PhD student and think this would be excellent! Faculty members also attended or requested private trainings.

NVivo is one of the most respected and robust software programs for qualitative research projects including content analysis, open-ended surveys, focus groups, etc. It is not the only software, but the RSG team has been building staff capacity to support it and now train others to use it. Last semester we offered NVivo 8, but we’ve just upgraded to NVivo 9. This brings a learning curve for our staff, but also some very cool new features!!

If you have an interest, check out these video tutorials created by the company:

Coding your data
Importing your “data” or sources
What’s new in NVivo 9?

Each qualitative or mixed method research project is unique and requires a slightly different approach. Our introductory trainings, as advertised above, will provide a nice overview of the basics for coding text, audio or video. I hope you can attend, but please remember to RSVP! Also, you can always stop by our lab to “play with” NVivo 8 or 9 using our staff-created tutorial found on the CTRL website here.