LTC and TACC Offer Hands-On Introduction to Information Visualization and Visual Analytics - December 6, 2011

The Learning Technology Center (LTC) and the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) are proud to report that the University of Texas at Austin College of Education is now home to the only advanced visualization laboratory housed in any US college of education. As big data sets becomes more and more common in the field of education, the techniques of data visualization will come to play an ever more important role in teaching, learning, and education research. The Education Visualization Laboratory, located in SZB 439A, includes a 15-panel, 64 million pixel tiled display and a 72 inch stereo 3D system, along with a separate visualization workstation. The facility is a satellite to TACC's visualization laboratory, one of the largest and most sophisticated in the world.

The LTC and TACC are excited to offer you the opportunity to explore the tools and techniques of visualization at a hands-on introduction to information visualization and visual analytics to on December 13. Registration for the session is available online.

A description and a complete agenda of the day's activities are included below. We hope you'll be able to join us for the kickoff to a new era of educational research.

Hands-On Introduction to Information Visualization and Visual Analytics

When:	December 13, 2011 9am – 5:15pm
Where:	SZB 439B (Computer Lab B)
What:	In this one-day class, users will learn about the visualization process, specifically targeted at information visualization and visual analytics for non-programmers.

Information visualization is the study/process of creating and displaying abstract visual representations of numerical data and has applications in educational analysis, digital libraries, data mining, financial data analysis, and crowd mapping just to name a few. Visual analytics has emerged from the fields of information visualization and scientific visualization and focuses on the analytical reasoning that is facilitated by these interactive visualizations. Visual analytics allows us to reason and make sense of certain problems whose size and complexity make them otherwise intractable.

Attendees of this one day training class will be given an overview of information visualization and visual analytics concepts, constructs and applications as it applies to educational data. Attendees will also learn the basics of the Processing language as it applies to creating and developing information visualizations and visual analytics pieces on both the laptop and the College of Education visualization cluster. No prior programming experience is required — just the desire to begin using digital visual representations to understand data. A significant portion of the class will involve hands-on interaction with Processing, and users are encouraged to bring data for use in the class (sample data will be provided as well).

Agenda:

9 – 9:30	Introductions
9:30 – 10:30	Information Visualization Definitions, Concepts, Techniques
10:30 – 11:00	Morning Break
11:00 – 12:00	Visual Analytics Definitions, Concepts, Techniques
12:00 – 1:00	Lunch
1:00 – 3:00	Getting Started With the Processing Language
3:00 – 3:30	Afternoon Break
3:30 – 5:00	Hands On Tutorials Using Processing to Create Visualizations
5:00 – 5:15	Wrap Up