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Canvas is central to the online parts of the class. It is worth taking time upfront to learn to use it effectively and to configure it to your needs.

This class has a bunch of different components - each serves a different role in how we try to teach visualization.

1. Class Meetings (Monday and Wednesdays, 11am, Room 312 Wendt) - these will be a mix of traditional lecture, discussions, and in-class exercises (ICEs).
2. Readings and Other Materials - each week there will be a “reading” assignment that might include videos or web resources to look at.
3. End of Week Surveys - each week, there will be a survey (like a quiz, except we won’t always grade it) that will give you an opportunity to reflect on the material of the week.
4. Online Discussions - each week, there will be a structured online discussion (in small groups) that everyone must participate in.
5. Weekly Seek-and-Finds - each week, each student will identify a visualization that relates to the topic of the week.
6. Design Exercises - each week, there will be some component that asks you to do some visualization practice (create, critique, …). These will be more varied than the other components.

This class is a continuous stream of small pieces, rather than a single big project at the end. This is atypical for CS grad classes, but I think it works better for this class. If you don’t like this style, you might not like this class.

I am aware that this is lots of small pieces to keep track of, but to make it easier, we (1) will stick to a regular rhythm, and (2) provide a weekly “Week in Vis” announcement to remind you of what is happening during the week. This information will also be on the schedule, calendar, and the “Week in Vis” sidebar at the top right corner of the web page.

The class is organized by week - each week follows the Rhythm. If you’re curious about what is going on this week, you can look at the “this week in vis” sidebar (top right of the page), or the Canvas Calendar to see things in a calendar format, or the Canvas Agenda to see a list of assignment deadlines.

This page has a more thematic outline of the course weeks. I have also written them out in terms of Learning Goals.

We will refer to a number of books over the course of the semester.

You will not need to purchase any books for this class. The required readings will be provided online. Of course, you might want to buy some of the books if you want to support the authors, read beyond what is required for class, or like owning physical books.

This posting explains the rationale for the class. It will help you understand my rationale for why I have designed the class the way that I have, and what you should expect from the semester.

If you’re looking for the syllabus, you are probably looking for pages on this web site. The “official University syllabus” is a document that is posted in the official places.