Seek and Finds

in Parts of Class

Each week, there will be a “seek and find” assignment where you must find a visualization that connects to the class topic of the week (we will provide a prompt of what you must find). The idea is that we want you to identify real examples of where the concepts occur in practice. You must find and post an appropriate visualization, and answer a prompt.

Seek and finds are turned in as part of Canvas discussions. They are due on the Friday of each week. The discussions remain open, so that you can see what other people have found (and discuss them, if you like).

Seek and Find Details

For these assignment you must bring us a … (data) visualization!

Sorry, this is a reference to an old Monty Python movie – if you don’t know the reference, that line won’t be funny. Even if you do know the reference, it might not be funny.

Each week, we will ask you to bring us a visualization (we will have these seek and find assignments every week). There will usually be some specification of what you need to find. We might ask for a certain kind of data, or an example of the use of a specific technique.

You must make a posting that (1) includes a visualization, and (2) answers the prompt.

The seek and find ground rules

  • It cannot be a visualization that you (or someone in class) made.
  • It must be publicly available.
  • You must provide an image. You need to upload the image to Canvas and embed it in your posting. See Tips on Using Canvas (Uploading Images to Canvas). You must upload an image file.
  • If it’s on a web page, you should copy a picture (either use a screen shot or copy the image). Please shrink the image to a reasonable size, if it’s too small for people to see the detail, they’ll be able to get it from the link you give.
  • Try to find something interesting (to you at least)

Create a posting and include a picture of the visualization. If you found the visualization on the web, provide a link to the page that it is on (if it’s hard to find on that page, give some clues like “on page 4 of https://graphics.cs.wisc.edu/Papers/2015/AG15/Submission-FINAL-7-27-2015.pdf”). If you scanned it or photograph it, describe where you got it from (scanned from p7 of January 6th Capital Times). Also be sure to answer the prompt (there is usually some question).

Upload an image file. A JPG, PNG or SVG is good. Avoid linking to external images. Do not upload video (take an image snapshot, and include a link to the video). Do not upload a webpage (again, take a snapshot).

Try to pick something that you don’t think anyone else will pick.

For grading: Your seek-and-find is complete if it has a relevant visualization, correctly embeds the image, and has a response to the prompt. In subsequent evaluation, we might give other rewards for particularly insightful responses (see Grading).

You are encouraged to discuss other people’s submissions, and we may even provide prompts for discussion. While discussion of seek-and-finds is not required, it mat be rewarded as part of your online activity. (see Grading)

Because a discussion with 50+ people can become unwieldy, we will divide the class into groups.