Data Vis for Journalists Fall 2016
Lab 1

First we will go through four example demos together to get started with Tableau. The first workbook will show a variety of ways to visually encode two variables using space and color channels. The second workbook takes a look at crime in Vancouver in 2003, 2013, 2014, 2015 and up to July 2016. The third workbook explores Vancouver mayoral races in 2008, 2011 and 2014. Finally, we will build a visualization that shows how many trips the DeLorean time machine took in the Back to the Future movies.

The assignment is to work through a Tableau workbook about a Music Sales dataset on your own. You'll have some class time to get started where we will circulate to answer questions, and you'll need finish on your own time. You will also analyze the Vancouver crime dataset further, write a brief story about your findings, and write a reflection about your analysis process.

• Week 1 Demo 1: Basic Visual Encoding & Dashboarding workbook
• Week 1 Demo 2: Vancouver Election Results workbook (data source: Vancouver open data catalogue)
• Week 1 Demo 3: Vancouver Crime workbook (data source: Vancouver open data catalogue)

Workbooks

• Music Sales workbook
• Vancouver Crime workbook

• Work through the Music Sales workbook
  • Start with the Introduction tab that is second from the left. The tabs are at the bottom of the window, move between them by clicking. (You can ignore the leftmost Data Source tab for now.)
  • Continue on to the next tab to the right: Terminology and Interface.
  • Work through Tabs 1 to 5, following the instructions in the captions:
    • 1 - Most Popular Genre
    • 2 - Top 20 Artists
    • 3 - Sales Distribution by Region
    • 4 - Sales by Geography
    • 5 - Rock vs Alt vs Heavy Metal.
  • Look at the Dashboarding Instructions P1 tab for inspiration. Then read the instructions in the Dashboarding Instructions P2 tab carefully and try out those suggestions in the final tab, Music Sales Dashboard.

• Analyze the Vancouver Crime workbook further. Write up your findings as a news story. Also write up your reflections on the process and what you learned along the way as a separate document.
  • Your news story should be under 500 words and can include up to 2 images created with Tableau. You are not expected to use any other material than your Tableau analysis findings.
  • In the reflections document, explicitly describe your analysis process. Include screenshots of all the charts that you created, including dead ends that you deemed to be not newsworthy.
  • Your reflection could have an informal style, but correct grammar and spelling are required.

• Submit your work to both instructors by email (caitlin AT discoursemedia.org and tmm AT cs.ubc.ca) by 9am Tue Sep 20, with subject "JOURN Week 1". Your news story and your reflection should be in PDF format. Also submit your completed Music Sales Tableau workbook in TWBX format.

• To calibrate workload, note that this assignment is designed to take no more than 8 hours. Our expectation is that you will spend around 2 hours for the Music Sales workbook, 2 hours for the Crime analysis, and under 4 hours for both writeups.

• The Proportions workbook is courtesy of Ben Jones, with minor tweaks to the instructions to clarify ambiguities and update for Tableau 10. Ben is Director of Product Marketing for Tableau Public, author of Communicating Data with Tableau, and instructor at the University of Washington.
• Caitlin Havlak developed the Vancouver Election and Vancouver Crime workbooks.