CPSC 547: Information Visualization, Sep 2022
Instructor: Tamara Munzner
First Class: Wed Sep 7 2022
Time: Wed 3-6pm
Location: FSC 2330A
UBC Calendar Page: CPSC 547
Structure Preview
I will teach this course again in
fall 2022. See the previous 2021
version
of this
course to get a flavor for what it's been like in the past.
The content will remain fairly stable, modulo updates. I'll
continue to use my own recent book as the core text, supplemented with
research papers. The format this year is likely to be inperson with
some hybrid support for students who are temporarily remote due to
illness or quarantine, but circumstances
and policies may change so check back on this page for updates
(don't forget to reload).
Audience
- There are no enforced prerequisites. Grad students from other
departments are very welcome. It is possible to for students in other disciplines to take this
course without a programming background, by picking an analysis or
survey project.
- My past experience in teaching this course shows that students
need strength in at least 1 and preferably 2 of these 3 skills to succeed:
programming, English, HCI.
- Strong English communication skills are important for success
in this course: there are substantial reading, writing,
discussion, and presentation components in the required work.
- Many of the project types require programming, so that skill
will give you the broadest possible set of options. However, there
are no enforced prerequisites, and grad students from other
departments are very welcome. It's possible to for students in
disciplines outside of CS to take this course without a
programming background, by picking an analysis or survey
project.
- HCI (human-computer interaction) is helpful but not required;
it's useful to take CPSC 544 (fine to do so simultaneously this
term), or have taken an equivalent methods course elsewhere.
- Many other skills are useful, including computer graphics,
cognitive psychology, machine learning, statistics, or algorithms.
Also useful is expertise in a particular application domain if you
intend to do your project in it (bioinformatics, computer systems,
etc).
- I have found that students with weak backgrounds in all three
of these areas have often not succeeded in previous years: weak
programming skills, weak English (for example, if English is your
second language and you struggle with fluency), and no HCI
background is not a recipe for success.
- This graduate course does not teach visualization libraries:
most students will pick up D3 (Javascript), ggplot (R), or
python-based visualization tooling on their own.
- For most undergrads, the new 4th year
undergrad visualization course, next offered in January 2023, is
probably a better match; D3 will be explicitly taught and a
programming background is required. If you nevertheless feel strongly
that this course is the right one for you, email me and we'll discuss
whether your background is a good fit.
- Although the class is typically officially full at the start of
term and often there's a waitlist, don't worry if you can't
register: do show up anyway. In grad CS classes there is typically
substantial churn in the first few weeks as people shop around, so
it's extremely likely that you'll be able to get in. The waitlist
has always been cleared in the past. I will give priority to people
who have been attending all along and are caught up.
- I'm open to unofficial auditors, there are usually a few each
year. You'll get out what you put in: please do the reading for that
session, so that you can participate in the in-class exercises and
discussions. It's OK to come for the first several weeks and then
stop if you get too busy with other things, but tell me that you're
dropping it so that there aren't imbalances in the small-group
breakouts that I assign before class.
Previous Versions
- Information Visualization, Fall 2021
- Information Visualization, Fall 2020
- Information Visualization, Fall 2019
- Information Visualization, Fall 2017
- Information Visualization, Spring 2017
- Information Visualization, Fall 2015
- Information Visualization, Fall 2014
- Information Visualization, Fall 2011
- Information Visualization, Fall 2009
- Information Visualization, Fall 2007
- Information Visualization, Fall 2006
- Information Visualization, Fall 2005
- Information Visualization, Fall 2004
- Information Visualization, Spring 2004
- Information Visualization, Spring 2003
Permanent URL of this page is http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~tmm/courses/547-22/
Tamara Munzner
Last modified: Wed Jun 29 13:37:02 PDT 2022