Instructor: Tamara Munzner
First Class: Wed Sep 7 2022
Time: Wed 3-6pm
Location: FSC 2330A
UBC Calendar Page: CPSC 547

Structure Preview

• 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