‘Making data talk’ has become a key competency, as activities in international development are increasingly data-centred. Hands-on workshop to create better, more intuitive, and more beautiful visual representations of your data.

Data Visualization

As virtually all activities within international development are increasingly data-centred, making data talk through powerful and yet simple visualizations has become a key competency, not just for M&E professionals. This hands-on workshop will provide participants with the theoretical knowledge and technical skills to create better, more intuitive, and more beautiful visual representations of their data.

We will start off with a brief introduction in descriptive statistics, the various types of variables, and some basic concepts in visual perception. This foundation will be useful for thinking about the display of quantitative information and provides us with a common language when working with our data and visualizations.

We will then move on to discussing specific types of graphs: from more conventional representations such as bar and pie charts, to more complex ones such as radar charts, boxplots and geospatial maps. For each type of graph, we will critically assess for what kind of information/story it should (and should not) be used, what the most common mistakes are in using it, and how we can avoid these. Besides looking at static graphs, we will also examine (and create) responsive graphs that allow users to interactively engage with the information that is displayed.

Trainer Johannes von Engelhardt has been teaching research methods and statistics at university for more than ten years. As a research consultant within international development, he has been working on various large-scale data projects. Johannes has recently completed his PhD in Media and Communication at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Free and low-cost tools

Throughout the workshop, participants will actively engage with real-world data (such as the World Development Index data, or the public IATI registry) and create their own visualizations. Besides Excel, we will be working with a range of powerful but free/low-cost online visualization tools, such as datawrapper (for simple response graphs), IATI Studio (for visualizing IATI data) or Piktochart (for creating infographics). Note that no prior knowledge in statistics is required, but basic Excel skills will be useful.

Workhop Data Visualization

• date: 12 April 2019
• time: 11:00 - 16.30 hr
• venue: Kargadoor, Utrecht (Oudegracht 36, Utrecht)
• costs: 50 euro (incl. lunch)

Contact
Rina Teeuwen, Dit e-mailadres wordt beveiligd tegen spambots. JavaScript dient ingeschakeld te zijn om het te bekijken.

Organisation
NEDWORC Werkgroep Professionalisering (WEP)