“Visualizations give you answers to questions you didn’t know you had” - Ben Shneiderman
Data visualization is a fundamental skill for quantitative social scientists, both for exploratory data analysis and communicating results effectively. This session gives an introduction to data visualization principles and application using the R package ggplot2.
ggplot2 is an incredibly popular package for data visualization, used by academics, data journalists (such as BBC, New York Times and the Guardian) and citizen scientists around the world. ggplot2 allows users to combine simple elements to create sophisticated and illuminating visualizations to better understand and tell stories with data.
The course will cover the basic facilities of ggplot2 with hands-on-practical sessions. We will also demonstrate some of the more advanced capabilities of ggplot2, by introducing its mapping capabilities. By the end of this course participants will be able to create publication-ready graphics using ggplot2's core functionality, will be able to use ggplot2 as a tool for effective exploratory data analysis, and will have a foundation on which to learn ggplot2's more advanced functions.
Participants should have basic familiarity with the R statistical programming language.
The course uses data from the Scottish Index of Mulitple Deprivation data and geographical data from Scottish Government accessed under the Open Government License.
Data have been aggregated to Local Authority level. This is for illustrative purposes only, and runs against Scottish Government's guidelines for use SIMD.