Data Stories that matter.
The stories we choose to tell say a lot about us.
Over the two days of Data Storytelling (affectionately, #DatStory on Twitter), participants worked on self-guided research questions in teams to investigating the meanings of death, Australian political donations, female experiences of Asperger’s and much more.This event was certainly not your normal workshop.
We’re proud to report, the majority of the attendees idenfitied as women.
Participants were split evenly between people with programming experience and newbies. A good mix!
And came from a wide range of faculties and disciplines.
Attendees were split into four different learning streams, including:- Displaying Data Divinely: Archiving and Online Exhibits
- Digital Archives of 3D Objects
- Textual Analysis of Social Media Data
- Analysis and Visualisation of Public Databases
The event kicked off with three keynote speakers, ResPlat alumni Fiona Tweedie, Academic Co-convener of the Data Systems and Society Research Network at University of Melbourne Suneel Jethani and Millicent Weber, who uses social media as a data source for analysing literary festivals.
Learning about the importance of setting the right questions for your audience when analysing data w @FCTweedie #datstory pic.twitter.com/n4QHq7Yag1
— Annelies Van de Ven (@archaeoa1)July 3, 2017
:: Suneel Jethani :: Trying not to be seduced by aesthetics :: Asking instead, what does the viz say about the data it represents? #datstory
— Curriculum Design (@ArtsCurriculum)July 3, 2017
Millie Webber on stories and literary festivals. #DatStory pic.twitter.com/gxqUJW4Irn
— Tyne Daile Sumner (@tynedaile)July 3, 2017
Participants worked in teams within the streams on a research proposal, learning the tools with which to use to craft their story.
The CAD team borrowed artefacts from the Grainger Museum, which participants digitised using the 3D scanner and the online archiving tool Omeka.
Awesome team work creating this #3Dmodel from a #3Dscan and display it in @omeka ! #datstory @ResPlat @unimelb #resbaz #digitalcollections pic.twitter.com/8TKcVxXjH2
— Emilie Walsh (@emilouwalsh)July 4, 2017
The Public Database Analytics stream honed their R analysis and visualisation skills on a database of donations to Australian political parties over the last decade. The three teams put their new skills to work to pitch projects that focused on identifying trends in the Australian housing market, and increasing political transparency. Team CaptR won the day with their Solutions for Open Access Politics (SOAP) proposal to better identify the industries linked to donations from individuals.
A team from the Displaying Data Divinely stream placed 2nd in the Data Storytelling Grand Final with their fantastic pitch for a project that used Omeka to display digitised diary entires of women with Aspergers as a way of developing an open discussion around the condition. The researchers who developed this project clearly articulated their project aims, workflow and intended results.
In Textual Analysis of Social Media Data, teams trawled the depths of Twitter for answers to society’s big issues…
There was also stickers…Are buses, trains, or trams the most hated? ‘Ticket inspector’ member @cynthiahqy presenting a research pitch @ResBaz #DatStory event pic.twitter.com/9Kg7sKwgts
— Septa Inigopatria (@septainigo)July 4, 2017
At the end of the event, there were two heats for pitches. First within their stream and then those that were chosen to continue, pitched in the final heat to all participants and three judges Jennifer Warburton, Paul Gruba and Fiona Tweedie.#datstory second day of NLTK and Python workshop @ResBaz 🤗 pic.twitter.com/uBUgfeJHbK
— Bige (@bigeyilmaz)July 4, 2017
The high standard of ideas presented left judges with a difficult decision, but in the end, we had the following winners: 1st place: CaptuR (analysing the political donations public database) 2nd place: Female Experiences (A diary project of female experiences of Asperger’s) 3rd place: Whose Debt is it Anyway? (sentiment around Centrelink on Twitter)
Great prizes were given, including first prize being a $200 QANTAS voucher!! Pictured below are some of the winners
The pitch night included some fantastic food and drinks too.
Awesome events like this don’t happen without phenomenal teams! We have a few of the thank you’s below:
- A massive thank you to the organiser Kim Doyle and her team for making this event happen.
- Our stream leads: Vincent Khau, Emilie Walsh , Tyne Dale, Brendan Ansell, who taught each group their new tools, as well as their helpers
- Nicole La Mela for catering and event management
- Our judges, for their time and considerate comments. Finally - our amazing participants for their enthusiasm over the two days of the event!
