1. An Introduction to Data Visualisation
For Open Access advocacy
25/08/2015 An Introduction to Data Visualisation 1
Marieke Guy
Marieke.guy@okfn.org
2. PASTEUR4OA
» PASTEUR4OA: Open Access Policy Alignment Strategies for European
Union Research
» EU-funded project 2014 – 2016
» Supports the development and/or reinforcement of open access strategies
and policies at the national level and facilitate their coordination among all
Member States
» 15 partners across Europe
» Key nodes - Europe-wide network of centres of expertise on open access
and scholarly communication
» EC’s policy for Open Access in Horizon 2020 is the foundation of the
PASTEUR4OA advocacy work
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http://pasteur4oa.eu/
3. ROARMAP
» ROARMAP: Registry of Open
Access Repository Mandates and
Policies
» Searchable international registry
charting the growth of open access mandates adopted by universities,
research institutions and research funders
» PASTEUR4OA work involved developing a new classification scheme for
the registry
» Project has also added almost 300 new policy entries to the ROARMAP
database. On 24th August 2015 contains 725 policies.
» Interesting data, wanted to show in interesting ways!
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http://roarmap.eprints.org/
5. Data Viz Brief
» Exploit the ROARMAP database and create visuals to be produced
for advocates to use in presentations, literature etc.
» Develop ways to show the statistics in an attractive form, e.g.:
› Maps (Europe, the world, individual continents) showing where
policies are
› Charts showing data such as funder type, what is mandatory, etc.
» Create interactive online visualisations using data dumps
» Use live data if possible
» For policy makers, institutions, researchers, individuals
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http://pasteur4oa-dataviz.okfn.org/
6. Spec: Things to think about
» What is the budget for the work?
» How much time and resources are available for the work?
» How will you get the data out of the system it is in? API, URL or other?
» Where will you store the visualisations?
» Where will you store the new data created? Will you release it openly?
» How often will the data be updated?
» Who can help you with your work?
» What is genuinely do-able?
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Open Access
Policies by country
– shows the top 10
countries
From Infogram
12. Data Sets Used
» ROARMAP data - http://roarmap.eprints.org/
» Open Access (OA) policy effectiveness study – collected by
PASTEUR4OA Project
» Bibliographic metadata indexed by the Thompson-Reuters
database (WoK) - http://wokinfo.com/
» Publication date was estimated based on the Altmetrics
database and WoK publication date - http://www.altmetric.com/
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13. Data Sets: Things to think about
» Is it a reputable source?
» Is it openly available?
» How up to date is the data?
» Is the data easy to get out and work on?
» Has the data been manipulated?
» Are there omissions of data?
» Will you need to combine data sets?
» Do you need to add in other data e.g. country codes/names
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16. Useful Excel Functions
» Sum – adding up
» Count – the number of cells in a range that have numbers in them
» Vlookup - lets you search for specific information in your
spreadsheet
» Concatenate – lets you combine text from different cells into one cell
» Trim – removes extra spaces
» Substitute – like replace but more versatile
» Sheet/page layout – hide rows, filter data, lock columns etc.
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17. Data: Things to Think About
» You do need to be able to use excel…well
» Have you checked your data recently?
» Have you saved versions of your data and labelled them well?
» Are you keeping notes about what you are doing?
» Are you being consistent with your data?
» Make sure you document processes
» Countries can be tricky – make sure you are clear and
consistent
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29. Tools: Things to Think About
» Does it cost to use?
» What is the licence?
» Do you have the correct OS?
» Can you get the visualisation out of the tool?
» Can you link to live data?
» Can you embed it?
» Can you make a graphic of it?
» Can you download it?
» Does the tool expect you to be able to programme?
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31. Delivery: Things to Think About
» Does it cost to use?
» What are the infographics going to be used for?
» What format should they be in?
» Is there a colour theme? What colours look good?
» Can you create a custom palette
» Can you distinguish between different parts of the chart?
» Is it clear what question the visualisation is answering?
» Is there enough information on the data visualisation?
» Is there a heading, comment box, labels, annotation, legend etc.?
» Is the result honest? Make sure you document where all the visualisations are
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34. Useful Links
» Data viz site: http://pasteur4oa-dataviz.okfn.org/
» Github site: https://github.com/okfn/PASTEUR4OA-dataviz/
» Pad: https://pad.okfn.org/p/pasteur4oa-data-viz
» My Tableau profile: https://public.tableau.com/profile/marieke.guy#!/
» My infogram profile: https://infogr.am/mariekeguy
» Live ROARMAP data: http://bit.ly/1Ri7rjl
» Data stored at: https://zenodo.org/deposit/36339/
» Seeing data : http://seeingdata.org/about-seeing-data/
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Open Access
Policies Worldwide
by Continent
From Infogram