Latest project, hand-coding latitude and longitude data for LSU campus buildings so we can begin to associate geographic data with the stories the Reveille puts together. Here’s a quick-and-dirty Tableau that lets you see which buildings we now have in our system.
http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/LSUGeocodes/Dashboard1?:embed=y
Today I’m experimenting with seeing whether I could use Tableau for a fairly non-Tableau task: Presenting a searchable, sortable list of reviews built from the entertainment reviews at the Reveille. Initially, I didn’t think it could be done at all. However, after some experimentation, I am starting to wonder whether it might, in fact, be possible. There would be some elbow grease involved, but not an excessive amount.
I’ve created an Excel spreadsheet with some reviews in it, and will include a link to the Tableau display based on it. Please bear in mind that this is a work in progress – if you’re looking at this display early on Tuesday, odds are it’s not done yet. Pretend you didn’t see it.
Tableau Table of Daily Reveille Reviews
Soon I’ll start training on all the things I’ll need to do to handle my new job as Web editor for the Daily Reveille. This Tableau data is a side project as part of that job. I doubt it’ll end up being incorporated, but we won’t know if this is a good approach until I explore it.
Image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/rob_ree/
Feeling like writing something topical and funny, I thought I’d take on the War on Christmas by comparing newspaper references involving Kwanzaa, Hanukkah and Christmas during the first week of December. I went back almost 40 years, until I got bored with the scarcity of results (that far back you only find New York Times references while using the “Major U.S. Newspapers” search on LexisNexis.
Here’s the link to the Tableau version of the data I put together:
My Tableau chart based on holiday mentions in U.S. newspapers
I’m not entirely sure how I plan to use what I’ve got, but my general plan is to put together a Redshtick article where I discuss the War on Christmas and the collateral damage it has inflicted on innocent Kwanzaa. We’ll see how that goes. Enjoy!
Sweet mother of Abraham Lincoln, this one was difficult. The FBI crime statistics had to be pulled up one year at a time, and came in the form of massive files with data for approximately 600 colleges each year. I had to merge 2008-2011, create some new fields that generated results so I could get rate per 1,000 students (instead of absolute number of crimes), and generally do a ton of work you won’t see in the final product.
Which is this:
http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/CampusCrimeRates/Dashboard1?:embed=y
Enjoy!
Photo by JARED KENDALL.
This data was gathered for a Redshtick article. I thought it’d be an easy find, but it took hours. I wanted information on the usage rates for laptops amongst college kids. Straightforward, right? Not so much. I eventually found some information from the Pew internet research surveys. But no data spanning years on college kids and their gear. Single year stats, sure — I could tell you what percent of college kids use laptops in class as of the moment. Data, however, becomes most interesting when it can be viewed over time, and you can try to spot trends.
http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/GadgetOwnership/Dashboard1?:embed=y
Point is, this is actually fairly interesting, particularly the way it drives home the conversion from a desktop-centric universe to one where laptops are the norm. If you’re feeling adventurous you can play with tablet numbers and the like — that’s the point of these Tableau presentations. They leave a good bit of the control and the exploration up to the end user/reader.
I love LexisNexis. I’d just like to put that out there.
The academic version of the news search database helped me discover something interesting: Coverage of Black Friday hasn’t always been so extensive.
Photo taken by Beth Rankin. http://www.flickr.com/photos/bethcanphoto/3065695690/
My original goal was to find out how many times Black Friday is mentioned in the week leading up to Thanksgiving, through the day after, versus how many times Afghanistan is mentioned during that same eight day period each year. Turned out that Afghanistan has a fairly steady figure (I expected it to steadily or suddenly decline over time as readers developed war fatigue) while Black Friday has soared from 10-30 stories per year to more than 100.
Link to a version of the chart which can be modified to display posts on Afghanistan, as well as to include or exclude years:
http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/BlackFridayCoverage/Dashboard2?:embed=y
Who knew loss leaders could be so much more interesting? And at which point will loss leaders eclipse combat losses for our national attention?
Classroom with Three Figures by Lavern Kelley, painted white pine, plywood, brass, and plastic, 1979, 1984–87. Photo by cliff1066™ on Flickr
While waiting on additional interviews, I continue to occupy myself by trying to find figures to compare and contrast BRMHS with other schools in the state.
This time I’m looking at GEE test results, for 2011:
http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/spring2011gee/Dashboard1?:embed=y
Not as interesting as the prior table, but these numbers seem to dive a little deeper into actual achievement levels at the school, so I like them.
For my journalism class final project, I have to research and write an article about a subject of my choosing.
I went with the refurbishment/rebuilding of Baton Rouge Magnet High School. I’ve gotten my first interview under my belt, and am working on lining up my secondary interviews (students, teachers, and former students) so that I’ve got more quotes & info to draw on.
I’ve already finished up one piece I’m excited about: A table which pulls performance ratings for every school in the state of Louisiana from 2007 through 2011, and allows you to select which of that data is displayed. It defaults to a short list of high-performing high schools that includes Baton Rouge Magnet High School in its list.
http://public.tableausoftware.com/views/LAStateEducationSPS/Dashboard1?:embed=y
Numbers are fun to me, and these numbers allow anyone who wants to do so to compare figures for any school in the state, once they mess around a bit. It means I don’t have to talk about these numbers much in the body text of my article, and that I’m not leaving anything out in case a reader has a question I never thought of.
Now, if I can just get my interview subjects to kick in some great quotes or background, I’ll be all set. Oh, and I still have to go wander around the BRHS campus and take some photos… But that can probably wait.
Wouldn’t mind figuring out how to make the tableau table scaleable so it will fit in the WordPress post, but I haven’t quite managed that yet. When I’ve tried to use its embed code it is too wide to look at, and the controls don’t work, either.
It’s funny, as a celiac, I haven’t been able to eat an Oreo cookie in years.
Yet they still hold a warm spot in my heart. I don’t even remember when I became their fan on Facebook, or why, but at some point I started noticing them on my news feed. Always innocuous, yet just a little bit clever, or interesting, or heartwarming. Compared with other companies, like Sears, where I sometimes felt like I was being pitched something, Oreo seemed intent on just being, well, nice. Frankly, I appreciate it. My only real complaint is that these posts don’t always show up on my feed. That’s probably Facebook’s fault; or mine. The one thing I’d love to see out of you, Oreo, is something I know you’re probably scared of: A little more bite. Some edginess. The rainbow Oreo was a nice first step. Taking the occasional good-natured stand could be a great thing for all of us. Nice doesn’t have to be meek.
It is now day three of my hanging out on Pinterest, being one of the girls. Somehow I’m reminded of how I felt reading Judy Bloom back in fourth grade. Oh, obligatory image of a wedding cake to set the mood follows:
What the hell. I’ve always been pretty for a guy, I guess. One more reason I avoided prison. Bad place for that, from what I hear.
In case it isn’t blatantly obvious, I still don’t remotely get it. Is the whole point just a weird exercise in shared vanity? Nothing but a pure-Ego collage scrapbooking expression of shit we dig? With a few exchanged recipes and shopping wish lists thrown in? I mean, yeah, I sort of get the appeal of hunting around for a few of your favorite things… More than that, I could see the appeal if there was some way to find people who matched up on a significant number of the things you find cool. But that’s not going to happen. Just check out my Pinterest board:
http://pinterest.com/jaredwk/bored-board/
Several of the things I love most I had to upload myself. Nobody had a good image of the plutonium atom, for instance. How can plutonium be missing? That’s an important oversight. The unnamed molecular model I uploaded, as well, had been missing. It’s one of my favorite molecules! Am I *really* the only person on Pinterest to be a fan? To find it pin-worthy? Or am I *totally* missing the point of these pins?
I really don’t know. But I know this much: My blog has completely abandoned the rules of AP Style. Suck it, higher education. You can lead a horse to knowledge, but you can’t keep him from wanting to chew on sugar cubes instead.
Jared W. Kendall 