Coordinators: Professor Nicholas Provart
Offered: Winter 2024 session in January and February for a total of six meetings.
Weight: One module (0.25 FCE)
Time: TBA
Location: St. George campus, Earth Sciences Centre, Room TBA
Enrolment: Limited to 10 students
Description:
The past decade has seen a vast increase in the amount of data available to biologists, driven by the dramatic decrease in cost and concomitant rise in throughput of various next-generation sequencing technologies. While access to data is no longer limiting, manipulating and interpreting those data has become a bottleneck. One important aspect of interpreting data is data visualization. This graduate course module will provide a theoretical perspective on data visualization for biological applications, along with a hands-on component to provide practical training for students. The format of the course will be six 2-hour modules, each consisting of a short theory lecture of around 40 minutes followed by a discussion of 2-3 assigned papers/online resources per week, with students taking turns to present the papers/resources. The last 30-45 minutes of each module will encompass a hands-on session where students will use various data visualization packages (such as Tableau, D3, Plotly, ggplot, etc.) to explore biological data sets.
Evaluation:
20% – Contribution to discussion
20% – Presentation of assigned paper or online data resource (15-minutes)
60% – Project
The project will be to tell a story with data. You may use any technique you like (e.g., poster, interactive tool, video, etc.). It should combine data analysis, data visualization and a narrative to contextualize the findings. It should be accessible and engaging to anyone with an interest in biology.
Pre-requisites for module: Familiarity with molecular biology
Reading materials: TBA
Website: TBA
Last updated on August 10th, 2023