MATERIALS ON THIS PAGE

Part 1: Links to video tutorials on using a chart building tool like Excel

Part 2: Analyzing data to share on your chart

USING TOOLS TO BUILD CHARTS

Creating Charts and Graphs for

Your Team Report

YOU MUST BUILD A CHART

Each team member is required to build one chart for the project. The chart should both analyze and document findings from the local study. These charts will be shared on the classroom management system: Canvas. 

Team members will discuss the charts and decide which information should move forward to be included in the Analysis portion of the recommendation report. 

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Not every chart built will be helpful to the project, but most will. The charts that move forward should be revised to blend with the design strategies of the website.

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PART 1: WANT HELP BUILDING A CHART? 

Watch Top Rated Instructional Videos 

There are thousands of helpful "how to" videos for building charts and graphs. If we meet in the classroom, we will build a chart during class using Excel. If we do not meet in the classroom, you can use one of the links below to guide you through the basics of chart building.

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FOR EXCEL: Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAU0qqh_I-A

FOR GOOGLE: Watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwjCRddlxEI

These are very basic tutorials for those of you who are new to the world of chart building. You're also welcome to search the internet for other tutorials using technology you like better or want to experiment with. 

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For more on charts: Your textbook has excellent materials on designing reports and building charts/graphs to support your local study. Read and re-read these chapters. Use this website as a guide for the implementation of textbook concepts. The website is your support tool rather than your primary tool.

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Another helpful source is available at Bates College:

"Almost Everything You Wanted to Know About Making Tables and Figures" 

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PART 2: ANALYZING DATA for your CHART

Charts are only as valuable as the information they convey. To ensure that the chart includes you-attitude and engages your client, make sure that it analyzes data.

Analysis goes beyond sharing raw numbers to charting this data in a way that communicates what it MEANS for the client.

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With this in mind, do not use charts from Survey Monkey or Google Survey in the Analysis portion of your Recommendation Report. 

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SAVE THE UN-EXAMINED, RAW DATA for an APPENDIX SECTION

You should share the entire survey and the responses--including the charts generated by your survey tool--in one of your Appendices. For more on how to share findings from the local study in your Appendix, visit the Local Study dropdown option: Appendix Options.

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This area is a wonderful spot to copy/paste the section from your Methodology that comments on the local study PLUS any other relevant materials, like the email your team sent to targeted respondents -OR- the Facebook post team members shared to target respondents.  In addition, this section should include the complete survey--title, instructions, and all--along with both questions and responses.

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For charts you build for the Analysis, take time to analyze the data, and create clusters from the raw data that help shape your commentary on a particular recommendation.

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Here's an example:

The chart below and to your left has raw data. It doesn't mean much because it isn't grouped in a helpful way, but it does have some meaningful data about students who took W131 the year I first used ePortfolios. 

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Major points:

Almost 95% of students felt that the course made them more confident writers AND that ePortfolios contributed to that confidence by helping them better understand rhetorical scenarios. But, since this is not a complicated idea, I can write about it in a paragraph: I don't need to chart it. Save charts for things that are more complicated and need the visual to reinforce the findings.

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There is also complicating evidence: Only 53% of students felt that building a website was a valuable part of the course. That appears to conflict with the 95% positive feedback related to being more confident writers and thinking that the ePortfolio helped them better understand rhetorical contexts. I'm not sure what this means for the course, but it's important to think about the ways that building a website might resonate with students as separate from building an ePortfolio or thinking about rhetorical context. I can set this information to the side and build a survey that explores these ideas more in another semester. These numbers didn't help me. Your local study may have information that isn't clear or doesn't connect to a recommendation. Not all data is relevant or worth sharing with the client. Comment only on data that is relevant AND that you take time to explain as relevant at the paragraph level of your Analysis.

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The data that was relevant for me, and for me to share with the folks who funded my ePortfolio grant, was about choices to merge websites or build two websites. I should round data to the nearest whole number: 12% built one website because it was easier, 12% built one website because it fit their rhetorical purposes, and 53% opted to build two separate websites for W130 and W131. That leaves about 26% who did not comment which implies that they aren't that invested either way.  What does this mean? I must confess, I don't know that it means any one thing. But, it does imply that over half of W130 students wanted to start from scratch and build a second ePortfolio for W131. About a quarter of the students liked their first ePortfolio enough to keep it and add to it for W131. About a quarter of the students did not respond. 

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Here is where math comes in: What if I pull out the 53% and the 24% and apply it to a full 100% since a quarter of students didn't respond? Now my number sets are very different. I have to go back to the number of respondents and do some math.

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>>Nine students made two, separate ePortfolios. 

>>Four students made one ePortfolio. Of those four, two did it for rhetorical reasons and two did it because they thought it was easier.

>>That's 13 total.

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9 divided by 13 = .692307 or 69%

4 divide by 13 = .307692 or 31%

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When I write about these numbers, I will qualify the statement to have full transparency: Of the 18 students surveyed, 13 responded to the question relating to building two ePortfolios or working with only one, expanded ePortfolio in W130 and W131.

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***INCLUDE IMAGES FROM ORIGINAL ANALYZING DATA & BUILDING CHARTS PAGE***

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Figure 1.1:  Notice that the chart has a Figure Number (maybe this aligns to recommendation 1, sub point 1?) as well as a legend that clarifies what the colors tell us.

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Group data sets to add clarity. 

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Using the chart on the left, we can see that 17 students responded. 14 like learning new technologies as part of a class, 2 don't mind, and 1 doesn't care either way. The bigger news is that 0 said they don't like learning new technology or resent it. We have lots of options with the visual.

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>>We can chart things as is,

>>We could group the 14+2 and say they're open to new technologies, or

>>We could group all three as being indifferent to open to learning new technologies.

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Figure 1.2 charts the data 100% of students are open to learning new technologies as part of college classes. It's challenging to chart zero, but the zero is important in this instance because it's rare that every student in a class is open to any activity, much less a new one.

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This isn't the best example of blending. Maybe one of the teams will give us a better example this semester.

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NOTE: I was experimenting with VISME for the first time when I made these charts. The free version is very limited, but the paid subscription looks awesome. The big issue for me in the free version was that I couldn't add statistics into the chart area. You should find a chart option that allows you to have percentages as well as raw numbers.

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BEYOND THE CHART:

IMAGES and OTHER VISUALS + Don't Forget the Credits with D. J. Oesch-Minor (2019)

You're welcome to use photos and other visuals if they help support your analysis section.  Some teams label these a Figures; others include them more like a newspaper might, with a title and caption. This decision is up to your team. The key is to be consistent. The same signaling tools you use in one instance should be used in every instance.

The New York Times is a great resource if you want to look at best practices in publishing. 

Title, Caption, and Credit

The New York Times article by Peter Libbey explores the dangerous misadventures of one Salvador Dali painting. Within the article, there are small titles that signal what each photo shows, then captions and credits.

• The title provides clear context/ it isn't catchy or playful--be detailed and specific.

• The caption explains the what and why for including the photo.

• The credit line identifies who took the photo/ or created the visual.

Be sure to include an image title that anchors the visual to a specific moment in your writing.

Should You Cite Visuals or Charts You Borrow?

YES

Citing Visuals You Borrow from the Internet