P1—Pitches

Due F 2022-02-04, 11:59pm EST 6pts

There are several important components for your project pitches detailed in the instructions below. Please make sure you understand and follow them properly.

If you have any questions regarding this assignment, please post on Canvas in Discussion: P1-Pitches.

Change Log
Aim of the assignment
Background information
Instructions
Submission Instructions
Grading Notes

Change Log

Aim of the assignment

In this first project assignment, you are required to come up with a project idea and share it with the class and teaching staff by posting it on Piazza. The idea should be as fully-formed as possible so that you will (1) receive more meaningful feedback early from the other students and teaching staff and (2) to assist other students in choosing whether they want to join your project. We want to you to get started on the projects as soon as possible to increase your odds of completing something substantial and meaningful during the course.

Background information

For a refresher on what we expect from your projects, please refer to the Project Overview.

Warning: The requirements listed for the projects must be met unless you have approval from the instructor to do a differentiated project.

Instructions

1. Identify an area of interest

For your final project, find an area to focus your exploration. Ideally this (your project) should be relevant to your research, career, public, or personal interests. Ensure that there are real challenges in this area that could be aided and/or solved with data visualization.

2. Identify a partner

Find a project partner (outside of this class) working in your area of interest. It can be an individual, a group, or an organization—but you should have one individual partner you can depend on as a point-person throughout your project.

Any of the following partner’s would be acceptable, but this list is non-exhaustive:

A non-profit organization.
An academic or industry researcher at any level including faculty, scientists, post-docs, or PhD students.
A government body.
A campus organization.
A for-profit company—Not encouraged and only select as a last resort. The focus of the project is to partner with organizations that usually don’t have means to easily help themselves. Additionally, partnering with a for-profit company adds intellectual property and publishing challenges.

Warning: Ensure that your selected partner have the time and commitment necessary to meet with you several times throughout the semester, especially at the beginning for an interview, and to give you any data/materials/feedback that you need. Ensure that they are well aware of the timeline of the project in order for your project to go smoothly throughout the semester.

Warning: Make sure your potential partners are aware that your proposed project may not end up being selected as only ~1/3 of the pitches will turn into projects for the class.

3. Identify a dataset

Find a suitable dataset that you will visualize to help solve the project problem provided by your partner. Ideally this dataset should be provided by your project partner and should match the project innovation. The data should already exist in a clean, machine-readable, and available-to-you form.

Warning: Make sure your potential partner already has clean data in a machine-readable format (like CSV or JSON) that they are willing to post publicly online.

If you don’t have easy and early access to clean, machine-readable data you will not be able to make good progress. It can take a really long time for a partner to go through data cleaning and any privacy or legal implications, and you don’t want to wait on that. You should not accept timeliness promises from people providing your data. E.g., these situations are notorious for taking way longer than expected or completely failing to work:

“It will be ready soon” as it needs de-identification, cleaning, data entry, or algorithm development.
“It won’t take long” to get the necessary legal/managerial approval to release the data to you. Note that a small organization or startup can actually be trusted more to move quickly but anything large is probably a non-starter.

Therefore, only trust that you will have the data that you already have in-hand.

If you generate/collect your own data, you should have a back-up plan in case the data generation/collection fails. You also will not receive additional credit for generating/collecting your data.

4. Write your pitch

In under 400 words, write up a description of your project idea in detail and as exhaustively as possible. Ensure that you cover each of the points above in sufficient detail that the teaching staff and other students can understand what you want to do and provide feedback. If there is additional background information that would be relevant, please include them. E.g., tools you’d use, sketches, images, examples of existing solutions. Hyperlinks to any relevant materials that would help us evaluate your proposal are highly encouraged.

Submission Instructions

Post your pitch as a note our class Piazza:

To access Piazza for the first time, go to our course Canvas site and click Piazza in the left-hand menu. Afterwards, you should be able to access it at this link.
Create a new post by clicking New Post. (Piazza documentation here).
Select the post type as 🔘 Note.
Post to the 🔘 Entire Class.
Put it in the project folder.
Enter a meaningful title for your project idea in the Summary field.
Copy your ≤400-word pitch into the Details text area.
Post it as yourself.

Grading Notes

All points in this assignment count towards your “Final Project” grade.
Your pitch should have a clear focus and a comprehensive explanation of the partner problem and data.
You will be graded on the quality and meaningfulness of your project idea as well as your writing. Points will be deducted for grammar and spelling mistakes.
Points will be deducted for not following the submission instructions.