SCENARIOS OF USE

One of the easiest way to show and compare “at a glance” regional data is showing them on a interactive world map. Regional data are social and economic macro-indicators, like GDP, scholarity, ratio of exports, number of patents, etc, sorted by country or other sub-regions.

For journalists: integrating your report with an interactive worldmap enrichs it and will allow readers to “see” the issue and to interact with outputs you have published.

For decision makers: creating an interactive worldmap crossing data from regional databases allows you to explore a global issue at a glance, like the GPD growth, the education rate, mortality, number of internet users, etc.

METHODS, TOOLS, AND EXAMPLES

We presents now two powerful webtools: the Many Eyes World Map visualization created by IBM and the OECD Factbook eXplorer developed by the swedish National Center for Visual Analytics in collaboration with OECD.

1. Use the "MANY EYES WORLDMAP" tool

Many Eyes is a web portal completely dedicated to the several different ways to visualize data. One of the 19 visualization we can find in Many Eyes is the World Map. The registration (it's quick and free) to the Many Eyes website is required to use all the features, to upload your own data, save and export visualization. Once you log in you can upload a data matrix (from home page >>> create visualization >>> upload your own dataset). Pay attention that data table consists of rows where the values in each row are separated by tabs. The first row of the table should be "headers" that describe the columns.

To use the World Map visualization is necessary that the first column of your data set contains the region names. Region names can be long names (France, Brazil) or ISO Country codes (FRA, BR). The map uses a string column for region names, and any number of numerical or text columns for values (if you have any trouble follow the istructions here ).

The map uses a string column for region names, and any number of numerical or text columns for values (if you have any trouble follow the istructions here ).

An example data set suitable for the world map is:

Country	Population	Density	GPD per capita ($)
Argentina	40.914.000	14.31	14.376
Bolivia	8.274.325	8	2.724
Brazil	191.790.931	22	12.007

To load your data set in Many Eyes (note that all the data sets are public and visible from all) you have simply to copy and paste rows and columns from your spreadsheet into paste the data box.

The map uses a string column for region names, and any number of numerical or text columns for values. (if you have any trouble follow the istructions here ).

When you load the data in the paste box the output will be like this

• Many-Eyes-paste-box.gif:
  

Give a title and informations about the source of your data sets, then click the Create button. Now your data set is uploaded in Many Eyes and it's ready to be visualized.

Many Eyes has also a great data set library, formed by users uploads. You can browse the library clicking on "data sets" in the Explore section. Every data set is public and available in Many Eyes. The search box can help you to find data about your issue.
Once you have uploaded your data or have found them in the public library on Many Eyes you will be ready to creat your map.

Once you have selected or uploaded the data sets click on Visualize button, scroll down the page and chose the World Map visualization. More the dataset is rich of informations more you have to wait to see your output, but normally the map appear in few seconds.

For example using the existing "Country by Internet users per 1000inhabitans" dataset we obtain the following output:

• World-Map-output.jpg:
• 

Some countries are not automatically recognized by the tool because are not in the right format (there's additional information like "circa 2001" that are read as an error). You can check the agreement between the country name in the dataset and the one the system selects as the "best match" and then decide to confirm or ignore the data value. Then the map is ready to be explored! You can select one or more region and hide the others, zoom in and out in the map and if the dataset has multiple columns you can create multiple views in the map and show them side-by-side. All the features of Worldmap Visualization are well explained in the Many Eyes tutorial page.

When you are satisfied of your output you can publish the map (publish button in the bottom of the page) and embed it in your web page.

2. Use the "oecd factbook explorer" tool

The OECD Factbook Explorer is a powerful interactive web-tool for analyzing regional statistics based on the OECD Factbook, an annual title from the OECD that provides a global overview of today’s major economic, social and environmental indicators, in a range of user-friendly formats. Before starting to use the Explorer consider that the data you can visualize referred only to the OECD countries and some emerging countries like China, India, Brazil and South Africa.

When you open the Factbook Explorer it shows (left to right) a world map, a scatter plot and a stories panel. The different colors on the map shows the intensity of the pre-loaded indicator, the total fertility rate per country in the year 2001. In the Scatter Plot, the y axis (total fertility) are crossed with the Women employment rate ( x axis). The great background number points out the year the data referred to (in this case "2000"). The dots sizes visualize the intensity of the value total population.

• Factbook-Explorer.gif:
  

Clicking on the little black arrows near to the name of indicators you can change the variables to compare. As you can see the preloaded variables are only five.
Clicking on Indicators button, selecting Load Data, it's possible to load more data by the embedded OECD database. Indicators are classified by macro areas. You can select one or more indicators by macroarea or select all of them clicking on Select All. More informations about the indicator, and the time span considered, mousing over the "i" and the "clock" icons. Once you have selected the indicators click on Load button to insert the data in the interactive map.

• Load-Indicators-in-OECD-Exp.gif:
  

Once the map is loaded all the indicators selected are available to be visualized and compared on the world map and in the scatter plot. If you want to save your comparisons and visualizations you can create a "Story" about the data you have crossed. In OECD Factbook there are two pre-loaded stories (that you can explore in the Stories panel) that well illustrates how it works.

Select, for example, Labour partecipation and fertility story. When you press the Play button on the timeline under the Scatter Plot, dots start to move showing value progressions (since the first year data are available to the last).If you are interested to compare two or more countries trends press Ctrl button on the keyboard the select the countries on the world map. In the Scatter Plot will be visualized a black line for every selected country that shows the national trend during the years.

• Select-countries.gif:
  

OECD Explorer allows also to upload external datasets and to create, save and share personal stories about own created visualizations. To upload your dataset you have to select Load Your Own Data in Indicators menu and follow this tutorial. To create your own story click on Create button in the right bottom of page. A Story editor will be opened in which it's possible to "capture" the visualizations and describe what they shows. When the story is complete close the editor and save ( Save as button) the xml file that can be shared and opened by every EOCD Explorer user.

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