Reading Group

Table of contents

Data visualization is a young and exciting research area, and the housing crisis is an important and urgent issue that society is grappling with—the reading group is an opportunity for graduate students to discuss and debate hot topics in both areas. While research is these areas is very diverse (with papers on policy, history, novel algorithms, visual or interactive techniques, empirical studies, software systems, and case studies in specific problem domains), our reading group will have a tighter focus. To be broadly useful to you in your other graduate studies, we will focus on papers that study visualization as a medium for analysis and communication, and the associated ethical implications, as well as papers about housing that will help you produce high quality final projects.

Each week, we will assign one paper for you to read, comment on, and be ready to discuss.

Paper Commentary Instructions & Prompts

The goal of the paper commentaries are to facilitate rich conversation during our Thu, 4-5pm reading discussion group. As a result, your reading commentaries should not summarize the paper—everyone else will have already read the paper! Instead, think critically about the research a paper presents, and why that research is important. To spark your thinking, consider the following prompts:

  • Think about what the point the paper is trying to make. What do you appreciate about its arguments? And what critiques might you have? And, for both, why?
  • What are the implications of the work discussed? What future research directions do they inspire for you?
  • What connections do you see to concepts discussed in lecture, or how does the paper help to clarify or elaborate on some point or detail? What about connections to your own research?
  • How has the paper changed your opinion or outlook on the topic?
  • Do you have any insightful questions or conversational starters based on what you read?

For each paper, your comment should be 1–2 paragraphs. Comments will be due by 12pm on Wednesday before the Thursday reading group to give the staff sufficient time to read and organize them into themes.

We will be using the NB platform to collect comments. With NB, you can post your comment by directly annotating the most relevant passage of the PDF. You’ll also notice that NB also allows threaded discussion to occur—you are very welcome to leave your comment as a response to another student’s comment (in essence boostrapping our Thursday reading group!). Your comment should be visible to the entire class but may be optionally marked as anonymous (though we highly encourage you to post comments attributed to your name, as a way of building community within the reading group). Your submission should be one coherent comment per paper (i.e., you cannot annotate several different passages of a paper and leave a 1–2 sentence comment for each one).

Grading Scale

Comments will be graded on a check-minus/check/check-plus scale. We will drop your two lowest comment scores (i.e., the scores for two papers). The rubric will be:

  • Check-minus (1/2): Surface-level engagement with the paper, or a repeat of a style of critique that the staff told the class to avoid. Examples of surface-level engagement include: comments about whether you like or would use the ideas, a summary of the paper rather than a reflections on the ideas, or critiques that engage only obliquely with the paper or indicate that you didn’t fully read it. Partially complete submissions may also earn a check-minus if appropriate.

  • Check (2/2): Effective engagement with the paper. Comments awarded check grades often indicate that they understand the main ideas of the papers, and the reflections are reasonably nontrivial observations worth discussing.

  • Check-plus (3/2): Excellent engagement with the paper. Check-plus grades are reserved for rare instances where a comment really hits on an interesting, unique, and insightful point of view worth sharing. Generally only a few submissions for each paper earn a check-plus.

Discussion Group Instructions

Every Thursday, 4-5pm in 32-082, we will host a reading group to discuss the week’s papers. The staff will have read through your submitted comments ahead of time, and organized them into themes and conversational starters. We will use the hour to have interactive discussions—in pairs, small groups, and as an overall class—about the week’s paper.

Attendance is required, and your contributions to the conversations (at any/all levels) will be assessed.