[open-visualisation] Fwd: BBC AHRC data visualisation project

[Jonathan Gray]

Very interesting! ;-)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
DataArt on BBC Backstage

The BBC and the University of Westminster are pleased to inform you of
the online launch of a major public data visualisation project DataArt
on BBC Backstage.

http://backstage.bbc.co.uk/data_art/index.php

We believe that data is a vitally new reporting medium that tells us
stories about our lives. Often this data is difficult to understand in
its raw form of lists of numbers or text, but as we are exposed to it
on a daily basis interpretation skills and access to information
resources are increasingly important for us all. Converting this data
into explorable visualisations helps us to comprehend it in ways that
draw upon our innate capabilities to read information as images and
patterns. As both a visual medium and a tool for reasoning, these
visualisations straddle the disciplines of art, design, science and
statistics.

Who is DataArt for?
DataArt aims to reach people who know little about visualisation but
want to find out more, those looking at visualisation from an
educational perspective and the existing developer community already
engaged in producing their own work.

What are we providing?
DataArt provides public access to data visualizations of the BBC's
online resources be they news information from around the world, web
articles, music data or video and learning resources.

For our launch we have released 4 visualisations for people to use
immediately: Flared Music, 3d Documentary Explorer, SearchWeb, and
News Globe. In addition we provide a learning resources section of the
website giving further background information to the subject of
visualisation including its histories and uses. This area will grow as
the project develops and we hope will provide a rich source of
educational material.

For more advanced developers we have also provided some initial access
to tools, tutorials and computer code you can download and modify.
Over the coming months, more visualisations will be released leading
to a second phase of the project in November 2010, which sees the
release of further source code using a variety of different
programming languages and software libraries. All our visualisations
are based on BBC data and use sources that are already open to the
public which you can use immediately for your own projects. We will
also be creating new data sources and hope to provide access to BBC
data not currently available to the public.

Further releases will be publicised on our main site and via our
facebook presence.

Participate!
We are interested in your thoughts and feedback whether you are a
complete novice to the subject area, a student or an advanced
practitioner. In the project blog we encourage you to tell us what you
think about DataArt, share your experiences and publish links to work
you have made with the material we have provided. We'll also pass on
useful tips via the blog to help you get the most out of it. We'd also
be delighted to hear your thoughts on via our facebook presence:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/DataArt-BBC-Backstage/108238225894676

The project is funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council
and is the result of collaboration between the Centre for Research in
Education Art and Media (CREAM), at the University of


-- 
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://blog.okfn.org

http://twitter.com/jwyg
http://identi.ca/jwyg