This presentation gives a summary of important tools for data analysis and visualisation, for example to clean your data, do statistical analysis, visualisation application and programmes, qualitative analysis, GIS, temporal analysis, network analysis, etc.

1. OVERVIEW OFTOOLS FOR DATA ANALYSIS AND DATA
VISUALISATION
MARIÉ ROUX
MANAGER: RESEARCH IMPACT SERVICES
KIRCHNERVAN DEVENTER
HEAD: RESEARCH COMMONS

2. CONTENT
 Introduction
 Data Cleaning
 Statistical analysis
 Visualisation applications and services
 Code help:Wizards, libraries,APIs
 GIS/mapping
 Temporal data analysis
 Text/word clouds
 Infographics
 Social and other network analysis
 Working with Colour

3. INTRODUCTION
 This workshop will give an overview of tools and will not consists of in-depth training for each tool
 Presenters are not experts in the field of data analysis and visualisation, but are able to make a selection of the
most important tools

4. DATA CLEANING
Microsoft Excel
The most common tool used for manipulating spreadsheets and building
analyses.With decades of development behind it, Excel can support
almost any standard analytics workflow and is extendable through its
native programming language,Visual Basic. Excel is suitable for simple
analysis, but it is not suited for analyzing big data — it has a limit of
around 1 million rows — and it does not have good support for
collaboration or versioning. Consider more modern cloud-based
analytics platforms for large and collaborative analyses.
Learn more: Data cleaning in Excel
Microsoft Resources: Introduction to Excel

5. DATA CLEANING
DataWrangler
(For the most recent version of the tool, see TrifactaWrangler)
 Why wrangle? Too much time is spent manipulating data just
to get analysis and visualisation tools to read it.Wrangler is
designed to accelerate this process: spend less time fighting
with your data and more time learning from it.
 Wrangler allows interactive transformation of messy, real-
world data into the data tables analysis tools expect. Export
data for use in Excel, R,Tableau, Protovis, ...
 Demo video: https://vimeo.com/19185801

6. DATA CLEANING
OpenRefine
OpenRefine is a powerful tool for working with messy data: cleaning it;
transforming it from one format into another; and extending it with web
services and external data. It was borne out of a project started by
Google (and used to be called Google Refine), but is now an open
source project hosted on Github.
 What can it do? Best tool to work with if you need to tidy up
messy data.‘Wrangle' messy or un-structured data to make it more
structured. This is a necessary first step if you want to analyse the
data in a spreadsheet or other statistical analysis tool. Finding and
removing duplicates; grouping similar data; trim whitespace from
beginning and end of values;Translate street addresses to lat/lng
coordinates, etc.
 Learn more: Explore data; Clean and transform data; Reconcile and
match data; New user manual

7. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
R
R is a language and environment for statistical computing and
graphics.
 What can it do: R started off as a statistical analysis language
with built-in support for graphics and handling certain common
data formats such as spreadsheet-like rows and columns. It is
now also used for mapping, dashboards, interactiveWeb apps
etc.
 Disadvantage: The fact that R runs on the command line
means that users will have to take the time to learn which
commands do what, and not all users will be comfortable with
a text-only interface.
 Learn more: Computerworld Beginner's Guide to R / 60+
resources to improve your R skills / R tutorials / Datacamp free
course on R
Source: https://data-flair.training/blogs/why-learn-r/

8. STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
RStudio
 What can it do: RStudio is a set of integrated tools designed to help
you be more productive with R. It includes a console, syntax-highlighting
editor that supports direct code execution, and a variety of tools for
plotting, viewing history and managing your workspace.
 Learn more: RStudio education; RStudio tutorial; Coursera: Open
Source tools for Data Science; Introduction to RStudio (Princeton
University); RStudio Essentials

9. OTHER STATISTICAL ANALYSIS TOOLS
 SAS (Analytics Software & Solutions): Leader in analytics.Through
innovative analytics, BI and data management software and services, SAS
helps turn data into better decisions.
 SPSS: The SPSS® software platform offers advanced statistical analysis, a
vast library of machine learning algorithms, text analysis, open source
extensibility, integration with big data and seamless deployment into
applications.
 Statistica: An advanced analytics software portfolio that provides
enterprise and desktop software for statistics, data analysis, data
management, data visualization, data mining (also called predictive
analytics), and quality control.
 Campus licenses for above: IT ‘s Software Hub
(https://stellenbosch.sharepoint.com/sites/SoftwareHUB) for students
where you can download Statistica, Mathematica, SAS,SPSS and others
directly. Log in with your SU username and password.

10. QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS SOFTWARE
Atlas.ti
 What it does:A powerful workbench for the
qualitative analysis of large bodies of textual,
graphical, audio and video data. Sophisticated tools
help to arrange, reassemble, and manage material in
creative, yet systematic ways.
 Advantages: Use of automatic network layouts;
Word frequencies can be visualized as tables and as
word clouds; support text, PDF, survey, audio, video
and graphical files; -lots of built-in functions for
coding, retrieving, analyzing, visualizing and exporting
 Learn more: Video tutorials / Quick tour and
manuals / Creating and assigning codes / Library
guide on Atlas.ti, University of Utah / Advice on
coding in Atlas.ti / PGSkills workshop at SU
Source: https://atlasti.com/2016/12/23/rethinking-atlasti8/

11. QUALITATIVE DATA ANALYSIS SOFTWARE
Dedoose
 What it does:A cross-platform app for analysing qualitative and
mixed methods research with text, photos, audio, videos, spreadsheet
data and more.
 Advantages: User-friendly; easy storage on a cloud; affordable pricing
(you only pay for the months in which you use it); full qualitative and
mixed methods support; interactive visualisations and analytics
 Learn more: Dedoose resources; Review of Dedoose

12. DEDOOSE DASHBOARD

13. DEDOOSE EXCERPTS AND CODING

14. VISUALISATION APPLICATIONS AND SERVICES
Tableau Public
 What it does? This tool can turn data into any number of visualisations, from simple to
complex.You can drag and drop fields onto the work area and ask the software to suggest
a visualisation type, then customize everything from labels and tool tips to size, interactive
filters and legend display.Tableau Public offers a variety of ways to display interactive data.
You can combine multiple connected visualisations onto a single dashboard, where one
search filter can act on numerous charts, graphs and maps; underlying data tables can also
be joined.
 Learn more: Several short training videos available on the Tableau site, where you can
also find downloadable data files that you can use for practice.

15. VISUALISATION APPLICATIONS AND SERVICES
Microsoft Power BI
 What it does: This is Microsoft's general Business
Intelligence (BI) platform, with data wrangling and
visualisation for many different data sources (without
Excel's row limits), as well as a web service that allows
for streaming data and scheduled data updates.
Summary example
 This is simple to use for basic visualisations and report
creation and makes it fairly easy to do data exploration.
It will handle files too large for Excel. Runs R scripts
within the desktop software and can generate many R
visualisations.
 Learn more: Free data visualization with Microsoft
Power BI:Your step-by-step guide as well as training
resources from Microsoft.

16. VISUALISATION APPLICATIONS AND SERVICES
Google Data Studio
 What it does: This service is designed to create dashboards
and reports from multiple data sources.The focus is on Google
sources such as Google Sheets, Google Analytics and BigQuery,
but some other sources are supported as well.
 You can create meaningful, shareable charts and graphs with a
few clicks — just drag and drop. Customise everything from
colours to logos, add shapes and images, insert dynamic
controls, and easily give viewers a way to select the data they
want to see in a report from multiple sources — including
Analytics, Google Ads, Google Search Console,YouTube, and
Campaign Manager.
 Learn more: Data Studio video tutorials / Gallery with
examples / Introduction to Data Studio online course

17. VISUALISATION APPLICATIONS AND SERVICES
RAWGraphs
 What it does:The idea behind RAWGraphs is to provide a
tool that allows people without coding skills to produce
visualisations on their own. Originally conceived for graphic
designers to complete a series of tasks that were unavailable in
other tools, it evolved into a platform that provides simple ways
to map data dimensions onto visual variables.
 Basically RAWGraphs allows users to easily and quickly create
data visualisations that can be exported and edited in graphics
software (such as Adobe Illustrator and Sketch).
 Learn more: Using RAWGraphs

18. CODE HELP: WIZARDS, LIBRARIES,API’S
 D3.js
D3.js is a JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data. D3 helps you bring data to life using HTML,
SVG, and CSS. D3’s emphasis on web standards gives you the full capabilities of modern browsers without tying
yourself to a proprietary framework, combining powerful visualization components and a data-driven approach to
DOM manipulation.
 Exhibit
A Publishing Framework for Data-Rich InteractiveWeb Pages. Exhibit lets you easily create web pages with advanced
text search and filtering functionalities, with interactive maps, timelines, and other visualisations.
 Google chart tools
Display live data.
 JavaScript InfoVis Toolkit
What sets this tool apart from many others is the highly polished graphics it creates from just basic code
samples. Since this is not an application but a code library, you must have coding expertise in order to use it.

19. GIS / MAPPING
 Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
 What it does
 Programs that create, edit, visualise, analyse and publish
geospatial information onWindows, Mac, Linux, BSD
(Android coming soon)
 Can open digital maps on your computer, create new
spatial information to add to a map, create printed maps
customised to your needs and perform spatial analysis.
 Interactive tool for data analysis, integration and
visualisation.
 Convey information in an intuitive and accessible manner
 For example:
 Google Maps
 Waze
https://qgis.org/en/site/index.html
Learn more: What is GIS?, Introduction to GIS,
GIS Lounge, Encyclopedia of GIS

20. QUANTUM GIS (QGIS)
 Major open-source GIS program
 Accessible and functional
 Free to download, small installation size and low system
requirements compared to other open-source GIS
 Can import, edit and save most spatial file formats
 Significant user-base and online documentation offers a
wide community of support
 Integrates with other open-source GIS and extends its
capabilities
 Multiple plugins and tools allow for greater customisation
 User-friendly interface
https://qgis.org/en/site/
Learn more: Quantum GIS, Introduction to QGIS

21. OTHER OPEN SOURCE GIS/MAPPING TOOLS
GRASS GIS
https://grass.osgeo.org/
OpenJUMP
http://www.openjump.org/
OpenLayers
https://openlayers.org/
OpenStreetMap
https://openstreetmap.org
CARTO
https://carto.com
Free to try for 12 months
Learn more: GIS Lounge, GIS and Maps

22. TEMPORAL DATA
ANALYSIS
 Temporal data is data that represents a state in time, such as land-use
patterns, total rainfall over a certain period.
 Can be used to analyse weather patterns and other environmental
variables, monitor traffic conditions, study demographic trends, etc.
Examples of temporal data.
Source: https://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/10.3/map/time/what-is-temporal-data.htm
Learn more:Temporal Analysis, Spatiotemporal

23. TEMPORAL DATAVISUALISATION TOOLS
D3.js (https://d3js.org/)
 What it is
 JavaScript library for manipulating documents based on data
 Uses HTML, SVG and CSS
 Allows for animation and interaction in data visualisation
 Pros
 Massive community of support
 Highly flexible in design choices
 Free to use
 Cons
 Requires knowledge of coding and then learning D3 on top of that
Learn more: D3.js Graph Gallery, 3.js A Practical Introduction

24. TEMPORAL DATAVISUALISATION TOOLS
Observable
 What it is
 A website where you can learn to use D3.js and other
data visualisation tools through tutorials and practical
training

25. TEMPORAL DATAVISUALISATION TOOLS
Timeline JS
 What it is
 A user-friendly website where you can create timelines following an easy set of instructions
 Can create visually rich, interactive timelines

26. TEXT/WORD CLOUDS
Wordle
 What it does
 Converts keywords into a visual ‘cloud’
 Quick way to determine the frequency of words
in a text
 Need to install Java to run the program
IBMWord-Cloud Generator
 Can be used within R through plugin
 For more advanced users
Example of a word cloud using the text Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad (1899)

27. INFOGRAPHICS
Canva
 Free to use graphic design platform (with optional
upgrade plans for more advanced use)
 Can create social media graphics, presentations,
posters and infographics
Infogram
 Free to use (with optional upgrade plans for more
advanced use)
Venngage
 Free to use (with optional upgrade plans for more
advanced use)
Example of Canva’s
many templates

28. SOCIAL AND OTHER
NETWORK ANALYSIS
Gephi
 What it is
 Free to use
 Useful for visualizing statistical information, including
relationships within networks
NodeXL
 What it is
 An Excel plugin that can display network graphs from a
list of connections
 Optimised for analysing online social media
 Drawback
 Requires Excel to run
Example of a Gephi visualisation

29. WORKINGWITH
COLOUR
ColorBrewer
 An online tool designed to
help with selecting
appropriate colour
schemes for maps and
other graphics
 The provided map does
not depict actual data, but
rather serves as a carefully
designed diagnostic tool
for evaluating individual
colour schemes
 It provides you with your
chosen colours’ codes to
apply to your own map

30. USEFUL LINKS
 http://www.kwantu.net/blog/2016/12/28/how-to-clean-up-messy-data-using-open-refine
 https://atlasti.com/2016/12/23/rethinking-atlasti8/
 https://www.visualisingdata.com/resources/
 https://www.computerworld.com/article/2507728/enterprise-applications-22-free-tools-for-data-visualization-and-
analysis.html?page=10
 http://selection.datavisualization.ch/
 https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@scipio/how-to-do-data-visualization-using-rawgraphs

31. Questions?