FINAL PROJECTS

MDST 3559 | Dataesthetics | 04/12/2010

Contents
Introduction.....................................................................................................1
Goals................................................................................................................2
Structure..........................................................................................................2
Grading Criteria...............................................................................................3
Due Date..........................................................................................................3
Milestones........................................................................................................3
Technical Information......................................................................................4
Technical Information

Introduction
Your final project will be an essay in “data humanism” focusing on a specific
topic relating to the Persian epic, The Shahnameh, and emulating the
practice of data journalism discussed at the beginning of the course. Your
essay will present a thesis supported by a series of embedded visualizations.
Crucially, these visualizations will link to data sets that you will help create.
In writing and building your essay, you will use your knowledge of HTML,
CSS, PHP, and SQL to aggregate, organize, and synthesize your content. In
terms of form, you are free to emulate the conventions of data journalism or
else innovate using the ideas discussed in the course about the relationship
between data and discourse. In terms of content, you will focus on a
research topic of your choice concerning the Shahnameh materials we have
at our disposal, including the Princeton manuscript images and the Zimmern
translation (bad as it is), as well as other sources you may find on the web.
Your final product will be evaluated according to multiple criteria, as
described below.
As part of your project, you will keep a journal on the course blog on the
progress of your work and relating topics discussed in class to your project.
Your blog should be used to help you develop the final argument you will be
making with your site. You are expected to blog at least once a week. This
activity is an important aspect of the project—it allows you to be assessed on
the process of your work in addition to the final product.
As explained in the syllabus, the final project is worth a quarter of your final
grade and will be due on the last day class. (Note that your final project is a
distinct assignment from your final essay, even though the two assignments

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are linked in terms of content. Information about your final essay will be
provided in a separate document.)

Goals
The general goal of this project is to give you an opportunity to apply both
the ideas and examples we have explored in this class regarding the art of
data and the data of art. Working within the specific constraints and
affordances of database-driven web site technology, you will be introduced
to a practical level of knowledge about such concepts as visualization, data,
and the nature of scholarly argument. In addition, you will encounter the
collaborative dimension of technology work and learn something about how
technology encourages drawing on social resources in ways that traditional
scholarship does not. These experiences will help you become acquainted
with the difficulties and challenges of realizing your ideas in practice. In your
final essays (due during exam week), you will have an opportunity to reflect
on your experiences in trying to realize your design goals in the medium.
A more specific goal is to experiment with the genre of data-driven
scholarship, employing the ideas of Manovich, Ramsey, and others as guides
to helping you move beyond the traditional essay. Like all academic essays,
yours will make an argument, but it should do so using the rhetorical
affordances of the medium (HTML) and of the visualization devices we have
explored.

Structure
Your site will consist of the following basic structure. Note that metrics are
included in italics where explanation is needed. Note also that these are
minimum requirements.
1. Topic—You will develop a thesis statement for your essay. Regardless of
how you organize your argument visually and textually, you need to let
the reader know what your site-essay is about. This should be about a
paragraph, but can be longer.
2. Data—Your site will connect to a collaboratively built database of content
relating to the Shahnameh. You will contribute data to this database in
some form, either as rows to an existing table or as a new table. The
nature of the data you contribute will depend on your specific project.
3. Media—Your essay should include images and possibly other media to
illustrate your argument. For example, you may want to crop images of
illustrations in the Shahnameh to make a point about the iconography of
these works. Again, the number for images will depend on your project.
Negatively, the value of your site will be reduced if your essay has no
images.
4. Code—Your site will consist of pages written in HTML, CSS, PHP, and SQL.
In addition you may use jQuery if you are comfortable doing so. You must

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 create at least one PHP page that does not copy directly from one of the
examples used in class. In addition, your HTML pages should take
advantage of CSS and PHP includes. Extra credit will be given to those
who use web forms to create interactive visualizations.
5. Visualizations—Your essay will contain visualizations of information using
the resources we discussed in class, including hand-made image graphs,
hypergraphs with GraphViz, and embeddable visualizations with
ManyEyes, Google, and other sources. Your essay should contain at least
three visualizations of at least two types.
6. Essay—Your essay will be the interface to your argument and to
supporting data. The perspective of the essay should be that of a data
humanist, not a Persianist. That is, your thesis should be about how the
data you have assembled can be interpreted, and about how the
visualizations themselves may function to shed light on issues of possible
interest to Persianists, or anyone else interested in the Shahnameh. The
final product may be organized as a linear essay or as a non-linear
arrangement of pages and exhibits. Regardless of form, it should contain
at least 1000 words (independent of the topic paragraph) and be
organically connected to your visualizations. Essays will be evaluated for
their quality of form and content.
7. Blog—As described earlier, you will keep a diary of your work. You will use
this blog to develop the ideas of your essay. Given this, you will use the
blog to reflect on both your code work and the readings and topics
discussed in class. Timely posts and comments.
8. Presentation—Time allowing, we will devote the last day of class to
presentations. You are expected to make a five-minute presentation of
your work.

Grading Criteria
Your final grade for this project will be a composite of several criteria, each
given a relative weight. These are as follows:
1. Meeting the metrics described above (25%). Self-explanatory.
2. Quality of the argument (15%). Does the argument have an
interesting and compelling thesis? Is it supported by reason and
evidence? (Note: Clearly, given the time frame for completing the
project, your essays will not as interesting and compelling as they
might. However, it is important to keep the goal of your essay in mind
—what is it trying to say? Prove? Draw attention to?)
3. Effectiveness of visualizations (20%). Do the visualizations allow the
reader to explore the argument? Are they appropriate for the data
being represented?

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 4. Overall coherence of site (20%). Do all of the elements of the site—at
the levels of form, content, and layout—contribute to the site’s overall
effect?
5. Blogging (10%). As described.
6. Presentation (10%). As described.
Note that the quality of your code is not important! What is important is that
your code works and your site meets the criteria described above.

Due Date
Your project will be due on the last day of class, Thursday, May 5th.

Milestones
1. Project definition Week of April 12th and April 14th
2. Data extractions Week of April 19th and 21st

3. Visualization development Week of April 26th and 28th

4. Essay composition Week of May 3rd and 5th

Technical Information
Address for main studio1.shanti.virginia.edu
course server (or host)
AKA “studio1”
Web addresses for http://studio1.shanti.virginia.edu/~yourid/PROJECT
your projects

File directories for ~/public_html/PROJECT

these web addresses
Where ~/ stands for your home directory.
Addresses for the dbm2.itc.virginia.edu
MySQL host
Web address for http://dbm2.itc.virginia.edu/phpmyadmin
phpMyAdmin
Login with your netid (e.g. rca2t) and the password
you created for the database.