Check it out. It’s on NPR. Today marks the 7 billionth birth on Earth. Will we keep going? How much can we truly support? When will we level off?

Here’s the link:

http://n.pr/uBxNxP

The Spring 2012 batch of Systems Visualization course at MIT started on February 10th.  There was overwhelming response from the students - 45 students showed up for the first class.

This is the third time Systems Visualization course is being taught under the Comparative Media Studies department at MIT.  Each semester has seen more students gravitating towards this course.  The course is designed and taught by lecturer V.A. Shiva Ayyadurai.

The class of 4th May was an optional session where students were given the opportunity to review their final project work with Dr. Ayyadurai and others.  The final project presentations are due on May 11th and 18th, and the students who attended this session used today’s class time to receive feedback on the project work they have done thus far.  A number of students took advantage of this class to make significant improvements to their project.

The class on 04/27/12 dealt with visualization of large scale ecological systems including marine and land.

Hauke Kite-Powell & Di Jin of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute gave an exciting presentation on the topic “Food Web Models and Ecosystem-Based Fishery Management”.  Some of the slides from the class are shown below.

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The class thanks Kite-Powell and Jin for their enlightening presentation.

The class then discussed the link between economic model and fishery model, in an attempt to learn how large scale complex systems are visualized.

The class of 04/20/12 discussed legal system and communication dynamics of social
media.  Senior attorney John Bradley led this class.  Some of the topics he brought to students’ attention included:

  • Impact of Libel law on material published on Internet
  • Definition of Slander in the context of blogging and web pages
  • Evolution of law to handle new developments in today’s world of social media

The class thanks Mr. Bradley for his lecture.

Today’s lecture was an eye-opening experience for the students, especially in view of blogging, web publishing and social media networking being in common use and the legal implications of writing about another person in these media.

On 04/13/12 the class held a collaborative drawing session.  The system selected for this session was the “System of Presidential Elections”.

The class joined in a lively discussion and worked together to present a vibrant visualization of the system of presidential election, using chalk and board as the medium.

Here are some snap shots from the visualization that resulted from the collaborative effort of the class.

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Friday April 6th’s lecture was the last of the series on key elements of Systems Visualization: Systems Theory, Ontological Data Representation, Visual Metaphors, The Message, and Narrative Storytelling. The class also reviewed the paper on Event Tunnel.

The Key Elements of a Story are:

  • Setting
  • Characterization
  • Plot
  • Conflict
  • Climax
  • Resolution
  • Theme
  • Point of view

The class learned that the most important aspect is the Conflict. They also learned that  underlying the visualization is a core Conflict one need to discover and emphasize through his/her message and metaphor, where and when possible. This Conflict makes the audience of the visualization “interested” in the system being presented and drawing them into the story.

In discussing the Event Tunnel paper, the goal was to demonstrate that complex systems can have different “modes” or patterns, that provide clues to different conclusions of the Story. Th class shared Chaiwoo-Lee’s healthcare mobile again, and the different configurations system and visual metaphor created, to elicit different modes/conclusions.

The class of March 23rd was on visualization of large-scale networks.  Some examples of large-scale networks include Social Networks, Biological Networks and Economic Networks.

Large-scale networks are massively complex networks that contain a large number of nodes and edges.  We discussed the use of Pivot Graphs to visualize connections across large-scale networks.

The students proceeded to develop Pivot Graphs to visualize system of interconnected systems, interconnecting all the systems of the class into one complex system of systems.  Here are some of the Pivot Graphs students presented. 

Zach Banks

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Chase G. Lambert

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Andy D. Kalenderian

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Rachna C. Nandwani

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The class goes into spring break next week.

Welcome!

This is a pioneering new course within MIT’s Comparative Media Studies, which defines a new and emerging field in visualization: Systems Visualization.  Systems Visualization provides a foundation for integrating the disparate fields of visualization such as data visualization, information visualization, flow visualization, scientific visualization, etc. through an over-arching integrative systems approach.  The course is a core element of  MIT’s Media and Organizational Biomimetics Initiative (MOBI).  This new course is part of a long history of innovative educational and research work on visualization at MIT.

The Systems Visualization course aims to teach MIT students on how to communicate the interaction and behavior of complex systems in ways that are understandable to a wider audience.  Continue to read below about activities of the current Systems Visualization class @ MIT.

Friday March 23rd’s lecture was the last of the series on key elements of Systems Visualization: Systems Theory, Ontological Data Representation, Visual Metaphors, The Message, and Narrative Storytelling. The class also reviewed the paper on Event Tunnel.

The Key Elements of a Story are:

  • Setting
  • Characterization
  • Plot
  • Conflict
  • Climax
  • Resolution
  • Theme
  • Point of view

The class learned that the most important aspect is the Conflict. They also learned that  underlying the visualization is a core Conflict one need to discover and emphasize through his/her message and metaphor, where and when possible. This Conflict makes the audience of the visualization “interested” in the system being presented and drawing them into the story.

In discussing the Event Tunnel paper, the goal was to demonstrate that complex systems can have different “modes” or patterns, that provide clues to different conclusions of the Story. Th class shared Chaiwoo-Lee’s healthcare mobile again, and the different configurations system and visual metaphor created, to elicit different modes/conclusions.

The class goes to spring break next week.