CCOG for MUC 261 Winter 2025
- Course Number:
- MUC 261
- Course Title:
- Data Visualization & Sonification
- Credit Hours:
- 4
- Lecture Hours:
- 40
- Lecture/Lab Hours:
- 0
- Lab Hours:
- 0
Course Description
Introduces representation of data in visual and sonic forms. Presents data visualization techniques, from charts in spreadsheet software to interactive, abstract, and experimental new media. Examines the role of sound as a means of processing and representing information. Provides hands-on experience using modern tools and techniques to manipulate and process data sets into audiovisual representations. Recommended: MUC 233. Audit available. Prerequisites: MUC 282.
Intended Outcomes for the course
Upon successful completion of the course students should be able to:
- Apply visualization and sonification techniques to data to enhance comprehension and express new insights while noting the advantages and disadvantages of different techniques.
- Compare and contrast the accessibility for target audiences of different audiovisual representations of data.
- Create data sets using common tools and processes.
- Analyze how visualizations and sonifications can misrepresent their source data in order to skew the audience’s perception about what the data suggests.
- Acquire and visualize or sonify public data, such as municipal or environmental data.
- Apply the principles of data visualization and sonification to emerging technologies and interfaces, such as augmented, virtual, and mixed reality.
Course Activities and Design
The material in this course will be presented in a classroom lecture/discussion/demonstration format, and in class hands-on exercises. There will be required readings, projects, and may be short weekly assignments.
Outcome Assessment Strategies
Projects will be the major criteria for evaluation. Emphasis will be placed on creativity, presentations, and participation in collaborations and critiques. Additional methods of assessment may include quizzes, exercises, assignments, and attendance.
Course Content (Themes, Concepts, Issues and Skills)
- Visual and sonic representation of data, from traditional charts to the artistic and experimental.
- The value to an audience and society as a whole in visualizing data. How data may be skewed and propagandized.
- Common manipulations, challenges, and obfuscations of data representation.
- The study, understanding, and contextualization of data in relation to the broader Creative Coding curriculum.
- Practical applications of data visualization and sonification.
- Generating new datasets. Accessing and validating public datasets.