IE6600 • Summer 2021 • Northeastern University • Boston

Zhenyuan Lu

This course covers basic of the R, and R Shiny for data preprocessing, and visualization. It introduces students to static and interactive visualization, dashboard, and platform that reveal information, patterns, interactions, and comparisons by paying attention to details such as color encoding, a shape selection, spatial layout, and annotation. Based on these fundamentals of analytical and creative thinking, the course then focuses on data visualization techniques and the use of the most current popular software tools that support data exploration, analytics-based storytelling and knowledge discovery, and decision-making in engineering, healthcare operations, manufacturing, and related applications.

Course goals

Textbooks

R-related Materials

Accessing the COVID-19 Vaccine for Fall 2021

We strongly encourage students to get the vaccine as soon as they become eligible. Northeastern is not currently distributing the vaccine, due to changes in the Massachusetts vaccination distribution plan, but students who are living, working or studying in Massachusetts can access the vaccine through the providers listed on vaxfinder.mass.gov. At our other locations, each campus is updating students on how and where to access the COVID-19 vaccine. For international students who may have limited access to the vaccine, Northeastern will assist you in getting the vaccine soon after your arrival. If you have additional questions, please email the COVID-19 vaccine inbox at covid19vaccine@northeastern.edu.

Policies

Please post questions, or discussion only via Piazza. The visibility of questions and discussion are expected to set for public view (to the Entire class on Piazza). Please feel free to send instructor/TAs emails regarding any personal or other private issues/concerns.

We understand that there will be difficulties or emergencies happened in your daily life. Therefore, each student has a 3-day extension applying on your HW. This extension can only be used once and cannot be separated in usage. If you have decided to use this extension on your current or the future HW, please send an email to our TA, and CC me before the deadline. We are able to mark it on your grade sheet. This won’t affect your grade, no worries. Except for this, we won’t accept any assignments after the due.

Plagiarism, cheating, and any form of unauthorized collaboration will not be tolerated and will be handled in accordance with University policies described in the Student Handbook. For additional information on Northeastern University’s Academic Integrity Policy

Accommodations for Students with Disabilities

If you have a disability, I encourage you to contact Disability Resource Center to register and request the accommodations. Also please discuss your needs with me as early in the semester as possible.

Take care of yourself

Eating healthy food, having regular exercises, avoiding alcohol and drugs, getting adequate sleep and taking time to relax. This will help you achieve your goals and tame stress.

If you have difficulty to keep up with any materials or homework for personal reasons please let me know early. If you or your friends/classmates who appears to be struggling, or having trouble coping with stress. We strongly encourage you to seek support at the We Care program at NEU. At Northeastern, a student is never alone when struggling with a demanding situation.

Course Evaluation

Schedule

Date	Lecture	Readings	Logistics
Module 1: Introduction
5/10	Course introduction and expectations	Instructor’s brain
5/12	Basic of R I	R4E "Basics of R" R4E "Advanced Data Structure"
5/17	Basic of R II	R4E "Basics of R" R4E "Advanced Data Structure"
5/19	R functions and the grammar of visualization I	R4DS Workflow Wickham A layered grammar of graphics (optional) R4E "Writing R functions"
5/24	No classes
5/26	R functions and the grammar of visualization II	R4DS Workflow Wickham A layered grammar of graphics (optional) R4E "Writing R functions"
5/30 Last day to drop a class w/o a W grade
5/31	No classes - Memorial Day
Module 2: Basic Visualization and Data Engineering
6/2	Data Visualization Concepts I		Group arrangement due 6/1 @ 11:59pm HW1 out
6/7	Data Visualization Concepts II Basic data visualization in R I	R4DS Data Visualization with ggplot2 (optional) RGC "Quickly Exploring Data"
6/9	Basic data visualization in R II	R4DS Data Visualization with ggplot2 (optional) RGC "Quickly Exploring Data"	HW1 due 6/8 @ 11:59pm HW2 out
6/14	Data transformation with dplyr I	R4DS Data Transformation with dplyr
6/16	Data transformation with dplyr II	R4DS Data Transformation with dplyr	HW2 due 6/15 @ 11:59pm HW3 out
6/21	Data wrangling with tibbles, readr and tidyr I	R4DS Tibbles with tibble R4DS Data Import with readr R4DS Tidy Data with tidyr
6/23	Data wrangling with tibbles, readr and tidyr II Optional: Data wrangling with stringr, forcats	R4DS Tibbles with tibble R4DS Data Import with readr R4DS Tidy Data with tidyr (optional) R4DS "Strings with stringr", "Factors with forcats", "Dates and Times with lubridate"	HW3 due 6/22 @ 11:59pm HW4 out
6/28	Visualizing relational data	R4DS Relational Data with dplyr	Project proposal due 6/28 @ 11:59pm
6/30	Introduction to Shiny interactive visualization web app I	R Shiny Shiny tutorial	HW4 due 6/29 @ 11:59pm HW5 out
7/5	No classes - Independence Day Weekend
Module 3: Advanced Visualization
7/7	Introduction to Shiny interactive visualization web app II	R Shiny Shiny tutorial
7/12	Introduction to Shiny interactive visualization web app III	R Shiny Shiny tutorial
7/14	Data analytics web apps with Shiny	R Shiny Shiny tutorial
7/19	Exploratory data analysis and more data visualization I	R4DS Exploratory Data Analysis	HW5 due 7/18 @ 11:59pm HW6 out
7/21	Exploratory data analysis and more data visualization II	R4DS Exploratory Data Analysis
7/26	Additional R Workshop	TBD
7/28	Preparing for the project presentation
8/2	Preparing for the project presentation
Project and Slides due 8/3 @ 11:59pm ET
8/4, 8/9, 8/11	Project presentation

Computation and Visualization for Analytics