This document provides summaries of four honors thesis projects from previous years that incorporated data visualization. It includes the student name and project title for each, along with a short abstract and link to the project website. Screenshots from two of the projects are displayed, showing how visualized data was included. The document concludes by listing links to an overview video and thesis website for two additional projects that utilized data visualization techniques.

1. data visualization
a few models
IML440 Spring 2014
Professor Virginia Kuhn, PhD

2. These abstracts and images are drawn from
previous Honors thesis projects, in which data
visualization began cropping up over the last few
years.
While there is no mandate to include such data
visualization, it is an increasingly important
practice with which graduating Honors students
need familiarity.
We will look more carefully at these projects and
the data viz assignment together in class.

3. Each project begins with the student’s name,
the project abstract and the project URL
where applicable and is then followed a few
screenshots that demonstrate the inclusion
of visualized data.

4. Lights, Camera, Inaction
by Nicole Ro
http://storm.usc.edu/~nro/about.html

5. http://storm.usc.edu/~nro/about.html

8. Anonymous Identities
by Ian Malave
Over the past decade, the internet has grown at an astounding rate. In this
time, advertisers have leveraged new technologies to shape the online
economy and to dramatically strengthen their power. At the same time,
countless companies have sprung up and begun vying for a limited source of
advertising dollars, reducing their individual power. In turn, these companies
have been pressured to adopt new methods of tracking users in order to secure
advertising funding. Consequently, anonymity has become non-existent for
internet users, and even more significantly, advertisers have begun exploiting
their knowledge of users to filter what users see online.
While this data economy has enabled many people to access advanced
technologies and web platforms for free, they come at a cost: Internet users’
activity is helping to shape a future in which conglomerates and advertisers
dominate and can profoundly impact the online economy through small
changes. Anonymous Identities provides a representative look at the
progression of the online economy over the past ten years. The project
provokes users to think more critically about their online identities, and to
thoughtfully consider how their online activity can help to shape the future of
the internet.
http://ianmalave.com/IML_Thesis/landing.html

11. Equality < Equity
by Soo-ah Rho
This project explores educational disparity in the United States and the stark
differences between schools in urban and suburban settings. Public schools,
traditionally funded heavily by local property taxes, continue to widen the gap
between education quality in high and low poverty neighborhoods. By
examining how poverty affects a student’s education as well as the funding
systems of public schools in key states such as Illinois and California, Equality
< Equity reveals the injustice and segregation in the public education system of
the United States.
While many states have undergone substantial reform, they have yet to ensure
equal and adequate funding. Poorer schools struggle to gain state level funding
that will make up for the lack of local revenue, but in the words of California
Governor Jerry Brown, “equal treatment for children in unequal situations is not
justice,” –nor is it equity. The larger problem is that not only do children in
urban, high-poverty schools receive less funding, they also face challenges that
schools are unable to address. By juxtaposing the fundamentally unequal
funding systems with the challenges children in urban areas face, this project
will highlight an injustice that can no longer be ignored.
http://storm.usc.edu/~srho/

16. Tiffany Chen’s overview video re: her thesis which
blends info viz with physical space:
https://vimeo.com/53113798
Kelley Chittendon’s thesis on data privacy in
Facebook: http://whostolethecookie.net/
(see pane 3 for visualizations)