Back-to-School: The Vancouver Institute for Visual Analytics (VIVA) Offers New Applied Visual Analy

VANCOUVER, British Columbia - Aug. 28, 2015 - PRLog -- VANCOUVER, BC – AUGUST 28, 2015 – The Vancouver Institute for Visual Analytics (VIVA) has recently opened registration to a newly-designed three-month course in Applied Visual Analytics starting September 2015. Training is geared towards professionals whose work is related to conveying complex and big data either to senior decision-makers or to the public. The course is launching on September 16^th, 2015 and will run Wednesday evenings, downtown Vancouver, at SFU Harbour Centre (515 West Hastings Street, Vancouver BC). This course will be offered as part of the new Engineering Leadership Professional Masters Program at UBC as well as SFU Lifelong Learning in January 2016.

“As organizations become increasingly inundated with data, it becomes increasingly important for businesses to have analysts capable of extracting insights from datasets that are large, messy and multidimensional." —Ronald Rensink, UBC Director, VIVA

The field of data science has grown by more than 300% (http://www.datasciencecentral.com/profiles/blogs/the-grow...) in the last two years, resulting in a severe shortage of analysts able to manage and analyze large, complex dataset. Many industries report this shortage to be a major hurdle in their operations. To help address this talent gap (http://www.cnbc.com/id/100792215), VIVA has launched a new three-month course in visual analytics (VA) (https://www.viva-viva.ca/index.php/va-courses/full-course). This course focuses on the practical use of VA tools and techniques, as well as the best practices of VA project scoping and team coordination. Comprised of both seminar and lab components, participants apply what they have learned to gain in-depth, hands-on experience with current VA tools and techniques. Participants will be assessed through assignments and projects.

The course will consist of 12 modules, including the following topics:

·       Fundamentals of visual interaction
·       Dissemination and visual communication
·       Wrangling and reuse
·       Reasoning and misdirection
·       Trust, provenance and justifiability
·       Deployment: small to large scale

VIVA’s full course Applied Visual Analytics, was developed by VIVA and its partner, Engage Data (http://engagedata.ca), with support from UBC and SFU visual analytics researchers – Drs. Ronald Rensink, David Darvill, John Dill, Brian Fisher, Fred Popwich, Ted Kirkpatrick, Wolfgang Stuerzlinger and Iain Begg.

In addition to the new full course (https://www.viva-viva.ca/index.php/va-courses/full-course), VIVA also offers a variety of courses open for registration (http://www.viva-viva.ca/index.php/va-courses):

Visual Analytics (VA) Breakfast (https://www.viva-viva.ca/index.php/va-courses/vabrkfst): For those who have never heard of visual analytics, or are curious to learn more about how it helps organizations get more out of data.
Half-Day Course (https://www.viva-viva.ca/index.php/va-courses/4hintro):Gain an understanding of visual analytics through real-world examples, videos, and interactive demos of visual analysis – tools and methods.
Two-Day Course (https://www.viva-viva.ca/index.php/va-courses/2day): Designed for those wanting a solid understanding of visual analytics – from theory to practice. Includes two half-days of hands-on tutorials with the latest visual analytics software tools.

Seats for September’s Applied Visual Analytics course will be limited. Participants who would like to attend are welcome to register on the VIVA website. (https://www.viva-viva.ca/index.php/va-courses/full-course)

About VIVA

The Vancouver Institute for Visual Analytics (VIVA) is a joint research institute between Simon Fraser University (SFU), the University of British Columbia (UBC), and the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT). VIVA is a non-profit organization dedicated to effective and innovative education and knowledge enrichment. VIVA’s mission is to promote visual analytics, to provide training on visual analytics, tools, techniques, and theory, and to connect visual analytics enthusiasts through various events and workshops. For more information, visit http://www.viva-viva.ca.