CS 3891.04 / 5891.04 - Data Visualization
Assignments
You will work on assignments - both programming and written - in Observable notebooks.
When an assignment is posted, a link will be provided to the Observable notebook associated with the assignment. Everything that pertains to the assignment will be contained in the notebook: instructions, starter code, guidance for completing the assignment, data, and how the assignment will be assessed.
Now, the first thing you need to do is create an account with Observable. This should be straightforward, but if you have any questions please let me know.
Notebook Access
It is important to understand the different levels of access for a notebook.
Private Notebooks
You can create a notebook by clicking the “New” button in the top right:
When you create a notebook, by default, it is private:
You are the only one who can view and edit the notebook, assuming you are logged in.
Shared Notebooks
You can choose to share your private notebook. Click on the ellipses in the top right, and a set of options will appear:
By choosing “Enable link sharing”, your notebook will be considered shared:
A shared notebook can be accessed by anyone, given the URL. However, the notebook is not made public - Observable does not index the notebook.
You can make the notebook private again by choosing “Disable link sharing”.
Published Notebooks
A published notebook is both accessible given the URL, and made public via Observable.
Completing Assignments in Observable Notebooks
Given an assignment’s notebook, accessible as a shared notebook provided on the course website, to work on the assignment perform the following steps:
- Assuming you are logged in, fork the notebook. In the options image above, you will see the “Fork” option. This will produce a private copy of the notebook, as part of your collection of notebooks.
- Work on your own forked, and private, copy. Changes that you make in cells will be automatically saved, assuming these cells have been evaluated. You are also free to remove cells that correspond to the assignment description, and assessment, if you like.
- Once you have completed the assignment, please submit the notebook to Brightspace. There are two options for submitting a notebook:
- You may enable link sharing for your notebook, and submit a simple file containing the URL link to the notebook. This is the preferred method for submissions. The TA or myself can fork your assignment, provide detailed feedback in your code, make edits, reshare, etc.. After the assignment has been graded, you may opt to disable link sharing, making the notebook private again.
- Alternatively, you may not wish to have your notebook accessible via a given URL, and this is totally understandable. Though Observable will not index and make publicly available the notebook, it is possible some other search engine could. So, as an alternative, you can submit your private notebook. You will need to download the notebook via the “Download code” option (shown in the above image). This will produce a compressed (tgz) file, and this file should be what is submitted to Brightspace.
One final note: never publish your assignments. Anyone can access the solution to your assignment by simply going to your Observable home page. I can only treat this as a form of copying.
Programming Assignment 0
Introduction and survey (link)
Programming Assignment 1
D3 Workout (link)
Programming Assignment 2
Rankings over time (link, solution)
Programming Assignment 3
Scatterplots (undergrad, grad)
Programming Assignment 4
Multiple Views (link)
Programming Assignment 5
Linked and Coordinated Views (link)