Mechanical & Industrial Engrg 272 - Fundamentals/Data Visualatn

The world is becoming increasingly data rich, and our abilities to make good decisions rest on our capacity to analyze and convey data in meaningful ways. Engineers are increasingly expected to use large quantities of information as they design and evaluate systems. Unfortunately, human beings are limited in our perceptual and cognitive abilities, making it difficult for us to use these large amounts of data. Data visualization holds promise as one mechanism for making sense of and presenting large amounts of data in a way that reduces information overload, and supports comprehension, memory, and decision-making. This course will prepare you to become visualization designers by providing you with design strategies, hands-on experience developing visualizations in R Studio, and approaches to evaluate the effectiveness of the visualizations you create. You will also become effective visualization consumers, equipped with the knowledge to assess the credibility of visualizations, detect misrepresentations of data, and reason about various explanations for the data.

Open to Industrial Engineering majors and students in Commonwealth Honors College. Mechanical Engineering majors interested in taking this course need instructor approval to join. This course does not satisfy a Mechanical Engineering technical elective but would satisfy the MIE Elective.