Seminar on
Innovative Approaches to Turn Statistics into Knowledge
Cape Town
8 - 10 December 2010
Every picture tells a story
Giovanni Alfredo Barbieri,
Stefano De Francisci, Michele Ferrara, Antonio Pitrone
ISTAT - Italian National Institute of Statistics
Division of Users’ Needs, Integration and Territory
Outline
- Statistics eXplorer at Istat
tell
- Data to see,
see stories to tell
tell stories to see
- Data to see,
tell
2
Data, Data Warehouse, Data Visualization
2008
Olap function
Data
visualization and extraction
Statistical tables
on resident population
Fo
Fo
………
Oristano
2002
Torino
Oristano
………
DW
Torino
2002
Re
Liv side
Im e b nt p
Ne mig irth opu
lat
t m rat s
ion
igr ed
ati
on
……...
3
Foreign resident population - Balance
2008
……...
Hypercube
Usually resident population - Balance
Fo
re
ig
re
ig
n
re
sid
en
liv
tp
eb
op
n
irt
ca
ul
hs
nc
at
ion
ele
d
re
ig
n
Statistical tables
on foreign population
The customization has involved the graphical
layouts, the interfaces translation into the Italian
language, the setting of the software according to the
owned hardware
Dataset
TIME
Sub-theme
DI
CA
T
Theme
TERRITORY
Thematic
Structure
The statistical contents are broken into themes and
sub-themes and are based on multidimensional data
structures (Hypercubes)
Hypercube
Statistical Table
TERRITORY
TERRITORY
http://dati.istat.it
Release dates
May 2010: beta version on the Istat Intranet
July 2010: beta version on the Istat Web site
December 2010: official launch
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INDICATORS
INDICATORS
IN
The project I.Stat has been implemented through
the customization of the OECD.Stat, the OECD
Data Warehouse
OR
S
I.Stat: the Istat Corporate Data Warehouse
YEARS
YEARS
Istat.eXplorer: GeoAnalytics Visualization Tool
Statistics eXplorer – developed by NComVA - is
a web compliant application that enables users to
explore simultaneously spatial, temporal and
multivariate data from multiple perspectives, to
discover interesting relationships, to share their
incremental discoveries with colleagues and finally
to communicate selected relevant knowledge to
other users.
Thematic
maps
Dynamic
scatter plots
In August 2010 Istat and NComVA concluded a
Technical Services Agreement to Use Statistics
eXplorer at Istat
Ultimate goal is to develop Istat.eXplorer as the
corporate GeoAnalytics Visualization environment.
Now we are going to employ Statistics eXplorer
for NoiItalia, a publication which provides data
by regions, enabling users to exploit all the features
of this application.
5
Integrated
graphs
Storytelling
Hypercubes structure of I.Stat
One region
All the years
All the indicators
In
di
ca
to
r
s
Time
One region
One year
One indicator
Territory
All the regions
One year
All the indicators
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Some regions
Some years
Some indicators
Information deluge
« Ce qui se passe c'est que
vous avez une immense
masse d'informations, pas
seulement une masse, on
peut dire un flux, un flot
d'informations, et même un
déluge d'informations. J'ai un
ami *Royan Scott qui dit: on
vit le deuxième déluge; le
premier déluge c'était l'eau,
le deuxième déluge c'est le
déluge d'informations. »
(P. Lèvy)
7
Jessica Hagy “Needles and haystacks and such.”
http://thisisindexed.com/2009/10/needles-and-haystacks-and-such/
The informavore
« The term informavore characterizes an organism
that consumes information. It is meant to be a
description of human behavior in modern
information society, in comparison to omnivore, as a
description of humans consuming food. »
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/schirrmacher09/schirrmacher09_index.html
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GAV = GeoAnalytics Visualization Framework
…it is a component toolkit for dynamically exploring time-varying,
geographically referenced and multivariate attributes simultaneously AND to
enable the capture of the interactive visual process into information packages
that allow the analysts to communicate their discovery and decision
recommendations
http://vita.itn.liu.se/gav?l=en
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Statistics eXplorer
Multidimensional engine
Data
Spatial visualization
Publishing
Storytelling
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Statistics eXplorer: Vislet
Vislet: embeddable interactive motion visual representations based on statistical data
including choropleth map, scatter plot, parallel coordinates (profile plot), table lens and
metadata for publishing in blog, wikis etc. HTML code that characterizes the story-tobe-told is automatically created by the eXplorer authoring tool
http://ncva.itn.liu.se/explorer/vislets?l=en
11
Storytelling, or the weaving of a narrative
“…behind the actor stands the
storyteller, but behind the storyteller
stands a community of memory”
(H. Arendt)
Istat and NoiItalia
(traditional version)
Hans Rosling and Gapminder
12
Oecd and Young people
and the jobs crisis in numbers
Storytelling, or the weaving of a narrative
“Storytelling, or the weaving of a
narrative out of the actions and
pronouncements of individuals, is
partly constitutive of their meaning,
because it enables the retrospective
articulation of their significance and
importance, both for the actors
themselves and for the spectators”
(H. Arendt)
13
To see the data, to tell a story
Interaction
Dynamic
Integration
Storytelling
14
NoiItalia 2011: Using eXplorer
15
NoiItalia 2011: Using eXplorer
*
16
NoiItalia 2011: Using eXplorer
*
17
NoiItalia 2011: Using eXplorer
Static text
Dynamic
graph
Storytelling
18
Download
Metadata
NoiItalia 2011: Using eXplorer
19
NoiItalia 2011: Using eXplorer
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NoiItalia 2011: Using eXplorer
DEFINITIONS
SOURCES
PUBLICATIONS
21
NoiItalia 2011: Using eXplorer
22
NoiItalia 2011: Using eXplorer
23
NoiItalia 2011: Using eXplorer
24
NoiItalia 2011: Using eXplorer
25
*
NoiItalia 2011: Using eXplorer
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Integration scenario. A vision
IN
DI
C
AT
O
TIME
Hypercubes
RS
Data
Warehouse
TERRITORY
ETL / WS
Indicators
Values
Regions
Years
Graphs
Storytelling
27
NoiItalia.eXplorer
Storytelling and ready-made visualization
“Data are not intrinsically boring. Neither are intrinsically interesting”
(S. Few)
Authoring tool
Storytelling
Vislet
The history of an Emigrant
Ready‐made
“Overview first,
zoom and filter,
then details-on-demand”
28
Joseph Cornell, Cassiopea (assemblage)
Data, wisdom &…
“Our networks are awash in data. A little of it
is information. A smidgen of this shows up as
knowledge. Mix in experience, context,
compassion, discipline, humor, tolerance, and
humility, and perhaps knowledge becomes
wisdom”
(Jonathan G. Koomey)
29
“Information is not
knowledge. Knowledge is not
wisdom. Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music is THE BEST.”