Main Page
Welcome to the ImpVis Wiki!
This Wiki is our 'dynamic knowledgebase'. Here you can find out everything about how we work together, as well as guidance to help you design and develop your own interactive visualisations. Most of the Wiki is only visible to users who are logged in (see link at top right of this page). If you are signed up to the ImpVis website, you will automatically have an associated Wiki account with the same login details.
About ImpVis
ImpVis is a staff-student partnership project to create interactive online visualisations on abstract concepts. Each visualisation is developed for implementation within a particular Higher Education STEM module - staff and students work in partnership to achieve the most effective educational design.
Central to the ImpVis project is its strong community all working towards a common goal. This authentic project helps us achieve the partnership relationship that we are founded upon. There are three guiding principles of partnerships that we value particularly, and which set them apart from mere student participation or a student-supervisor style relationships. These are:
- The partnership is based on mutual respect and draws its strength from equally valuing staff and students' expertise. Members of staff are experts in teaching and their subject-specific domain; students have the expertise of being learners. During the project, the students are likely to develop expertise in coding in Javascript and HTML.
- A partnership means joint ownership of both the development process and the final visualisation. Both staff and student(s) contribute to the decision-making of how to work on the visualisation, and both also make decisions on visualisation look and functionality.
- The responsibility for the visualisation and its development is shared, but not equal. It is jointly up to the staff and student(s) involved in the partnership to define who is responsible for what precisely, in particular, during the design process. Generally, there is an expectation that the student is responsible for the coding process, and the staff member is responsible for the technical correctness of the final product.
Joining ImpVis
Every visualisation starts with an idea. Perhaps you are an instructor who has identified the need for a learning tool that helps students understand a specific abstract concept in your module. Or a student who has thought of a way to visualise a topic in one of your modules in order to understand it better, or simply want to get involved in a fun coding project!
In either case, the first step is to create an account on the ImpVis website. You can then browse and sign up to existing projects looking for partners, or even propose your own.
Read all about how to get started in the following pages (login required):
Wiki structure
There are two main divisions within this Wiki:
- Knowledgebase: everything about the ImpVis project, such as how to get involved, instructions on how to use the ImpVis website, guidance on how to design visualisations and many tips on how to learn Javascript & HTML and get started on coding up your visualisation.
- Project pages: 'ReadMe'-style pages associated with specific visualisation projects, detailing the aim & learning outcomes, the visualisation design, its progress status and future work.
Alternatively, you can browse the categories in the section below to look for any specific topic you may be interested in.