Introduction and objectives: .edu.au



Introduction and objectives:The objective of this blog is to reflect on my experiment in Tableau as a visualisation tool. Finding the insights from the data is not part of the objective of this blog.Dataset:For this exercise, I considered the dataset from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) is a disaggregated conflict collection, analysis and crisis mapping project. ACLED collects the dates, actors, types of violence, locations, and fatalities of all reported political violence and protest events across Africa, South Asia, South East Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America. The ACLED data and analysis are open to being used or download by the public freely. ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><RecNum>57</RecNum><DisplayText>(<style face="italic">The Armed Conflict Location &amp; Event Data Project (ACLED)</style> 2019)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>57</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="tpetzs9puszeznede275ra53v29rzpftxp9t" timestamp="1554157122">57</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Web Page">12</ref-type><contributors></contributors><titles><title>The Armed Conflict Location &amp; Event Data Project (ACLED)</title><short-title>The Armed Conflict Location &amp; Event Data Project (ACLED)</short-title></titles><dates><year>2019</year></dates><work-type>Website</work-type><urls><related-urls><url> Armed Conflict Location &amp; Event Data Project (ACLED)</remote-database-name></record></Cite></EndNote>(The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) 2019). The dataset has just below 78000 records of 16 variables from the events happening between 2005 till 2019. It has categorical and numerical variables as shown in REF _Ref5098470 \h Figure 1 below:Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 1_Data SummaryVisualisation tool:Tableau is excellent for creating blended dashboards from multiple databases. My experience with Tableau is summarised as follows:Tableau is a registered and verified application. The software has passed many tests to ensure all backbone coding and tables’ queries are correctly defined. This means that is the input data is correct and the software is used properly, then the outcome is correct. Tableau is a popular and accepted tool in data visualisation industry, meaning knowing how to use the package will be a great benefit.It is a drag and drop base concept. This makes using and learning Tableau more convenient for non-programmer users.It is so quick and easy just to have a quick review of the data and check the basic statistics and pattern.It has in-built creative visualisation features to easily produce dashboards for tactical executions as well as high-level executive information.Despite all the advantages that I mentioned above, Tableau has some restrictions:It is not free for business application. A free version is only available for studentsWith data preparation, missing value estimation and data mining activities, Tableau is not the greatest tool. Just recently, they have made Tableau Prep Builder?as a tool to make preparing your data easy and intuitive. Use?Tableau Prep Builder?to combine, shape, and clean your data for analysis in?Tableau ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Year>2019</Year><RecNum>58</RecNum><DisplayText>(<style face="italic">Tableau Prep Builder</style> 2019)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>58</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="tpetzs9puszeznede275ra53v29rzpftxp9t" timestamp="1554161595">58</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Web Page">12</ref-type><contributors></contributors><titles><title>Tableau Prep Builder</title></titles><dates><year>2019</year></dates><urls><related-urls><url>;(Tableau Prep Builder 2019).Data Preparation:At this step, I reviewed the type of the variables and compared the type as per the metadata description mentioned in REF _Ref5098470 \h Figure 1. Tableau automatically assigns a type to the variables. However, this needs to be checked as I found many mismatching instances. For instance, the ID variables which are categorical variables loaded as numerical variables. I found the same issue in the dates were saved as numeric. Changing the variables’ type, splitting variables or creating any new calculated variables can be accommodated quickly in Tableau. However, estimating the missing values is not convenient. In general, Tableau can handle fundamental data preparation quite quickly, but for a more in-depth and more comprehensive preparation and data mining, it is not recommended to use Tableau Prep ADDIN EN.CITE <EndNote><Cite><Year>2019</Year><RecNum>58</RecNum><DisplayText>(<style face="italic">Tableau Prep Builder</style> 2019)</DisplayText><record><rec-number>58</rec-number><foreign-keys><key app="EN" db-id="tpetzs9puszeznede275ra53v29rzpftxp9t" timestamp="1554161595">58</key></foreign-keys><ref-type name="Web Page">12</ref-type><contributors></contributors><titles><title>Tableau Prep Builder</title></titles><dates><year>2019</year></dates><urls><related-urls><url>;(Tableau Prep Builder 2019).In working with Tableau, it is essential to understand the dimension and measure variables. Measures are usually numerical data (continuous or district variable) that can be somehow aggregated. On the other hand, dimensions are categorical data. Dimensions can be numerical data for which they can be aggregated. Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 2_ Sample for Caption in TableauThe other useful feature in Tableau is the Caption. The caption will automatically capture all the filters apply to the dataset and create a summary of the data. In addition to the title, the caption will help to understand the visualisation more precisely.In terms of aggregation the variables, Tableau is straightforward, and different aggregation operators, like SUM and COUNT, can easily be implemented.Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA):The objective of this section is to experiment how to utilise Tableau to discover insights from dataset. I will create some worksheets to be able to explore the target variables (the number of Events and number of fatalities) with different effects (dimensional variables) and then create a dashboard to see the interaction between the worksheets to find more insights in the dataset.Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 3_Number of Events and Fatalities in different countries REF _Ref5099956 \h Figure 3 depicts that Syria has the most significant number of events in the past years. However, the Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan had almost the same number of fatalities. In other words, the chance of experiencing events is higher in Syria, while, the battles are more fatal in Yemen and Afghanistan.Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 4_Number of Fatalities for each Type of EventFrom REF _Ref5097327 \h Figure 4_Number of Fatalities for each Type of Event, it is evident that the Battles are the most fatal events in 2017 and 2018 followed by Explosions events in 2018.Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 5_Type of Conflicts and Number of Fatalities REF _Ref5098875 \h Figure 5 shows that the Number of Battle Event started increasing from 2016 and reached to the highest number of events in 2018, Although the number of fatalities has almost the same pattern for growth, the highest number of fatalities happened in 2017, with the value just above 200k fatalities in battles.Figure SEQ Figure \* ARABIC 6_Fatalities in Regions REF _Ref5099693 \h Figure 6 demonstrates that from 2016 till 2018, the Middle East has the highest number of fatalities in the dataset. It also shows that conflicts and fatalities have started increasing in South Asia since 2017. Figure 7_Dashboard_Conflicts Around the GlobeBased on the questions above, I created an interactive dashboard as shown in REF _Ref5120582 \h Figure 7. I prepared a screencast and presentation with the details of how to make the dashboard, refer to the link below.Conclusion:Based on my experience working with Tableau, I would recommend enhancing your skillsets to work with Tableau as one of the primary tools in your toolbox. References: ADDIN EN.REFLIST The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) 2019, < Prep Builder 2019, <;. ................
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