Data Visualization for Social Science Research (Online)

REGISTER HERE Registration will close at 11:59pm 4/27/25. No late registrations will be accepted.

This one-day course will be offered via Zoom only. Attendance is required as it will not be recorded.

Description:

This course introduces modern visual data exploration and communication methods to social scientists with limited prior experience. Students will learn to effectively present data to diverse audiences across multiple formats. The course utilizes the R programming language, RStudio development environment, and the tidyverse suite of R packages—with particular emphasis on ggplot2—for data processing and visualization.
Students will develop skills to confidently explore data descriptively, communicate findings to both academic and general audiences, and refine model results for presentations and publications. The course emphasizes both clarity and aesthetic considerations in data visualization, while incorporating best practices for practical, efficient, and reproducible workflows. Through a unified toolset, students will learn to display visualizations effectively across web platforms, academic papers, reports, and presentations.
Prerequisites include a basic understanding of fundamental data and statistical concepts, as well as basic familiarity with the R language. No prior experience with the tidyverse or ggplot2 is required. The course materials will consist of a series of R Markdown chapters that will serve as our textbook, which will be made available to all participants.
For software and hardware requirements, we will be using Posit Cloud, a cloud version of R. This approach eliminates installation and troubleshooting time, allowing us to focus more on learning.

Instructor: Dr. Boris Shor

Boris Shor, PhD is the Pauline Yelderman chair and Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Houston with a joint appointment in the Hobby School of Public Affairs. His research focuses on state legislatures, political polarization, the geography of representation, and health and climate policy. He co-created a prominent dataset on state legislative ideology and polarization, encompassing the ideological positions of more than 30,000 individual legislators across all 50 states over two decades. His work has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Arnold Ventures. He is the coauthor of Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State (Princeton University Press). His articles have appeared in leading journals, including the American Political Science Review, the American Journal of Political Science, and Political Analysis. He is an editor at Research & Politics. He earned a PhD and MA in Political Science from Columbia University.

Registration fees:

• UNC Chapel Hill Students: $0, with a $35 deposit to hold your spot (deposit is refundable upon your attendance for at least 66% of the course)
• UNC Chapel Hill Faculty/Staff/Postdoc/Resident/Visiting Scholars: $80
• University (Non UNC Chapel Hill) Student/Employee (must have active university email): $105
• Government/Non-Profit/Corporate: $130

Additional course information:

• Cancellation/ Refund Policy: A full refund will be given to those who cancel their registration no later than 10 days prior to the course. If you cancel within the 10 days prior to the class, no refund will be given. Please allow 30 days to receive your refund.
• Zoom link for those attending online will be sent prior to the course. Registration must be made at least 1 day prior to the course date to receive the Zoom link.

 

For questions regarding this class, please contact Jill Stevens at jill_stevens@unc.edu