Month: September 2021

Continuing Learning How to Code

I still have not learned how to make a timeline map to show outbreaks over time, although I think I am on the way to figuring it out. I watched the beginning of an 11 hour YouTube tutorial with that end in mind. Since I really want to learn the first principles of coding data visualization I want to take my time. I want to really understand how to build a website using HTML, CSS, and javascript rather than just educated guesses and trial and error (although I am pretty good at that type of coding when I need to make something work). I believe that the tutorial uses the D3 library for visualizations, but I have not gotten there yet. I am interested in learning D3 as I have read that it is very customizable. Although I do not think I have gotten close to the edge of the interesting visualizations I can make with Datawrapper and Amcharts.

Percent Public Schools with Active OUtBreak Map

I really like the outbreak maps I have made showing the locations of schools both public and private with a COVID-19 outbreak, as defined by the Maryland Health Department. However, these maps quickly get crowded and are kind of hard to read unless you zoom in closely. It is also hard to compare counties because counties are not all the same density. Also, the outbreak map by school takes a while to set up because I need to find the street address for each school. I have plans to use the vlookup feature in Excel to make match the names in the Maryland Health Department list, but most of the names do not match exactly so I expect that might take a while.

So, I decided to make a map showing the percentage of public schools with an active outbreak. I got the number of schools from the 2021 NCES School Directory list on the Maryland Report Card website. I had previously coded schools from the Maryland Health Department list from September 1, 2021, as public or private. I coded the list based on googling, I should probably check the list against the NCES School Directory, but I have not done that yet. Then I divided the total number of public schools by the number of schools with an outbreak listed. This was fairly quick, the most time-consuming part was coding the schools as public or private.

It should be noted that many public school systems have not opened yet as of September 1, 2021.

I like many things about this map. The size and specific location of outbreaks are lost, but it gives a general idea of the outbreaks in public schools in the State. I think for my own personal use I would want to see both the location-specific map showing cases per school and this map.

Notes about the Data

These notes are copied from the Maryland Department of Health website.

Note: This dataset reflects public and non-public K-12 schools in Maryland that have COVID-19 outbreaks. Data are based on local health department reports to MDH, which may be revised if additional information becomes available. This list does not include child care facilities or institutes of higher education. Schools listed meet 1 or more of the following criteria:

Classroom/cohort outbreak definition:    1) At least two confirmed COVID-19 cases among students/teachers/staff within a 14-day period and who are epidemiologically linked, but not household contacts; or

School-wide outbreak definition:    

2) Three or more classrooms or cohorts with cases from separate households that meet the classroom/cohort outbreak definition that occurs within 14 days; or
 3) Five percent or more unrelated students/teachers/staff have confirmed COVID-19 within a 14 day period (minimum of 10 unrelated students/teachers/staff).

Cases reported reflect the current total number of cases. Schools are removed from the list when health officials determine 14 days have passed with no new cases and no tests pending. Archival data is available through the COVID-19 open data catalogue. These data are updated weekly on Wednesdays during the 10 a.m. hour. MDH is continuously evaluating its data and reporting systems and will make updates as more data becomes available.

I pulled data on September 1, 2021, to make the above map. I provided the information on whether a school is public or private. All errors are my own. This map is not official, it is primarily for the purpose of me exploring the visualization features and keeping track of what I learned.

This is a test of taking HTML code from Amcharts LIVE and embedding it into a post. If this works it might make making some types of maps and charts quicker. Although I like the flexibility of building charts and maps from scratch. I am just exploring all of the ways I can do data visualization so I can choose the best tool for the task at hand.

I made the map in amcharts Live and then I download the HTML code. I uploaded the code into my WordPress media file. Then I referenced the media file in a frame on this post.

I have made more treemaps. This time showing transfer students to the University of Maryland, College Park in 2020.

In the first treemap, I show the level 1 names, and the level 2 names are hidden. Clicking on the level 1 names will reveal level 2.

Source: University System of Maryland, IRIS

In the second treemap, I show the level 2 names at first open. Clicking on the level 1 names will focus just on that level.

Source: University System of Maryland, IRIS

I am not sure which treemap style I like the best. I think it will depend on what I want the treemap to show. It might depend on the story I want to tell with the data.

I have found it is a little difficult to read the smaller categories of the treemaps, which might make them less useful. I expanded the height from 300 px to 500 px, but I am thinking of expanding them further to 700 px or 800 px. I also find the smaller categories sort of difficult to click on.

In my previous post, I built my first treemap using Amcharts. Today I built another treemap, this one is 3 levels deep. I am unsure about the presentation of the data in this manner, it may not actually be very useful. However, since I was able to successfully explore building a multi-level treemap using the Amcharts demo I will call it a success.

In this example, I was able to get the level 1 labels to appear, which I was not able to figure out yesterday.

Source: University System of Maryland, IRIS

Today I am testing out a treemap that I made in Amcharts. I made a treemap of the students that transfer into the University System of Maryland in 2020. The top layer is the education sector, the second layer is the institution. I am still having a bit of trouble getting it to behave as I would like. I would like the second layer names to appear in the boxes, but I can not seem to get it to work as it does in CodePen. Again I got it to work in CodePen using an Amcharts demo as a model, but again I ran into an internal 500 error when I tried to transfer the code over. So I rewrote the code keeping out the pieces that were not rendering properly.

The treemap clearly shows that there are a large number of transfer students from the US Armed Forces, in part because of the University of Maryland Global Campus. I may make another treemap that excludes transfer students from the University of Maryland Global Campus.

Second Layer Hidden

Source: University System of Maryland, IRIS

I figured out how to show the size of the institutions before drill down, but not the institution names. There is likely a simple way to show the labels on a treemap in Amcharts, but I have not yet figured out how. I think that I like the first style better, but I will need to test both versions.

Second Layer Shown

Source: University System of Maryland, IRIS

UPDate

I realized while I was digging into the data further that I missed the 16,362 students that transferred from “other” out-of-state institutions and 5 students that transferred from “other” MICUA/MD private institutions. I missed them because the institution details is only provided for the top 15 institutions in each of the drill-down categories.

I have not yet figured out how to make a map with a timeline, so here is a map showing the outbreak-associated cases in schools as reported by the Maryland Department of Health on September 1, 2021. Please refer to my first outbreak map for notes on the data. As with the other map the goal is for me to learn about the mapping software and data visualization using current data. The data and locations have not been checked.

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