Assignment 2

For this assignment, I wanted to look at several things at the same time.

First, I wanted to see if the top universities paid the professors better than other universities.

Second, I want to see how does the professors impact the university rankings.

The main target audience for this infographic are people who are considering to be a full-time professor in the future.

The first infographic showed a bar chart that overlaid each other, comparing the income of the different rank of professors and between universities. However, it seemed confusing to have bars overlaid each other, and it looked more like a stacked bar instead. I also wanted to give some bits of information of how the professor income compares to the average US citizen. But it didn't seem so right, as it would not show the income disparity between the average citizen. As advised by the class, I removed it.

The two sections below were to show the profile of the professor vs the average American citizen. On later thought, I felt that it did not contribute to answering the question. In fact, it could make it more confusing for the reader instead.

I decided to focus on several factors instead:

- I would keep the income of the professors and remove the profile side.

- I would focus on the research papers that these professors produced and the number of times that they were cited.

- I would also focus on the class size that these professors teach.

The bottom 2 factors affected university rankings directly, according to the Times Higher Education as research volume, income, citations, and reputation were 60% of the entire score. Class sizes were part of the learning environment, which were a total of 30%.

At the end of the first draft, I decided to change the colour palette of the infographic. The infographic looked very dark and dreary to me, and it did not make me want to look at it for long. I used seven colours (including black and white) to make the infographic later.

In this draft, I lightened up the colours and separated the bar charts. Instead of using the top 20 universities, I used the top 10 instead. I placed them along the same horizon as it was easier to see the difference in this case. 

If I had used 20 top universities, there would be 60 bars along one plane, and I thought that it would be very confusing to the reader on first glance.

Based on the rankings and on the income data which I attained from The Chronicle of Higher Education, I input the data into Many Eyes. I thought that I could not achieve much from that because universities are ranked, and it is very hard to place ranks on a chart without being too confusing.

I ended up using the simple, but easy to understand bar chart above the rest, as I believed it showed the clearest idea on the first glance.

I went to search for the data on the papers produced and the number of citations that the university produced. It took a long and arduous time to finally find it on the Essential Science Indicators.

I took the data and placed it into Many Eyes once again. I looked through the data, and thought that a line chart would be the best (at first) because I was able to show the changes in the number of papers produced over time. However, there wasn't much change along the lines, and Harvard University overwhelmed the rest of the universities.

It made the white space take centre stage and I did not want that to be the focus of the infographic. I looked through the various graphs in Many Eyes and came across the Bubble Chart.

The Bubble Chart managed to show the number of papers published. However, it was difficult to tell the difference in sizes on first glance, especially for sizes such as UCB and Stanford. I was only able to tell that Harvard produced the most number of papers.

I decided to use the tree graph for the infographic:

The tree graph was clearer (to me), as it compared the number of research papers that each university produced. In addition, the difference in gradient meant that I could tell the areas which produced more papers easily. Compared to the Bubble chart, I felt that this represented the data clearer.

I traced over the image using Photoshop shapes and added in the text and detail:

This allowed the reader to see the university, the papers and the citations clearly. However, a static infographic like this makes it hard to show the number of times cited and the number of papers produced. An interactive infographic would be better where hovering the mouse would show us another graph of the highest number of citations. I had considered putting two tree graphs, but I thought it would look messy and confusing instead. I included the details of the citations, and believe that readers would be able to easily see differences such as MIT produced fewer papers, but were cited more.

Finally, I found data on the classroom size. I was unable to get the full data on the number of classes exactly, but I managed to get the percentage.

Instead of using a pie chart (as there would have to be 10), I decided to use a stacked bar instead. The totals would add to 100%, and we would be able to see the difference in them. To make it clearer, I added the numbers for easy reference.

The result allowed us to see the difference between universities. For example, you can see that Harvard, UC, Yale, Columbia all have a greater percentage of smaller sized classes.

The percentage scale does show us some information, but numbers would be better. Numbers would be able to show us the number of classes as compared to the size of classes.

For example, it would not be fair to compare between Caltech and Harvard if Caltech only has 300 classes in total, while Harvard has 3000 classes.

As the figures are in percentage, I was unable to calculate the professor to student ratio. Nonetheless, this gives us an indication that the professors in certain universities tend to teach smaller sized classes. It is not as clear as I want it to be, but based on the data, this is the best that I can do.

Finally, I added a section on 'What have these professors helped to achieve?'. While it does not directly address the university rankings, it continues to show a professors contributions, apart from producing papers and teaching classes. It shows the people that they have groomed, and the awards that some of the faculty have achieved.

I went through all the universities websites to look for accolades and achievements. I also ensured that professors from these universities contributed to this.

For example, I did not include 'Rhodes Scholars' because they were achievements on the individual international student going to the university, and not any work of the professors. The rest were results of what the professors what taught, and the people that they have groomed. Some may feel that having 17 astronauts is not a direct achievement of the professor, but I felt that it should be included as it was something that professors had a part to play. Without them, the students would not be able to get to where they are as easily.

Finally, I had a short list of the top 20 universities and their domestic and world ranking.

This helps to reinforce the point that the professors were instrumental in helping the universities achieve their ranks, whether it be in research or teaching.

I ended up with this infographic which showed about the work and remuneration of these professors. 

First, I showed how much they were getting as compared to their counterparts in other universities. Second, I showed what they did, produce papers, teach, made some achievements. This allowed readers to see how did professors contribute to the university ranking, and how they were paid.

The readers would see that professors in these universities do get paid more, but they have achieved much more, and have produced much more as compared to any other university.