Passing the Data Baton : A Retrospective Analysis on Data Science Work and Workers

Crisan, Anamaria; Fiore-Gartland, Brittany; Tory, Melanie

doi:10.1109/tvcg.2020.3030340

“…Erete et al [17] similarly alluded to how people present data within non-profit organizations, however they do not discuss the specific context of how these presentations are delivered. More recent analyses [11,68] of data science roles and activities within organizations described knowledge dissemination and communication processes, encompassing report generation and presentation, however there is a dearth of writing describing how the latter set of activities are performed, effectively or not, within these settings. The roles of our interviewees were more heterogeneous, going beyond data analysts and data scientists, with titles that included sales executive, marketing manager, and communications specialist.…”

Section: Background and Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Jam Session to Recital: Synchronous Communication and Collaboration Around Data in Organizations

Brehmer

¹

,

Kosara

²

2022

IEEE Trans. Visual. Comput. Graphics

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Prior research on communicating with visualization has focused on public presentation and asynchronous individual consumption, such as in the domain of journalism. The visualization research community knows comparatively little about synchronous and multimodal communication around data within organizations, from team meetings to executive briefings. We conducted two qualitative interview studies with individuals who prepare and deliver presentations about data to audiences in organizations. In contrast to prior work, we did not limit our interviews to those who self-identify as data analysts or data scientists. Both studies examined aspects of speaking about data with visual aids such as charts, dashboards, and tables. One study was a retrospective examination of current practices and difficulties, from which we identified three scenarios involving presentations of data. We describe these scenarios using an analogy to musical performance: small collaborative team meetings are akin to jam session, while more structured presentations can range from semi-improvisational performances among peers to formal recitals given to executives or customers. In our second study, we grounded the discussion around three design probes, each examining a different aspect of presenting data: the progressive reveal of visualization to direct attention and advance a narrative, visualization presentation controls that are hidden from the audience's view, and the coordination of a presenter's video with interactive visualization. Our distillation of interviewees' responses surfaced twelve themes, from ways of authoring presentations to creating accessible and engaging audience experiences.

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“…Sensitizing concepts are an important component of qualitative research, as they ground the analysis in important emergent features and operate as a key interpretative device in data analysis [4]. At the outset of our study, we had some preliminary concepts that we were sensitized to from prior research we conducted that examined the nature of data science work and workers [10]; we used this prior research as part of selective coding processes. In addition to this prior framework, we also had our own notions of concepts that could be pertinent to AutoML, visualization, and human-in-the-loop interactions specifically and these informed our initial interview questions.…”

Section: Interviews and Data Collectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A prior study [10] used an open coding process to define a framework of data science work that comprises four higher-order processes and fourteen lower-order processes. We use the set of codes from this prior study to carry out a selective coding of our interview transcripts.…”

Section: Selective Coding Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

Fits and Starts: Enterprise Use of AutoML and the Role of Humans in the Loop

Crisan¹,

Fiore-Gartland²

2021

Preprint

Self Cite

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AutoML systems can speed up routine data science work and make machine learning available to those without expertise in statistics and computer science. These systems have gained traction in enterprise settings where pools of skilled data workers are limited. In this study, we conduct interviews with 29 individuals from organizations of different sizes to characterize how they currently use, or intend to use, AutoML systems in their data science work. Our investigation also captures how data visualization is used in conjunction with AutoML systems. Our findings identify three usage scenarios for AutoML that resulted in a framework summarizing the level of automation desired by data workers with different levels of expertise. We surfaced the tension between speed and human oversight and found that data visualization can do a poor job balancing the two. Our findings have implications for the design and implementation of human-in-the-loop visual analytics approaches.

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“…Erete et al [17] similarly alluded to how people present data within non-profit organizations, however they do not discuss the specific context of how these presentations are delivered. More recent analyses [12,68] of data science roles and activities within organizations described knowledge dissemination and communication processes, encompassing report generation and presentation, however there is a dearth of writing describing how the latter set of activities are performed, effectively or not, within these settings. The roles of our interviewees were more heterogeneous, going beyond data analysts and data scientists, with titles that included sales executive, marketing manager, and communications specialist.…”

Section: Background and Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Jam Session to Recital: Synchronous Communication and Collaboration Around Data in Organizations

Brehmer¹,

Kosara²

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Prior research on communicating with visualization has focused on public presentation and asynchronous individual consumption, such as in the domain of journalism. The visualization research community knows comparatively little about synchronous and multimodal communication around data within organizations, from team meetings to executive briefings. We conducted two qualitative interview studies with individuals who prepare and deliver presentations about data to audiences in organizations. In contrast to prior work, we did not limit our interviews to those who self-identify as data analysts or data scientists. Both studies examined aspects of speaking about data with visual aids such as charts, dashboards, and tables. One study was a retrospective examination of current practices and difficulties, from which we identified three scenarios involving presentations of data. We describe these scenarios using an analogy to musical performance: small collaborative team meetings are akin to jam session, while more structured presentations can range from semi-improvisational performances among peers to formal recitals given to executives or customers. In our second study, we grounded the discussion around three design probes, each examining a different aspect of presenting data: the progressive reveal of visualization to direct attention and advance a narrative, visualization presentation controls that are hidden from the audience's view, and the coordination of a presenter's video with interactive visualization. Our distillation of interviewees' responses surfaced twelve themes, from ways of authoring presentations to creating accessible and engaging audience experiences.

show abstract

Passing the Data Baton : A Retrospective Analysis on Data Science Work and Workers

Cited by 38 publications

References 65 publications

From Jam Session to Recital: Synchronous Communication and Collaboration Around Data in Organizations

From Jam Session to Recital: Synchronous Communication and Collaboration Around Data in Organizations

Fits and Starts: Enterprise Use of AutoML and the Role of Humans in the Loop

From Jam Session to Recital: Synchronous Communication and Collaboration Around Data in Organizations

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