Det svenska skolsystemet genomgår en digitaliseringsprocess. I och med digitaliseringen har ett starkt intresse av att utforska olika typer av lärodata via olika läroplattformar utvecklats. För att analysera sådan data kan man ta hjälp av Learning Analytics (LA). LA är när man samlar, analyserar och rapporterar lärodata från diverse lärandeaktiviteter. För att analysera datan mer effektivt kan man ta hjälp av visualisering. Denna studie presenterar ett visualiseringsverktyg riktat till lärare. Det har utvecklats för att stödja lärare i deras förståelse av hur valda självreglerat lärande (SRL)strategier har utvärderats av studenter. Att kunna applicera SRL-strategier är av stor vikt eftersom studenter som lär sig att applicera dessa kommer att ha fördelar båda vid framtida studier och framtida arbete. Syftet med denna studie var att se hur lärodata kan visualiseras för att förstå studenters användning av lärostrategier och hur bra visualiseringsverktyget var ur ett användbarhetsperspektiv. Användbarheten av verktyget testades genom ett experiment där ett antal frågor ställdes. Svaren gick att finna i visualiseringen. Deltagarna i studien fick sedan svara på ett System Usabilityformulär. Resultaten visar att det utvecklade verktyget är användbart och att olika användare använder sig av, om möjligt, olika metoder för att komma fram till ett svar. Denna uppsats presenterar riktlinjer att ha i beaktande när ett visualiseringsverktyg som ska stödja lärare i att förstå studenters användning av SRL-strategier ska designas. / The Swedish school system is going through a digitalization process. With digitalization, a strong interest in exploring learner data available through various digital platforms has emerged. In order to analyse the data, one can take help of learning analytics (LA) which relates to collect, report and analyse data from learners or learning activities. To be able to analyse it in a more efficient way, one can take help from visualization. This study presents a visualisation tool aimed at teachers. It has in particular been developed to support teachers in their understanding of how chosen self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies were evaluated by students. SRL strategies are important to be able to apply since students who can learn to apply SRL strategies have an advantage during both future studies and work compared to those who cannot. The aim with this study was to see how learner data can be visualized in order to understand students' use of learning strategies and how good the developed visualization tool is from a usability perspective. The perceived usability of this tool was tested by means of interviews where a series of questions was asked where the answers could be found in the visualization tool. The participants also answered a System Usability Questionnaire. The results showed that the tool developed is usable and that different users of the tool tend to, if possible, use different methods to reach the answer. This thesis presents design guidelines to have in consideration when designing a visualization tool in order to aid teachers in analysing students' use of SRL strategies.

To prevent climate change, the world needs to reduce carbon emissions globally. This also applies to academia, where a large portion of a research-intensive organization’s total emissions comes from flying. At KTH, a research-intensive organization, an ambitious university-wide goal to reduce emissions from academic flying has been established. The mid-level structure in the organization, a division, functions as a boundary between the individual employee and the larger organization, and has been identified as a promising target to address the organizational goals. In this study a tool for heads of divisions to budget and follow-up a speculative carbon budget on their division is explored through a design process. It was found that a tool for heads of division to manage carbon emissions at their division needs to involve the employees in the process, be effortless in terms of prioritization of trips and provide a good overview for decision making. The most prominent finding, and the requirement for such a tool to be implemented, is clearer directives and communication from the top-level of the organization. / För att förebygga klimatförändringar behöver världen minska koldioxidutsläppen globalt. Detta gäller även akademin, där en stor del av forskningsintensiv-organisationers totala utsläpp kommer från flyg. På KTH, som är en forskningsintensivorganisation, har ambitiösa organisatoriska mål fastställts för att minska utsläppen från akademiskt flyg. Inom organisationen fungerar avdelningar som en förbindelse mellan den enskilde medarbetaren och den större organisationen, och har identifierats som en lämplig del av organisationen att agera på de organisatoriska målen. I denna studie utvecklas ett verktyg som ska hjälpa avdelningschefer att budgetera och följa upp en spekulativ koldioxidbudget på sin avdelning, detta utforskas genom en designprocess. Det uppmärksammades att ett sådant verktyg behöver involvera medarbetarna i processen, vara enkelt när det gäller prioritering av resor och ge en bra överblick för att kunna ta beslut. Den mest framträdande upptäckten, som också är ett krav för att ett sådant verktyg ska kunna implementeras, är tydligare direktiv och kommunikation från organisationens ledningsnivå.

Detecting references and similarities in music lyrics can be a difficult task. Crowdsourced knowledge platforms such as Genius. can help in this process through user-annotated information about the artist and the song but fail to include visualizations to help users find similarities and structures on a higher and more abstract level. We propose a prototype to compute similarities between rap artists based on word embedding of their lyrics crawled from Genius. Furthermore, the artists and their lyrics can be analyzed using an explorative visualization system applying multiple visualization methods to support domain-specific tasks.

Meetings and presentations are often monological in their nature, creating a barrier of productivity in workplaces around the world. By utilizing modern technologies such as a web-based Audience Response System (ARS), meetings and presentations can be transformed into interactive exercises where the audience’s views, opinions and answers can be expressed. Visualizing these audience responses and relating questions-specific partitioned answers between each other, through visualization structures, was the topic of this report. The thesis project was carried out in collaboration with Mentimeter, creator of a web-based ARS and online presentation tool. The Double Diamond design process model was used to investigate and ground the design and development process. To guide the implementation of the prototypes, a focus group was held with four visualization and design professionals knowledgeable about ARSs, to gather feedback on high fidelity sketches. The final prototypes were evaluated with the extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) for information visualization to survey end-users' attitudes and willingness to adopt the visualization structures. Eight end-users tested the final web-based prototypes. The findings of the user tests indicate that both visualizations prototypes showed promise for visualizing partitioned data in novel ways for ARSs, with an emphasis on a circle cluster visualization as it allowed for the desired exploration. The results further imply that there is value to be gained by presenting partitioned data in ways that allows for exploration, and that audiences would likely adopt a full implementation of the visualizations given some added functionalities and adjustments. Future research should focus on fully implementing and testing the visualizations in front of a live audience, as well investigating other contemporary visualization structures and their capabilities for visualizing partitioned ARS data. / Möten och presentationer är ofta sedda som ett produktivitetshinder på arbetsplatser runtom i världen på grund av deras monologiska natur. Genom att använda moderna tekniska lösningar såsom webbaserade Audience Response Systems (ARS) så kan möten och presentationer omvandlas till interaktiva moment där en publiks perspektiv, åsikter och svar kan uttryckas. Att visualisera en publiks svar och relatera frågespecifika partitionerade svar mellan varandra, genom visualiseringar, var denna rapports huvudämne. Projektet utfördes i samarbete med Mentimeter, skapare av ett webbaserat ARS och digitalt presentationsverktyg. Double Diamond-modellen användes för att undersöka och förankra design- och utvecklingsarbetet i projektet. För att guida utvecklingsarbetet, och få feedback på designförslag, genomfördes en fokusgrupp med fyra visualiserings- och designexperter som besatt kunskap om ARS. De framtagna prototyperna utvärderas genom den utökade Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) för att undersöka slutanvändares inställning och villighet att använda visualiseringarna. Totalt testade åtta slutanvändare de framtagna webbaserade prototyperna. Resultatet av användartesterna indikerade att båda visualiseringsprototyperna har potential att visualisera partitionerad data på nya sätt i ARS, men att en klustervisualisering var överlägsen från en utforskningssynpunkt. Resultaten innebär vidare att det finns ett värde i att presentera partitionerad data på sätt som möjliggör utforskning av publikens svar, och att publiken troligen kommer att anta en fullständig implementering av visualiseringarna förutsatt några extra funktioner och justeringar. Framtida forskning bör fokusera på att fullständigt implementera och testa visualiseringarna framför en faktiskt publik, samt undersöka andra samtida visualiseringsstrukturer och deras möjligheter att visualisera partitionerad ARS-data.

Information visualization dashboards are a widely used supportive tool in decision making. These tools can be difficult to create and utilize especially for the novice user. There is an extensive collection of company related data for decision making, resulting in a need of assistive tools. Prototypes were developed to research and identify design guidelines how to support fund managers in their decision making. This was carried out as a qualitative study involving 7 experts in fund management. The results provide insights and guidelines in decision supportive design for dashboards. The results indicate that there is a threshold in the number of displayed elements without limiting the cognitive analysis by the user. Three aspects; size, distribution and time should be included in the generating of suitable graphics. Assistive tools for connecting multiple context domains has been identified as a crucial element of decision support design. These guidelines should be investigated further in larger and more diverse studies in order to prove its full validity. / Information visualiserings dashboards är ett väl etablerat verktyg i beslutsfattning. Sådana verktyg kan vara utmanande att skapa och använda speciellt för en oerfaren användare. Idag samlas det in stora mängder av företagsrelaterad data för beslutsfattning vilket resulterar i ett behov av hjälpande verktyg. I den här studien utvecklades flera prototyper för att undersöka och tag fram designriktlinjer för hur man ska utforma och hjälpa fondförvaltare i sitt beslutsfattande. En kvalitativ studie genomfördes med 7 experter inom fond och kapitalförvaltning i framtagandet av designriktlinjer. Resultaten visar riktlinjer för beslutsstöd i utformningen av dashboards. Resultaten indikerar att det finns en gräns för hur många element man bör presentera för en användare utan att försvåra användarens kognitiva analysförmåga. Tre karaktärsdrag; storlek, distribution och tid påverkar utformningen av passande grafik. Studien har även identifierat behovet av verktyg för sammankopplingen mellan flera olika kontextdomäner i och med den kollaborativa delen av beslutsfattning. Dessa designriktlinjer ligger till grund för fortsatt undersökning i större och mer varierade studier för att styrka dess validitet.

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Network packet traces, despite having a lot of noise, contain priceless information, especially for investigating security incidents or troubleshooting performance problems. However, given the gigabytes of flow crossing a typical medium sized enterprise network every day, spotting malicious activity and analyzing trends in network behavior becomes a tedious task. Further, computational mechanisms for analyzing such data usually take substantial time to reach interesting patterns and often mislead the analyst into reaching false positives, benign traffic being identified as malicious, or false negatives, where malicious activity goes undetected. Therefore, the appropriate representation of network traffic data to the human user has been an issue of concern recently. Much of the focus, however, has been on visualizing TCP traffic alone while adapting visualization techniques for the data fields that are relevant to this protocol's traffic, rather than on the multivariate nature of network security data in general, and the fact that forensic analysis, in order to be fast and effective, has to take into consideration different parameters for each protocol. In this thesis, we bring together two powerful tools from different areas of application: SiLK (System for Internet-Level Knowledge), for command-based network trace analysis; and ComVis, a generic information visualization tool. We integrate the power of both tools by aiding simplified interaction between them, using a simple GUI, for the purpose of visualizing network traces, characterizing interesting patterns, and fingerprinting related activity. To obtain realistic results, we applied the visualizations on anonymized packet traces from Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory, captured on selected hours across three months. We used a sliding window approach in visually examining traces for two transport-layer protocols: ICMP and UDP. The main contribution of this research is a protocol-specific framework of visualization for ICMP and UDP data. We explored relevant header fields and the visualizations that worked best for each of the two protocols separately. The resulting views led us to a number of guidelines that can be vital in the creation of "smart books" describing best practices in using visualization and interaction techniques to maintain network security; while creating visual fingerprints which were found unique for individual types of scanning activity. Our visualizations use a multiple-views approach that incorporates the power of two-dimensional scatter plots, histograms, parallel coordinates, and dynamic queries. / Master of Science

Humans’ emotions have the ability to take over, which might end up with responses inappropriate to the situation. The solution to inappropriate responses is to have a better awareness. Great team-work, calm employees, and rational decision making are all qualities that derive benefit from emotional self-awareness. However, studies show that only 36 percent can identify their emotions as they happen. This paper takes on the opportunity to raise emotional self-awareness by designing a prototype that enables the users to reflect and anonymously share their emotion through an audience response system. Forty-eight participants, in various group sizes, did within-subjects tests. They started by writing down their answer to the question: How do you feel?. They later answered through the prototype. Whether or not the participants managed to be more specific through the prototype was measured, as well as their perceived anonymity. The results revealed that the prototype was useful in both helping the users to learn emotion definitions and further specify their emotion. In regards to the perceived anonymity, it showed that the design was favoring a larger group size around 20 participants.

Thesis (MSc)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Network simulations generate large volumes of data. This thesis presents an animated visualization system that utilizes the latest affordable Computer Graphics (CG) hardware to simplify the task of visualizing and analyzing these large volumes of data. The use of modern CG hardware allows us to create an interactive system which allows the user to interact with the data sets and extract the relevant data in real time. We also present an alternate approach to the network layout problem, using Self Organizing Maps to find an aesthetic layout for a network which is fundamental to a successful network visualization. We finally discuss the design and implementation of such an network visualization tool. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Netwerk simulasies genereer groot volumes data. Hierdie tesis stel voor ’n geanimeerde visualiseringwat gebruik maak van die nuutste bekostigbare rekenaar grafika hardeware om die visualisering van groot volumes data te vergemaklik. Die gebruik van moderne rekenaar grafika hardeware stel ons in staat om sagteware te skep wat n gebruiker in staat stel om met die data te werk. Ons stel voor ’n alternatiewe benadering om die netwerk se uitleg daar te stel, met die hulp van tegnieke wat gebruik word in die studie van neurale netwerke. Ons bespreek dan die ontwerp en implementering van so ’n netwerk visualisering program.

Increasing numbers of alerts produced by network intrusion detection systems (NIDS) have burdened the job of security analysts especially in identifying and responding to them. The tasks of exploring and analysing large quantities of communication network security data are also difficult. This thesis studied the application of visualisation in combination with alerts classifier to make the exploring and understanding of network security alerts data faster and easier. The prototype software, NSAViz, has been developed to visualise and to provide an intuitive presentation of the network security alerts data using interactive 3D visuals with an integration of a false alert classifier. The needs analysis of this prototype was based on the suggested needs of network security analyst's tasks as seen in the literatures. The prototype software incorporates various projections of the alert data in 3D displays. The overview was plotted in a 3D plot named as "time series 3D AlertGraph" which was an extension of the 2D histographs into 3D. The 3D AlertGraph was effectively summarised the alerts data and gave the overview of the network security status. Filtering, drill-down and playback of the alerts at variable speed were incorporated to strengthen the analysis. Real-time visual observation was also included. To identify true alerts from all alerts represents the main task of the network security analyst. This prototype software was integrated with a false alert classifier using a classification tree based on C4.5 classification algorithm to classify the alerts into true and false. Users can add new samples and edit the existing classifier training sample. The classifier performance was measured using k-fold cross-validation technique. The results showed the classifier was able to remove noise in the visualisation, thus making the pattern of the true alerts to emerge. It also highlighted the true alerts in the visualisation. Finally, a user evaluation was conducted to find the usability problems in the tool and to measure its effectiveness. The feed backs showed the tools had successfully helped the task of the security analyst and increased the security awareness in their supervised network. From this research, the task of exploring and analysing a large amount of network security data becomes easier and the true attacks can be identified using the prototype visualisation tools. Visualisation techniques and false alert classification are helpful in exploring and analysing network security data.