Visual Analytics

Course Description

This course introduces the fundamental principles, methods, and tools of visual analytics that enable security and risk analysts to synthesize information and derive insight from massive, dynamic, ambiguous, and often conflicting data. Decisions in risk and security management are increasingly driven by data. Analysts are faced with a continuously growing set of data originated from a wide range of sources and in a wide variety of formats. Such data need to be analyzed in order to understand a situation and react promptly. This causes significant information overload to analysts and prevents them from developing good situation awareness. Visual Analytics (VA) offers an effective solution for making sense of massive datasets by exploiting interactive visualization technologies to extend human cognitive abilities. It helps analysts in detecting the expected and discover the unexpected, providing timely, defensible, and in communicating findings and assessment effectively for action. SRA 268 provides students with a quick overview of the current state of the art in visual analytics and their applications in data-driven security investigation and risk assessment. It prepares students with advanced data analytic skills and critical thinking with data. Cases studies and projects showcase the applications of visual analytics in cyber security and intelligence analysis, emergency and crisis management, and business intelligence.