Using Maps to Promote Data-Driven Decision-Making: One Library's Experience in Data Visualization Instruction

Data play a crucial role in health research, education, and patient care. Initiatives such as Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) and Precision Medicine point to the increasing focus and value of data use and reuse. As the universe of data continues to grow exponentially, health education needs to provide students with practical hands-on learning sessions that illustrate the multitude of uses for data and statistics. Giving students early exposure to data reuse provides a solid background for the more complex data they may gather later in their education. This column describes how librarians at a general academic library used data dashboards and Tableau in two library sessions to provide students with hands-on experience in data visualization and its role in decision-making.