Darragh Murray

Tag: data

  • A Cost of Insecurity – Comparing Spending on Military Capability v the Human Development Index

    A Cost of Insecurity – Comparing Spending on Military Capability v the Human Development Index

    One great thing about the company I work for is that they continually encourage us to develop our skills via monthly data visualisation challenges. The latest challenge was themed on ‘scatter plots’ and it was definitely one I wished to be a part of – I love scatter plots!

    Harking back to my postgraduate studies in international relations, I had sourced some data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute around the percentage of GDP various countries use to support their military capability. I was very keen to do some analysis using this data but momentarily stuck with what to … Read the rest

  • It’s all about the bike: First Tableau #IronQuest submission

    COVID-19 induced isolation has been good to me in terms of getting time to do some Tableau work. I had my heart set on completing my first ever Iron Quest submission. This months theme was the “Quantified Self”. As soon as I read about the theme, I immediately knew what I wanted to visualise: the cycling history.

    What’s Iron Quest?

    For those not in the know Iron Quest is an initiative begun by Sarah Bartlett. Sarah describes it on her website as:

    Iron Quest is a monthly community-led data visualization project which follows a similar format to

    … Read the rest

  • #MakeoverMonday 2020 Week 21: Revenues by music format over time

    I’m back in the #MakeoverMonday fold after a break for a number of months. Being a former music journalist I felt obligated to participate in this week’s challenge which involved 40 years of data on US music sales by format. Here’s the original visualisation from an article by Nick Routley.

    While the original visualisation was actually quite good and informative, I did give myself an hour or two to have a play in Tableau Public as well as the open-source GNU Image Manipulation Program (with the problematic acronym) where I had a go at designing a custom logo based … Read the rest

  • Leave our Bond alone? | #MakeOverMonday 2020 Week 5

    So I finally managed to grab some free time to contribute something to the MakeOverMonday social data project. I’ve been a fan for many years and have often wanted to contribute – and finally I’ve done something that I’m relatively happy with. This is my data story analysing potential attitudes to changes in the James Bond character in terms of Brexit affiliations.

    You can also … Read the rest

  • NZIEC 2017: Some reflections on a whirlwind trip to Auckland.

    On the flight back to Australia, I got the opportunity to reflect a little on the New Zealand International Education Conference I had just attended in Auckland. Overall, a fun, though slightly tiring, slog across the Tasman. I got to meet a heap of new people in and around the conference and was lucky enough to be involved in two sessions.

    On Tuesday, I spent 30 minutes talking to delegates about how to build the analytical mindset during my session called Getting started in the Data Game. Mostly, I was emphasising the base skills needed in analytics and how … Read the rest

  • The Data Game: Building Analytics Capability in International Education

    [Originally published by IEAA’s Vista Magazine (Summer 2016/17) — I’d strongly recommend following them online and reading their publications if you’re interested in Australian international education!]

    Embracing an analytic mindset and capitalising on the technologies in the era of big data are key to reaching Australia’s strategic international education goals, writes Darragh Murray.

    A tale of prediction and teenage pregnancy

    In 2012, journalist Charles Duhigg came across a fascinating story concerning the power of prediction and teenage pregnancy. Writing for the New York Times, Duhigg told how an irate man confronted the manager of a Target department store … Read the rest