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This guide helps you create a collaborative, student-crowdsourced timeline in Mandala Visuals. ![](/download/attachments/14140591/image2017-8-7%2014%3A12%3A36.png?version=1&modificationDate=1502133157000&api=v2&effects=drop-shadow) John Alexander used this timeline for his course the course he co-taught with Walt Heinecke "Documenting UVA's Future." This course, inspired by the ouster and reinstatement of UVA President Teresa Sullivan, documented the event using oral histories. Since many students were not in Charlottesville during for the ouster, John Alexander helped them make a collaborative timeline of the proceedings in class, which included links to primary sources. This helped them understand the flow of information surrounding the ouster. Afterward, he shared the timeline with his students, so that they could reference it throughout the semester. To make a crowdsourced timeline: - Create a Google Spreadsheet
Enter your data - Format your spreadsheet
- Log in to Visuals
- Create a new visualization
Invite student contributions in class - Add the visualization to UVaCollab
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In this guide, Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.
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| ![Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission. Google and the Google logo are registered trademarks of Google Inc., used with permission.](/download/attachments/14140591/spreadsheet_format.png?version=1&modificationDate=1501871759000&api=v2&effects=drop-shadow)
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| | Enter all labels you need on the top row of the spreadsheet. These are: - title
- description
- startdate
- link
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You'll leave the rows themselves blank. In class, each student will add a row to the spreadsheet, creating a single event. Before they can do that, however, you should make sure rows are formatted correctly.
3. Format your spreadsheetThe Timeline reference guide has specific data types for each column. Luckily, our example is easy: every column should be in the "plain text" data type.
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We can adjust this scope using "Initial zoom of timeline." Since the value of this field is tricky to determine, we'll create two reference events for the "beginning" and "end" points of our timeline, then adjust the value of "Initial zoom."
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First, go back to the spreadsheet. We're going to create two events – one with a start date of June 8, 2012 and one with a start date of June 29, 2012. We'll call the first event "start" and the second event "end." Don't worry about names too much – these are temporary reference points, and we'll delete them at the end. . Use the DD/MM/Year format for the dates. |
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Now go back to the visualizations editor. Adjust the "Initial zoom of timeline" by small increments, increasing the value to zoom out, decreasing the value to zoom in, until you can see the "start" and "end" events at the opposite ends of the timeline.
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Notice the text "start" and "end" are a bit large. Remember, you're going to have to have students recording many events on this timeline. To set the size of the font, we're going to make a column called "importance."
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Enter "importance" in the first row of column E, then give all rows in the column a value of 20. |
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| Now "hide" the column to prevent your students from worrying about this value. Visuals can still read data in hidden columns. To hide column E, select the entire column, then right click on it and choose Hide from the menu. |
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| This is the hidden column. To unhide this data, click on the two arrows (< >) between columns D and F. |
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| Click Click > My Content > My Visualizations. You'll see a list of all your visualizations. Click on your timeline to open it. |
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7. Add the timeline to UVaCollab
Open Now, we'll add the timeline your students created together to UVaCollab. This lets them reference the data throughout the semester. To begin, open your class site in UVaCollab.
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You'll see a form with metadata fields, where you can add a title and restrict access to your HTML page. Fill out the fields as needed, then Finish. The new page will appear under the Resources. If you click on the site, you'll see the interactive timeline your students created collaboratively.
This code also lets you add the visualization to a WordPress course site. Follow the Add an iFrame guide for help.
Now you're finished with your project. To learn more about making visualizations, you can use this Visuals in Mandala guide.
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