Final scenario

Cultural differences mapping

I was looking for some kind of final infographic, which would enable users of platform to take part in some survey, add something from oneself. I found this:

Steelcase- cultural differences
 and this short set of inforgraphics, also form Steelcase on deskmag

I've found this set also really inspiring: East meets West

Accessible data about student mobility

Higher Education Statisctics Agency

pdfs from Non-UK domicile students topic:
Table 5 Top EU countries of domicile  (years 2008- 2012)
Table 6 Top non-EU countries of domicile (years 2008- 2012)

Students in Higher Education Institutions  (1994-2008 for free 2008-2013 paid)

Table 8 Non-UK domiciled HE students by country of domicile, location of HE institution and level of study (2008-2012)
Table 6a  Non-UK domiciled HE students by domicile, location of institution and qualification aim (2000-2007)

Students Domiciled outside the UK by Method of Study (1993-2013) UCL student statistics
Table O

National Student Suvey 2013

"Data Visualization is NOT Useful. It’s Indispensable." an articule from Fell In Love With Data blog which actually tells that infographics are mostly needed by specialists (so just opposite to what I want to do). I've found it really inspiring

Scenarios- so far

First scenario of dataset elements (data visualizations)- field for data exploration for the society members to get view on how students migration phenomena really look like. And additional funcionality of forum for sharing opinions

Second scenario of dataset elements is generaly only for the society members to get more informations

What does students want, what does educational institutions want

According to WrestCorp article "International Students"

Primary Attractiveness Factors are:

1.Quality of Education. The education process: this broadly corresponds to ‘academic reputation’ and ‘academic and social support’.

2. Employment Prospects: The education outcome: this corresponds to the perceived value of a destination country’s qualifications within the local and global labor markets.

3. Affordability: Students’ perceptions of the cost of living and tuition fees in a study destination. A high performance rating for affordability implies that the destination is perceived as being relatively lower cost.

4. Personal Security/Risk: General perception of safety and security within the destination country. This excludes the concept of ‘cultural security’, which is considered in ‘lifestyle’.

5. Lifestyle: Encompasses factors such as sports, music, fashion, nightlife plus others such as cultural tolerance, acceptance, similarity, or difference. International students’ emphasis will likely vary with country of origin and ethnicity.

so it's visible that, aside of quality of education and affordability (students have already really good access to these informations in the web) aspects connected with culture are also considered as important.

I've found interesting also Rahoul Choudaha article "International student mobility is driven by destination country income, not university rankings"

As regards Universitiers interests, at the Institute for Public Policy Research I've found fresh Alice Sachrajda's articule "The UK can’t rely on reputation alone to attract international students". Author is writing about present highly competitive situation on global educational market. Due to the article if UK want to attract the brightest and best international students to the UK’s education institutions, it have to offer more attracive employment prospects. These include permitting all international students to work alongside their studies and allowing international students six months to find work in the UK after their studies.

Targeted topic: students mobility

In present situation of data overload, visualizing helps to "see data"- enable users to understand data fast and to see and understand connections between informations. Set of data visualizations shows a story, and I had to ask myself: what kind of story my target audience would be interested in.

As I went through a lot of information about migration flows and I get more knowledge and overall view about this topic, I got more and more interested in a topic of mobility of students. I think it's good idea to work on this part of migration because:

- migration of students is fast growing phenomena all around the world and United Kingdom is one of the most popular countries of destination.. The University enviroment is changing fast and it's a big challenge to organize it to fit everyone's needs. On the other hand it's also big opportunity because of such positive outcomes as:

- the availability of range of programs and high quality courses
- the research output;
- enhanced revenues
- internationalization of the student and staff body
- improved efficiency and international competitiveness (source: Wrestcorp)

I think that visualizing present changes can help people in better understanding the others and their needs, so both, educational institutions and students can act consciously and get best outcome from this interaction. Educational institutions have to adapt to changing conditions and need information how to do that succesfylly and students should have information about how their studies will look like. It's going to their enviroment for a couple of years and the more they'll like it, the more succeded they can be.

- practical aspect?  it could be not only information for the curious but also useful tip for future students. Maybe I can find information about cultural diversity and help them to know more about their future enviroment before they left home or even make their uni choices.

- there are debates these years about limiting net migration in UK and student migration as a part of it. Public opinion is strong force in these debates but surveys shows that the society don't have clear picture about who are the immigrants, why they came nad for how long. So just to prevent confusion about data, it can be helpful to visualize the real information.

The Migration Observatory articles 
 "Thinking behind the numbers: Understanding the Public Opinion on Immigration in Britain" 

and:
A degree of confusion: what do people in the UK think about international students

Migration in the UK and politics infographic

- it's now my everyday enviroment, many people I meet everyday are international students who came to UK. It can be a source of information, inspiration and fast feedback about my ideas.

- it seems like a tangible amount of data, so I have more time to play with visualizations and interaction,

Looking for questions

I found three interesting TED-talks about data visualizations and benefits we can get from them.

Hans Rosling: The best stats you've ever seen

David McCandless: The beauty of data visualization

Aaron Koblin: Visualizing ourselves ... with crowd-sourced data

Mapping Social Cohesion Report from MONASH University

You Tube: Mapping Social Cohesion Report 

... and similar data about UK 

OECD Better Life Index

From Migration Observatory of the Univeristy of Oxford

UK Public Opinion towards Immigration: Overall Attitudes and Level of Concern 

and UK Public Opinion towards Immigration: Determinants of Attitudes

especially interesting is chart: attitudes towards immigration by perceptions of local area- do people from different backgrounds get on well together?