Data visualization is a powerful tool for digital scholarship yet not without its pitfalls. Based on the dissertation “Visualizing Gender Balance” comparing ten computer science conferences, several visualization techniques and tools undergo a critical review. The dataset underlying the visualizations contains data researchers encounter daily: bibliographic information. Analyzing larger sets of authors writing and publishing for conferences in computer science changes our perception of the gender (im)balance in this academic research area. But only a careful curation and visualization can truly reveal what goes on behind the scenes. Still the more complicated, detailed and nuanced the visualization, the harder it becomes for an untrained eye to interpret the patterns.
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