Trends

Trends is a visual analytics tool for examining the use of keywords and phrases over time. It tracks the appearance of specific topics, concepts, books, authors, and so on in the syllabi dataset.

The trend for a given search query is calculated in the following steps:

1. The raw counts are computed by aggregating syllabi that include the keyword.
2. The counts are normalized by the total number of syllabi for each year.
3. The normalized values are multiplied by a factor of 100.

Here are some additional details that you may find useful:

• Search query is case-insensitive.

ie) Open Syllabus and open syllabus are identifical.

• Filter is applied at the syllabi.

This provides more control over the search scope and helps to mitigate distribution bias.

ie) There are significantly more Computer Science syllabi in the dataset than Spanish syllabi. You can get a much better signal for phrases that are often used in Spanish courses by filtering for Spanish field.