Gapminder

= Gapminder: for a fact-based world view = toc

About
Gapminder World is a web-based interactive graphing tool that pulls data from different censuses, both national and internationally, and displays the data over a time series. The software behind the project, Trendalyzer, was originally developed by a group of Swedish scientists, but was acquired by Google in 2007 (Gapminder, 2011a).

How it Works
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User can browse sets of pre-made graphs such as:
HIV Epidemic 1980 - 2007 www.bit.ly/fYkbY7



Who has Bad Teeth? www.bit.ly/vzxLEH



Viewing the graphs on the web is a much more powerful experience of course as you can see the data change across time, watch countries grow and prosper or see the effects of war right before your eyes.

Custom Graphs:
Users can also customize the graphs by choosing from various data sets to input for either axis of the graph. For example I created the following chart:

Murder and Population Density www.bit.ly/txYbA4



Gapminder is an amazing interactive tool that has applications for both educators and information professionals. Not only is data displayed in a visually stricking, interactive way that is easier for viewers to understand, but the data sources can also be verified within a couple of clicks from the graph (Gapminder, 2011b).