Tools for Researchers

 

Data Analysis is the process of working on data with the purpose of arranging it correctly, explaining it, making it presentable, and finding a conclusion from that data. The main purpose of data analysis is interpretation, evaluation & organization of data and to make the data presentable.

Data Analysis is done with the purpose of finding answers to specific questions. We offer tools for data analysis:

 

Licenzed Software SumDU within Microsoft Office 365:

Excel is one of the most affordable tools for analyzing and visualizing data. It allows you to quickly sort, filter, analyze data.

Power BI comprehensive Business Intelligence software that enables you to refine, consolidate data, convert it to an easy-to-analyze format, simulate the outcome of different actions, and track decision-making.

Commercial software products that offer free packages:

Datawrapper is a free open source web service for creating design charts, maps, tables, infographics, is adaptive for different devices, operating systems.

Tableau Public is a data analysis tool that provides information through data visualization without programming. Previews published by Tableau Public can be embedded in blogs, web pages, and shared via email or social networks. Shared content can be made available for download.

Open source software and licenses:

Jupyter is a web application that allows the user to write codes and text elements of various forms. Inside it, you can write paragraphs, equations, headings, add links, shapes, and more. Notepad is useful for sharing interactive algorithms with your audience, focusing on learning.

Python is a programming language that enables data processing, analysis, visualization, forecasting, and data retention to facilitate the implementation of decisions by the user, following the standards of the required algorithms.

R is a programming language and software environment for statistical computing, analysis and image data in graphical form.

RStudio IDE is an integrated development environment for R, computational statistics programming language and data visualization.

Open Refine is a powerful tool for purification, transformation, analysis, data visualization.

Cloud services for data analysis and machine learning:

Google Colaboratory is a cloud service designed to facilitate machine and deep learning research. Using Colaboratory, you can get remote access to a PC with a connected video card for free. Colab is an analogue of Google Docs for the Jupyter Notebook.

KDnuggets – is an open platform for searching software for various data analysis and machine learning tasks.

Kaggle (Google LLC) – is an open platform for machine learning and data analysis.

Visualization (graphical representation) increases the efficiency of the perception of large amounts of various information, allows you to compare data values and identify patterns.

The most common ways to visualize data are:

• graphs, diagrams, diagrams;
• infographics, illustration;
• interactive setting;
• business analyst;
• maps and cartograms.

A wide variety of tools can be used to create data and graphic objects:

Platforms and Services for Creating Presentations, Infographics and Graphic Design

Adobe Illustrator is a licensed vector graphic editor for creating illustrations and web design. Available at SumDU at the Department of Journalism (room G1106).

Adobe Photoshop is a licensed professional multifunctional graphic editor, works with bitmaps, has vector tools. Available at SumDU at the Department of Journalism (room G1106).

amCharts is a platform for creating interactive infographics.

Calameo is a service for creating interactive publications (in the form of magazines, brochures, catalogs, reports, etc.). The interactive document is designed to preserve the feel of a paper document: you can flip through pages, mark interesting points, and more. There is a possibility of free use.

Canva is a cross-platform free graphics editor with additional paid services. It provides access to a built-in template library, stock photos, vector images, graphics, and fonts. There is paid content.

Crello is a graphical online editor that lets you create images for social networks, banner ads, posters, headlines, and more. Offers over 10,000 free access templates. Has a paid subscription with advanced features.

Desygner an online editor for presentations, promotional material, social networking posts, and more. It gives you access to a wealth of free material that you can edit and create your designs without infringing on a copyright.

Easel.ly an online tool that allows you to create infographics and visualize data with various icons in the form of moving men, lines, and charts.

Genially is an online tool for creating presentations, interactive images, infographics, quizzes that have a wide selection of visual effects and animations.

GIPHY is a service for creating GIFs.

Giphy GIF Maker is a service for creating animated GIFs and captioned GIFs.

GIMP a program for creating and processing raster graphics with support for working with vector graphics. The functionality and purpose of Gimp can be compared to Adobe Photoshop.

Piktochart a web application that offers free and paid packages for creating presentations and infographics using themed templates.

Snappa is a graphic design and infographic tool designed for non-designers. Free access includes 5 downloads per month.

ThingLink is a service for creating images with active links.

Vecteezy is an online editor of free vector graphics. Allows you to download from the directory, create vector graphics on your own, and draw clip art in your browser that you can save and use in your own projects.

Venngage an online designer to create graphic design and infographics. The service is used by companies: Google, Forbes, Microsoft, and others. It allows you to upload videos directly from YouTube. Free to create 5 templates.

Visme an online platform for creating infographics, online presentations, animations, animated banners, and other visual content.

Business Intelligence Tools

Tableau Public a data analytics tool that provides information through data visualization without programming. The visualizations published in Tableau Public are embedded in blogs, web pages. Shared content can be made available for download.

 

Services for Creating Charts and Graph

Dygraphs a large data visualization tool that allows you to create and explore interactive, scalable charts.

Excel spreadsheet software is part of Microsoft Office. It is necessary for calculations, data analysis, forecasting, graphing, tables and charts, calculations of simple and complex functions.

Infogr.am a service for creating interactive visualization. More than 30 chart types and six design themes. You enter the data in an editor, upload it in a spreadsheet or text format, or import it from the cloud. Then choose what you want to get – a chart, graph, map.

Plotly a platform that creates charts, graphs. Works with JavaScript, Python, R, Matlab, Excel. Import data from multiple sources (MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Redshift, Excel.

VisualizeFree is a cloud service that works with both publicly available datasets and your own downloaded ones. Supports xls, xlsx, csv. The created renderings are embedded on the sites using the iframe. The visualization can be exported in Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF. The service is free.

Fusiontables Google tool for creating charts, graphs, and maps. Helps to collect, visualize and display data on a site.

 

Maps and cartograms

Map Services is a service that creates maps, objects, and data. Popular with users of web applications that work online. Maps can be used offline, they must be preloaded on the device, have less capacity than online.

ArcGIS Online is a platform with a data cloud for collaboration. Free ArcGIS Online Account allows you to create, store, manage web maps, applications, base maps, and other spatial data.

Bing Maps Microsoft's mapping service, Bing Maps functionality similar to Google Maps. The advantage of the service is the detail of the terrain and the high quality of the image. Bing Cards contain photos with a total resolution of 121 trillion pixels. Special steering gestures and highway route guidance available for touch screen operation.

Exhibit the platform allows you to create interactive maps and visualizations, for statistical and historical datasets, such as flags of different countries or places of birth of famous people.

Google Maps a set of applications based on a free mapping service. Google Maps gives you the opportunity to use your resources on third-party services. The shooting is done using advanced techniques, the pictures are updated regularly, schematics and photos of new routes appear. Using the Google Maps API, you can place any map on an external site by managing it through the JavaScript API.

InstantAtlas a map data visualization service that allows you to create interactive, dynamic and narrow-field reports that combine statistics and map information.

Mapme is an online mapping tool.

Mind42 a free online platform for creating intelligence maps and conducting online research. It allows you to save collections of small records with link structure.

NASA World Wind is a 3D interactive virtual globe that uses NASA satellite imagery and USGS aerial imagery to build 3D models of Earth, Moon, Mars, and Venus. NASA World Wind uses an open-source license. The program runs only under Microsoft Windows operating systems.

OpenStreetMap map project of a free geographical map of the world, created by Internet users. Data obtained from open sources, transmitted by governmental and commercial organizations, and collected during the field research by ordinary project participants. OpenStreetMap data is free to use for any purpose.

Snazzy Maps a free map creation tool designed to work with Google Maps. It will help to find the interesting design of the map from the finished samples and to create unique styles for registration of terrain maps.

Stat Planet is a service for creating static and interactive maps.

Wikimapia a multilingual project based on a combination of electronic maps (Google Maps, Google Earth and the like) and wikis. The resource is completely free and edited by users under the control of the site administration. Users can describe objects on the online map using the built-in editing features, add categories, comments, descriptions, and photos.

 

Font Pairing Tools

1001 Free Fonts a wide selection of free fonts.

Canva. Font combinations a find the perfect combination of fonts for your project.

DaFont a font archive for download.

FontFaceNinja is a browser extension that finds the fonts used on the site.

Font Squirrel free fonts.

Google Fonts free fonts optimized for the web.

 

Color Picker Tools

0 to 255 an online tool that helps you find options of any color.

Bootflat an online service for creating color schemes in the style of flat.

Coolors.co is an online generator of color schemes for designers.

Colorful Gradients a service for creating gradients.

Get UI Colors is an online platform for selecting colors for the UI.

Hex Colorrrs is an online converter of Hex color models to RGB.

New Flat UI Color Picker is an online platform for color selection for UI design.

Palette Creator a browser extension to create a color palette for any image.

Paletton  an online service for creating a color scheme.

A presentation is a demonstration of the results of an independent or scientific work of a student, a teacher, a scientist working on a chosen topic, a question, a task.

The purpose of the presentation is to acquire skills in analyzing one's work and publicly to present the research results. We've put together a selection of tools for you to create compelling presentations:

 

Canva is a graphic design tool that provides access to photos, vector images, graphics, and fonts.

Prezi is a cloud-based service for creating interactive presentations online. Free access to the tools of the service lasts 14 days from the moment of registration on the site.

PowerPoint is a service for creating and playing presentations that is part of Microsoft Office.

Google Presentations is a tool similar to PowerPoint in the toolbox but also allows you to create and edit presentations online as a whole team.

Piktochart is a service for creating presentations in infographic format. Website tools allow you to show statistics, polls, graphs, numbers, maps, tables, and more.

Projeqt is a service for creating dynamic online presentations. They can be with documents, images, photos, slides, links to YouTube videos, audios, Google Maps, polls, and pictures (on Instagram, Flickr) from the Internet or social networks. Use the service for free.

Haiku Deck is a service that allows you to create presentations format "picture + text."

Google Slides is a presentation program included as part of a free, web-based software office suite offered by Google within its Google Drive service.

Keynote is a presentation software application developed as a part of the iWork productivity suite by Apple Inc.

Moovly is a presentation tool that allows students and teachers to make animated presentations.

Playbuzz is an online platform for creating interactive content: tests, polls, slideshows, articles with animated pictures.

Plotagon is an application for iOS and Android that lets anyone creates animated characters and videos in seconds.

PowToon an online resource for creating interactive animated videos and presentations.

Vyond is a tool for creating multimedia presentations.

Dipity is a service for presenting stories, facts, or phenomena to be presented in a particular chronological order (biography, history of the phenomenon/theory/organization, schools/cities/countries, etc.).

Each of us plans some affairs, meetings, works on projects and tasks every day. How to keep everything in the head and not drown in daily worries? Online organizers (Task Managers) can make life much easier, remembering addresses and contacts, reminding essential dates and helping to organize information of different formats in one place.

We have selected for you the most popular organizers by type of task:

 

Planning Personal Tasks

Google keep is a free service for creating, grouping and storing and editing notes. Available as apps for Android devices and Google Drive.

Microsoft To-Do is a cloud application for task management. Allows users to manage their tasks from a smartphone, tablet and computer for free with a Microsoft Office 365 mailbox.

Pocket is a free application that allows you to save articles, videos and pages of sites to read them later at any time, including offline. Available as web version and applications.

RescueTime is an application for tracking time and attention spent. It analyzes all the sites visited by the user, groups them by category and generates detailed reports in the form of graphs and charts. It is possible to block some sites that interfere with productive activities for a while. The trial version is free for two weeks. Next, you need to choose a tariff plan. Available as applications and web versions.

Simple Sticky Notes is a free application for creating notes on the desktop. Notes can be moved, resized, any information can be added to them: reminders, links, etc. The selected melody at a set time will remind you of an important event or task. Available for Windows and Android.

Tappsk is an application for people who want to think less about routine tasks and remember important things. Allows you to create a list of tasks, divide them into stages, categorize and create reminders in the calendar, use the "habit tracker", which will track your useful habits for self-development, discipline and health.

Telegram is a free messenger with VoIP features that allows you to exchange text, voice and video messages, stickers and photos, files in many formats. You can also make video and audio calls, organize conferences for many users of the group and channels. Available as applications and web versions.

TimerTab is a free service with timer, alarm, and stopwatch functions. It helps to plan time with the help of "pomodori" technique. The service is available as a web version and application.

WorkFlowy is a powerful planner. It allows you to create endless to-do lists, write down ideas, save notes and share them with friends. It supports only text data. Available as applications and web versions. You can create up to 250 lists for free, for more you need to choose a tariff plan.

 

Meeting Planning

Google Calendar is a service for planning meetings, events and affairs. Google Calendar allows you to schedule a day or week, sort events by dates and priorities, reminds about events via e-mail and SMS. Google Calendar syncs across all devices, available as apps, and online in the browser. The service is completely free, and linked to a Google Account.

 

Project Management

Asana is a universal task manager. The interface consists of different desktops. Helps to collect all tasks in one place and sort them in a convenient order. Allows you to analyze the performance of the entire team and synchronize with Google Calendar. Asana is available online in a browser or mobile application. You can connect up to 15 users for free, for more you need to choose a tariff plan.

Basecamp is a tool for project management, collaboration and task setting, scheduling project success. It has a simple interface, large file storage, allows an unlimited number of users. The free version is limited to 30 days, and then you need to choose a paid tariff plan.

KindReminderBot a free telegram bot that helps monitor tasks, reminds of deadlines.

Miro platform for joint work on projects. The interface is built in the form of interactive whiteboards. Allows you to download documents, tables, images, draw diagrams; communicate in text, voice and video chat. You can work from the browser and mobile version. The free plan has a limit of 3 boards, for more you need to choose a tariff plan.

Notion the application combines a huge number of tools: notes and to-do lists, documents and spreadsheets, media files, kanban boards and knowledge bases, calendars and reminders. Allows you to create thematic pages with hyperlinks, save files of various formats. All components can be used individually or in combination with others. Notion works both in applications and in the browser. The free version has a limit of 5 users, for more participants you need to choose a paid tariff plan.

Trello is a simple project management service. With the help of boards, lists, and cards, you can organize the entire team in virtual mode.

Wrike is a platform for collaboration and project management used by highly efficient companies around the world. Allows you to determine the priority of tasks, dialogue in tasks and accounting for time spent on the project. The free version has a limit of 5 users and paid tariff plans.

Worksection online project management system. Planning, monitoring deadlines and budgets, creating reports on work performed and time spent, communication with the client. Trial access for 14 days of free use with a restriction of 2 projects and 5 users, 5 paid tariff plans are available.

The list of licensed software available to students and professors of the SumDU.