Developing a quick guide on presenting data and uncertainty

Abstract

This paper describes the rationale, development and testing of a quick guide leaflet on the presentation of data and uncertainty. While tools for capturing, analysing and presenting data become more advanced, the fundamentals of presenting data with adequate context and clarity remain unchanged. The leaflet, aimed at scientists generating and presenting data, was created as part of an interdisciplinary collaboration (meteorologists, information designers, psychologists) working within the PURE Network project RACER, funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council. A copy of the leaflet is included in this article.

Challenges and Opportunities in Magnetospheric Space Weather Prediction

“…As well as reporting numerical values of appropriate metrics, depending on the audience, there is also a need to communicate the outcomes and our confidence in them (Smith & Stern, ). Whether we are dealing with a probabilistic model or a deterministic model, how different types of uncertainty are expressed and communicated has been studied for other subject areas (Lickiss et al, ; Spiegelhalter & Riesch, ). In particular, Spiegelhalter and Riesch () discuss standardized terminology including (1) the level of confidence , which is based on expert judgment about the correctness of a model or statement (presented in Table ), and (2) the likelihood , which provides a mapping from a probabilistic prediction to specific phrasing (shown in Table ).…”