Exploring global terrorism data: a web-based visualization of temporal data

Recently, there has been a dramatic increase in both the amount of terrorism related literature and public interest towards the matter. Even so, it is difficult to gain access to relevant data. This is because much of the available data is not well organized nor of high quality, and available data is not very well presented. The GTD (Global Terrorism Database) [4] is an open-source database that has information on 75,000 terrorist events around the world since 1970 through 2004. It is managed by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland. This report will introduce the GTD Explorer, a web-based interactive visual exploratory tool that deals with this data. It counts the number of incidents grouped over a certain criteria, and stack charts on top of each other to see both individual and accumulated patterns of incidents over time. This tool provides insight to experts while making the data approachable and informa...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2008
• Where: CROSSROADS
• Authors: Joonghoon Lee
• Keywords: Available Data, CROSSROADS 2008, Dramatic Increase, Global Terrorism Database