Definition:

• SHIVA stands for "SHANTI Interactive Visualizations Application"

• Access SHIVA either through its own site, or through Mediabase

• SHIVA is an online application that makes it easy to create interactive visualizations using various forms of media—such as photographs, videos, and texts

• Also create visualizations from sets of your own numerical data, formatted in a Google docs spreadsheet according to the requirements of a particular visualization

• Create charts, tables, maps and subway maps, network graphs, timesliders, gauges, videos with annotation, images, and slideshows 

• SHIVA can be used alone, or in conjunction with various open source and open access web tools, such as Google's Visualization Toolkit and Maps, YouTube, Vimeo, and Kaltura videos, the SIMILE timeline from MIT, and images from ARTstor, Flickr, and Picasa

• The visualizations you create can be used as stand-alone webpages, embedded into existing WordPress and Drupal sites, or combined into fully interactive visualizations, where you can make sophisticated interactions between them

Related definitions:

• Mediabase

Related step-by-step guides:

• For general information on using SHIVA, see Menu Block 1: Creating SHIVA Visualizations 

• For general information on using Google Docs spreadsheets to upload data into SHIVA, see the Load Your Data into SHIVA Using Spreadsheets guides