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Development of InfoGraphic Services for Journals and Articles

By Tae-sul Seo, Principal Researcher, Science and Technology Information Centre, Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information

- November 2016 -

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This technical report was translated after modifying the following article:

Cho, S. and Seo, T. 2016. "Study on Development of Journal and Article Visualization Services”, J

Kor Soc Libr Inform Sci. 50(2): 183-196 (Korean)

Background

Scholarly journals represent the distribution medium for scientific and technical knowledge.

Numerous journals are being published around the world while several thousand journals

are in publication in South Korea. However, because most of the information in journal

articles is in text-based services, researchers spend much time in reading related articles.

Fig. 1: History of information retrieval

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Since long ago, abstracts of journal articles have been utilised to reduce time during

information search. The development of computers and telecommunications has

significantly decreased information retrieval time for researchers to obtain scholarly

information even without visiting physical libraries. During the mid-1990s, an introduction

of the Web has increased convenience with a graphical user interface as well as allowing

the full-text to be downloaded for reading. As the age of Web 2.0 emerged during the 21st

century, adopting the notion of Semantic Web has facilitated the link across information

resources. Recently, in tandem with proliferation of mobile platforms, the visualisation of

analysed information conveys information intuitively.

Visualisation enhances human understanding by transforming text data or information into

multimedia including tables, figures or videos. Visualisation improves human cognition

such as pattern recognition, summarisation, insight, inference and understanding (Patterson

et al., 2014). Moreover, the visualisation could provide an intuitive and effective search for

scholarly information. (Seo, T.-S. et al. 2014)

Trends in Journal Publishing Technologies

The notion of semantic publishing has emerged in order to increase readability of XML-

based journal articles (Shontton et al. 2009; Shontton 2009). Various efforts for semantic

publishing have been made, including visualisation techniques applied to journal articles.

Meanwhile, global journal publishers are testing various possibilities of visualisation for

scholarly information. Such testing includes IOP Publishing’s Article Evolution project,

Elsevier’s Article of the Future project and Wiley’s Anywhere Article project. The IOP

project (http://iopscience.iop.org/info/page/articleevolution) inserts a video abstract in an

article, rendering the article more accessible through audio and visual tools. The Elsevier

project visualises an integral part of the article by using a graphical abstract (2013). The

Wiley project allows readers to browse all figures in the article simultaneously by capturing

the content of an article with rapid navigation.

(http://olabout.wiley.com/WileyCDA/Section/id-819787.html) In addition, a cartoon

abstracts from Taylor & Francis had won the 2016 ALPSP Awards by the Association of

Learned & Professional Society Publishers (http://www.alpsp.org/ALPSP-Awards).

Data Models

Journal Data Model

Table 1 summarises user-based request items for information in scholarly journals by

readers, researchers, libraries and publishers. The traditional research information services

focus on the content of research information predominantly from readers’ perspective, as

indicated in Table 1. Moreover, detailed information on scholarly journals is on demand by

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various information consumers. Fig. 2 is a journal data model based on Table 1.

Table 1: User-based request items for information in scholarly journals

Fig 2: Journal data model (Cho et al. 2016)

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Article Data Model

Fig 3 is a diagram showing major items in the article data model of the Journal Article Tag

Suit (JATS), a technical standard by the National Information Standards Organization

(NISO). The JATS provides a broad set of 254 data elements and 135 attributes. To

visualise articles in scholarly journals, a selective set of items are necessary.

Fig 3: Article data model of the Journal Article Tag Suit (JATS) (NISO 2012)

Visualisation Techniques

Visualisation methods are divided into time visualisation (e.g. various time series graphs),

distribution visualisation (e.g. pie charts, tree maps), relation visualisation (e.g. bubble

charts), comparison visualisation (e.g. star charts) and spatial visualisation (e.g. mapping).

Furthermore, a infographic combines several visualisation methods with design components

and storytelling techniques. (Seo, T.-S. et al. 2014)

For scholarly journals and articles, journal infographic and article infographic can be

developed by creating visualisation models according to each data item as well as by

discovering and applying visualisation methods appropriate for each data element.

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Journal Visualisation Plans

An infographic representing all information items in a scholarly journal can be effective in

presenting journal information. Table 2 summarises visualisation items and visualisation

plans.

Table 2: Visualisation plans according to information items in scholarly journals

Category Item Visualisation Note (Information Provided)

Identifier

Journal Title -

Print ISSN -

Online ISSN -

Homepage URL Thumbnail Linking (comprehensive information

on scholarly journals)

Editor

EIC’s country National Flag Linking (reputation of EIC)

E d i t o r ’s geographic

distribution World Map

Publisher Publisher Name - Linking

Indexing Indexed in Banner Linking (scholarly journal impact)

Covered by Banner Linking

Copyright CCL Banner Linking (use term information)

Subject

Subject Category -

Scope TagCloud

For titles of articles published within

the next five years (scope of theme

covered)

Others

Publication Frequency Icon & Bold (information frequency)

Language Icon (readability)

Number of Article per

Year Icon & Bold (Information amount)

Launched in Bold (history)

Author Fee Icon (submission fee)

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Journal Article Visualisation Plans

A infographic representing all information items in a journal article can present journal

information effectively. Table 3 summarises visualisation items and plans.

Table 3: Visualisation plans according to information items in journal articles

Category Item Visualisation Note (Information Provided)

Front Matter

Journal Title -

Article Title Bold

Abstract TagCloud Full-text (summary information

according to word frequency)

Author Name Icon & National Fl

ag

Author identifier linking (reputation

and nationality of an author)

Vol./No./Page -

History - (up-to-date information)

CCL Banner Linking (use term information)

Article Body

Figure Icon & Button Linking (number of figures, preview)

Table Icon & Button Linking (number of tables, preview)

Equation Icon & Button Linking (number of equations,

preview)

Back Matter Reference Icon & Button Linking (number of references)

Developing Visualisation Services for Scholarly Information

Development Outline

Figure 4 is an outline for developing visualisation for both journals and articles.

Approximately 70 journals were selected from KPubS, which is an XML-based journal

publishing platform operated by the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information

(KISTI). Journal infographics were developed for each scholarly journal while article

infographics were developed for each journal article. All words in the TagClouds of both

journal and article infographics were interlinked to the DBPedia via the LOD technology.

The website for scholarly information visualisation service (http://open.kpubs.org) was

developed by PHP, and the data were converted into the JSON format. D3 was used for

visualisation.

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Developing Journal Infographics

A journal infographic provides a clearer visualisation for intuitive understanding relevant

information on journals. For such intuitive understanding, the infographics use visual items

such as journal thumbnail and images for publication frequency, number of article per year,

editor’s nationality, number of editors per continent and terms of use. Furthermore, detailed

information shows up at a click because an editor-in-chief uses the Open Researcher and

Contributor ID (ORCID) and terms of use adopts the Creative Commons License (CCL).

The ORCID and the CCL were hyperlinked to the detailed information.

Fig. 4: Development outline for visualisation of journals and articles

Instead of the scope of a journal, a TagCloud was created by using the title of journal

articles published within five years, and via the LOD interlinking, specific terminology is

immediately available.

Other information including bibliographic information remains text-based due to the least

value of visualisation.

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Fig. 5: Details in the infographic interface developed for a journal

Developing Article Infographics

If a user clicks on the button, “Archive,” shown in the journal infographic in the previous

section, a thumbnail will show up, sorting out the issues in a reverse chronological order. If

the user clicks one of the thumbnails, a list of articles for that issue will then show up.

Similarly, if the user further clicks on one of the articles, the user can then browse the

journal article infographics, as shown in Fig. 6.

The primary difference of journal article infographics from traditional text-based services is

that the former can display a full-text TagCloud rather than only abstracts by authors. In

addition, journal article infographics are able to provide the meaning of all words on the

TagCloud via the LOD interlinking to the DBPedia.

Furthermore, previews on all references, figures, tables and equations are also available at

the bottom.

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Fig. 6: Details in the infographics interface developed for journal articles

Discussion

Advances in Visualisation of Scholarly Information

The visualisation service developed in this study allows intuitive and prompt understanding

of journals and articles therein. Visualising scholarly information may contribute to

efficient retrieval of scholarly information by researchers. Furthermore, the efforts may

enhance the demand of visualising scholarly information, in turn fostering the scholarly

information industry.

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Fig. 7: Comparing interfaces of text-based services and visualisation services

However, users accustomed to the traditional scholarly information may need more time to

familiarise themselves with the new interface. Furthermore, such endeavour may face

opposing views. Thus, consensus between the academia and the industry on the scope and

extent of visualisation may be required.

Scholarly Implications

The meaning of the new features at the new interface requires consideration. 1) Instead of

the scope of scholarly journals, a TagCloud was created using the title of journal articles

published within the last five years and 2) instead of abstracts of articles, a TagCloud of

main texts was created. While the scope of scholarly journals provided by editors provides a

general overview of articles, the journal TagCloud provides the themes extracted from real

articles. Thus, referring to the TagCloud, editors can modify the scope of journals or

determine the future direction of the journal.

In addition, the TagCloud of main texts of an article can be an additional information tool

supplementing the author abstract. Namely, the article TagCloud can beneficially provide a

quantitative indicator for a specific theme handled in an article.

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Challenging Issues For a widespread use, visualisation of scholarly information faces several challenges, listed

as follows:

First, the number of XML-based articles is limited. As there are only few journals providing

completely XML-based texts in South Korea, PDF documents must be converted into XML documents to extend the visualisation services. A new technology is required to visualise

PDF documents, or cheaply convert PDF documents into XML documents because this

work requires much time and cost.

Second, the Korean dictionaries for the LOD are very few. As the DBPedia is an English

service, an automatic translation system must be developed to better connect to the Korean

literature and Korean dictionaries for the LOD such as the DBPedia must be developed.

Conclusion

This study introduced a pilot service to implement data model for the visualisation of

scholarly information. Further, the study presented visualisation techniques for each

scholarly information object and infographics for both journals and articles.

Scholarly information may be made more accessible to readers by adding visualisation

techniques beyond the traditional text-based services. However, the overuse of visualisation

may distort the information provided by journals and articles, and thus, an appropriate level

of visualisation is required.

The widespread use of visualisation services for scholarly journals and articles must be

preceded by the construction of structured information elements for full-XML texts.

Therefore, an XML conversion of scholarly articles or advanced visualisation technologies

for non-XML documents must be developed.

References [1] Seo, T.-S. et al. 2014. Strategy for Scholarly Information Service, Seoul: KISTI. [2] Cho, S.-N. et al. 2016. “Analysis of journal attributes of 403 KoreaScience journals from the viewpoint of author”, Science Editing, 3(1): 19-25. [3] “Designing the Article of the Future”. 2013. Innovation in Publishing. January 16. [online] [cited 2016. 5. 13.] <https://www.elsevier.com/connect/designing-the-article-of-the-future> [4] National Information Standards Organization (NISO). 2012. “JATS: Journal Article Tag Suite Version 1.0”, ANSI/NISO Z39.96. [5] Patterson, R. E. et al. 2014. "A Human Cognition Framework for Information Visualization," Compter Graphics, 42: 42-58. [6] Seo, T. and Choi, S. 2014. “Data Models for Visualization Service of Scholarly Journal and Article Information”, ICCC 2014 Proceedings, 155-156. [7] Shotton, D. 2009. "Semantic publishing: the coming revolution in scientific journal publishing," Learned Publishing. 22(2): 85-94. [8] Shotton, D. et al. 2009. “Adventures in Semantic Publishing: Exemplar Semantic Enhancements of a Research Article,” PLoS Computational Biology. 5(4): 1-17.