iv2012_tracerpresentation_phdwork
DESCRIPTION
"Comparison of Emerging Information Visualization Tools for Higher Education", PhD student presentation at IV2012 conference, with research developed within the TRACER project.TRANSCRIPT
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COMPARISON OF EMERGING INFORMATION
VISUALIZATION TOOLS FOR HIGHER
EDUCATIONMarta Pinto | Rui Raposo | Fernando
Ramos
Information Visualization Application | 13 July 2012
Montpellier, France
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Information Visualization (IV) is being used in many fields, including Education.
In a society driven by knowledge economy, information is relevant for all the
stakeholders of any field, and Higher Education is one the many fields which
are gradually grasping the advantage of the adoption of IV solutions in
activities linked to:.
• Decision making
• Sharing data and information of interest to institutions, decision makers at a
political or financial level, and to a wide range of public [Anderson,2008;
Powell, 2004].
• Accessing and manipulating massive data-sets, to benefit research, help to
visualize more complex systems and strengthen international
communication and collaboration in research [OECD, 2012].
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
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The evolution of IV is enabling its massive use worldwide by recognized governmental and non-
governmental organizations, institutions, services, entities, which have realized the power of this
type of communication and understanding of data and information on a large scale.
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
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Over the last few years IV has also gone beyond its focus on individual singled out objects with their
own sets of variables, to increasing the number of tasks of comparison of complex data. Complex
networks represented in IV [Lima, 2011]:
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
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Interest in researching IV for HIGHER EDUCATION?
European Higher Education Area
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
Diversity
transparent,
details about
institutions
• Benchmarking exercises.
• Classifying and ranking HEI study programs.
• Creating quality profiles.
• Comparable information.
https://www.facebook.com/ProjetoTracer
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HIGHER EDUCATION: the vast majority of data and deriving information is not available from open
databases, this means that it will need to be collected directly from institutions, a time consuming
task for whomever collects data and for institutions who may be see it as a burden [van Vught,
2012].
Data regarding HE is valuable to decision makers, and its visibility on the web may give institutions
prestige, helping them attract students, scholars and financial investment [Ortega, et al, 2008;
Butler, 2012].
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
DATASETS
Open and public use Use for
research and
knowledge transfer
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Search results in 4 IV tools for European Higher Education, with data regarding the Higher Education
Intitutions, propose to map diversity of HE and characterize HEI according to their autonomy, mobility,
ranking and classification.
1*. U-MAP TOOL: a classification tool
of European HE intitutions, with a
description of the profiles through 6
comparable dimensions. Decision
makers, general public.
(ongoing, demo stage, final report)
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
METHODOLOGY | TOOL SELECTION
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3*. UNIVERSITY AUTONOMY IN
EUROPE TOOL: lets the user
compare 28 HE systems regarding
their academic, organizational,
financial and staffing autonomy.
Decision makers. (finalized)
4. MAUNIMO TOOL: aiming to draw attention to various forms
and types of academic mobility.
(ongoing)
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
2*. U-MULTIRANK TOOL: derives from U-map. A global multi-ranking tool,
aiming to allow users to select HEIs performance indicators according to
their own preferences and priorities, and define the institutional profile of
their interest. Decision makers, general public. (ongoing, final report)
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METHODOLOGY | COMPARISON of TOOLS
Focusing on the design and interaction patterns of the tools, sustained on the
work of the three authors, we propose 3 tables to establish a comparison:
Heer and Shneiderman (2012) : taxonomy of tools that support the fluent and flexible use of
visualizations.
Gleicher, et al. (2008): visual comparison for IV, by. Both the work of these authors focus in a
more broad analysis of IV and its design.
Behrens (2008): comparison at a deeper level of the patterns in the IV tools, according to the
compiling of visualization methods.
* U-Multirank tool is not active online, analysis according to the information in the final report.
* U-Map tool , analysis according to the online available demonstration mode and final report.
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
3 tools compared
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COMPARISON 1: Heer, Shneiderman (2012) - Taxonomy of Tools that Support the Fluent and Flexible Use of Visualizations
PROCESS & PROVENANCE VIEW MANIPULATION DATA & VIEW SPECIFICATION
Record analysis histories for revisitation, review and sharing
Annotate patterns to document findings
Share views and annotations to enable collaboration
Guide users through analysis tasks or stories.
Select items to highlight, filter, or manipulate them
Navigate to examine high-level patterns and low-level detail
Coordinate views for linked, multi-dimensional
Organize multiple windows and workspaces
Visualize data by choosing visual encodings
Filter out data to focus on relevant items
Sort items to expose patterns
Derive
U-Map
University Autonomy in Europe
U-Multirank
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
Tools
Taxonomy
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Tools
Juxtaposition SuperpositionExplicit representation of relations
U-Map
University Autonomy in Europe
U-Multirank *
COMPARISON 2: Gleicher, et al (2011) - VISUAL COMPARISON FOR INFORMATION VISUALIZATION
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
visual comparison
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Tools
Visualzation MethodsU-Map
University autonomy in
Europe
U-Multirank
Display PatternsDiscrete quantities (Simple Bar Charts, Multiset Bar Charts and Stacked Bar Charts).
Behaviour Patterns
Filtering (Layering, Active Objects, Boundary Filters, Facet Browsing and Dynamic Query).
Arrangement (Selective Arrangement, Sortable Columns, Custom Dimensions and Isolated Comparisons).
Exploration ("Details on Demand" and DataTips).
Interaction Patterns include:
Boolean selection (usually done with interface elements such as radio buttons, checkboxes, and dropdown menus)
Spatial navigation (Drag and Drop and SelectionMasks). no data
Interaction patterns most common in use arethe selection of elements by interacting with the checkboxesor dropdown menus of the interface.
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
COMPARISON 3: Behrens (2008) - VISUALIZATION METHODS
U-Map and U-Multirank tools, allow the users to have behavior patterns such as filtering the information to access and arranging it facilitate understanding andcomparison tasks, and allowing for a deeper exploration ofdata and information by giving details on demand as well asdata tips.
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All tools have adopted the visual presentation of data in a sunburst layout, and only offer one
type of visualization method, what makes this set of tools limited in what it concerns the
exploration of visual displays and interface interactions design.
Each sunburst line represents a unique indicator, made up by its length, or a multitude of squares.
In University Autonomy in Europe the more squares are filled, the more autonomous the HE
system.
DISCUSSION & CONCLUSIONS
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
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Comparison by having visual
representation of 2 or more
instituions, according to specific
variables of interest to the user.
University Autonomy tool,
comparison is not allowed by
putting the sunburst graphs side by
side, visualization is not dynamic.
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
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U-Multirank enables the creation of the user-selected groups of sufficiently comparable institutions.
This two-step approach is completely new in international and national rankings.
3 set of tools are very similar in the visualization , and have non hierarchical data presentation.
2 set of tools are very similar in the interactions provided.
In such a strong social web context, it is noted that none of the IV tools allow the user to collaborate, annotate or share visualizations.
There would be advantages to allow the user to save the result of his interaction patterns, and to be able to export the visualization, or share it with others on the social web.
Marta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]
Comparison of Emerging IV Tools for Higher Education
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THANK YOU!
This research is financed by FEDER grants under Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade – COMPETE and by National Funds under FCT – Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia PTDC/CPECED/113368/2009COMPETE:FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-014394
Information Visualization Application | 13 July 2012
COMPARISON OF EMERGING IV TOOLS FOR HIGHER EDUCATIONMarta Pinto| [email protected] Raposo| [email protected] Ramos| [email protected]