S637: Information Visualization (Spring 2008)
Tell me, I forget, show me, I remember, involve me, I understand.
-- Benjamin Franklin

Instructor: Dr. Katy Börner
katy@indiana.edu
Office: Wells Library 021
Office Hours: Wed 4:00p-5:00p
Phone: 855-3256

Assistant Instructor: Russell Duhon
rduhon@indiana.edu
Office: Wells Library 020
Office Hours: Tue 1:00-2:00p

This course was taught in Spring 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, and 2006. So far, students' final projects resulted in nine Workshop/Conference papers.

Lecture: Thursday 9:30 - 10:45a LI 001
Lab: Thursday 11:00a -12:15p LI002

Majordomo List katy_s637-l@indiana.edu
Class Webpage http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~katy/S637-S08
Project Handin Webpage: http://teach.slis.indiana.edu/handin/S637-S08/cgi/login.cgi

Lecture and lab notes are accessible in my ella directory '~katy/www/S637-S08/*.ppt'
Software is linked from http://nwb.slis.indiana.edu/software.html. See also documentation at http://iv.slis.indiana.edu/sw.

Supplemental Readings

Online Resources

 

Description | Grade | Policies | Outline | Resources

Course Description

The visual representation of information requires a deep understanding of human perceptual and cognitive capabilities, computer graphics, interface and interaction design, as well as creativity.

Information - such as log files reporting access of webpages or paper-citation network data - is typically non-spatial or abstract and needs to be mapped into a physical space that will represent relationships contained in the information faithfully and efficiently. If done successfully, visualizations can provide a very intuitive and efficient "interface between two powerful information processing systems - the human mind and the modern computer" [Gershom et al., 1998].

This course provides an overview about the state of the art in the emerging field of information visualization. It will highlight the process of producing effective visualizations that take the needs of users into account and illustrate practical visualization procedures. It will cover the

The course objective is to give you a working knowledge of how to effectively visualize abstract information and hands-on experience in the application of this knowledge to specific domains, different tasks such as browsing or organizing information for diverse and possibly non-technical users.

The course utilizes a combination of lectures, presentations and discussions, and projects. It also comprises Overview & Discussion sessions that present state of the art tools for the visualization of diverse data sets. There will be in class presentations of public-domain software and you will work with software packages that have been developed for this course. You will be expected to do weekly Readings, to provide a Presentation of specific readings, to participate in class, and to work in teams for projects 2 through 4 improving your social competence.

 

Description | Grade | Policies | Outline | Resources

Grade

Individual and group work will be evaluated according to how well the course material is understood and implemented into projects, quality of written and oral presentations. You are expected to spend about 8 hours per week outside of class for readings, presentation, and projects.

The final grade will be based on class participation (20%), presentation of selected readings (10%), projects (50%), and a written final exam (20%). Grades are assigned according to the grading standards of SLIS.

Class participation:
The quantity and quality of contributions made to class (especially during paper discussions) and electronic discussions counts for 20% of the grade.
All students will be expected to study the assigned readings before each class and to participate in class by asking and answering questions. Readings are assigned for study in preparation for class discussion. Thus, class 2 readings should be completed before attending the second week's class.

Presentation of selected readings:
The 20 minute presentation will address a specific topic/question and will be based on readings from the literature or Internet. Sources will be provided. If you can find more that's great. See Preparation of Presentations for more details.
You are expected to consult the instructor during office hours the week in which you will give the presentation. Prepare your presentation as well as any specific questions you may have in advance.

Projects:
There will be diverse projects. On some, you will work in teams. Submit links to resulting webpages via the project handin webpage at http://ella.slis.indiana.edu/~katy/handin/S637-S08/cgi/handinlogin.cgi. Projects will be graded according to

Final exam:
The final exam primarily tests your knowledge of the material presented in class and the assigned readings.
In class 13 you will have the opportunity to write six test questions and exemplary answers that test main course topics. This will give you the opportunity to evaluate course topics, reflect on what you understood, and what are good test items for the upcoming final exam. The resulting set of questions as well as missing material will be discussed in class 14 as preparation for the final exam.

Credits: 3 for S637

 

Description | Grade | Policies | Outline | Resources

Policies

  1. Class attendance: Please do let me know if you can't make it to a class.
  2. Plagiarism: Clearly indicate if you use materials from other sources. Academic and personal misconduct by students in this class are dealt with according to the Student Disciplinary Procedures.
  3. Late Handin Policy: Late assignments or incompletes are allowed only because of an unforeseen emergency that is preceded by diligent work, not for a pattern of weak performance. No individual student will be allowed to do extra work to raise the final grade or to make up missing work. All grades become final one week after the material is returned to you. If there is a medical or personal reason requiring you to miss an exam, you must present your excuse in writing, and some physical proof. Course work handed in
    • within the first 10 min past due time will receive at most 90% of the possible points.
    • between 10 to 60 mins past due time receive at most 50% of the possible points.
    • more than one hour too late receive F.
    Make sure you submit projects in time and your programs/webpages work ok!

 

Description | Grade | Policies | Outline | Resources

Course Outline

The class schedule may change as the course progresses; changes will be posted on the course website and the majordomo-list.

Introduction

Class 1: (01-10-2008) [ivc-class01.ppt, iv-natl-geog.ppt]
Course description & outline, class format, grades, resources.
Information Visualization - Overview, history, relation to other disciplines.
Lab: Examination and discussion of successful information visualizations. Kartoo, InfoZoom, Thinking Machine, The Brain, Visual Thesaurus, Touchgraph, Marketmap, NetScan, Baby Name Wizzard, TextArc, Visible Human Viewer, MapBlast (LineDrive), ZIPdecode, ClustrMaps, Google Earth
Software: InfoVis Cyberinfrastructure and NWB Tool
Overview & Discussion: Designing remarkable and insightful visualizations

Project 1: Personal Webpage - Design a personal webpage that tells about your skills, interests, and expectations of the course. Select and discuss three visuals that are important for you and/or helped you understand what words could not explain.
Due 01-16-2008 at 4pm (~ 1 week)

Class 2: (01-17-2008) [ivc-class02.ppt, iv-web-dirs.ppt, iv-searchr.ppt]
Setting the context (Science of data visualization [Ware, 1999] chapter 1); The human visual system & a science for data visualization (Environment, optics, resolution and display [Ware, 1999] chapter 2; Lightness, brightness, contrast and constancy [Ware, 1999] chapter 3; Color [Ware, 1999] chapter 4).
Watch: Felice Frankel's Envisioning Science: The Design and Craft of the Science Image.
Lab: Sketch your life.
Presentations:

Overview & Discussion: Web Topology, Web and File directories.

Project 2: Display, Print & Plot: Examining Output Media.
Due 01-23-2008 at 4pm (~ 1 week)

Class 3 - GUEST LESTURE: (01-24-2008)
NWB Tool Workshop by Weixia (Bonnie) Huang
Reading: Herr II, Bruce W. , Huang, Weixia (Bonnie) , Penumarthy, Shashikant & Börner, Katy . (2007). Designing Highly Flexible and Usable Cyberinfrastructures for Convergence . In Bainbridge, William S. & Roco, Mihail C. (Eds.), Progress in Convergence - Technologies for Human Wellbeing (Vol. 1093, pp. 161-179), Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Boston, MA.

Project 3: User-Centered Design, Discussion and Evaluation of a Tree Visualization
Due 02-06-2008 at 4pm (~ 2 weeks)

Perception for Design

Class 4: (01-31-2008) [ivc-class03.ppt]
Making information visible (Visual attention and information that pops out [Ware, 1999] chapter 5; Static and moving patterns [Ware, 1999] chapter 6; Visual objects and data objects [Ware, 1999] chapter 7).
Watch: Jeff Han: Unveiling the genius of multi-touch interface design, TED Talk.
Presentations during Lab:

Class 5: (02-07-2008) [ivc-class04.ppt, ivc-class05.ppt]
Perception and interaction. Optical illusions. (Space perception and the display of data in space [Ware, 1999] chapter 8; Images and words [Ware, 1999] chapter 9)
Watch: Blaise Aguera y Arcas: Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo, TED Talk.
Read: Illuminated Diagrams and TraceEncounters by W. Bradford
Presentation:

Lab: Exploration and discussion of diverse static and dynamic illusions.

Project 4: Visual Perception Principles in Action
Due 02-13-2008 at 4pm (~1 week)

Information Visualization

Class 6:  (02-14-2008) [ivc-class06.ppt]
Display techniques: Temporal, tabular, and multidimensional data displays.
Reading: Nahum Gershon, Stephen G. Eick and Stuart Card (1998) Information visualization, Interactions, March & April, pp. 9-15.
Nahum Gershon & Ward Page (2001) What storytelling can do for information visualization. Communications of the ACM, 44(8), pp. 31 - 37.
James J. Thomas and Kristin A. Cook (Eds.) (2005) Illuminating the Path: The Research and Development Agenda for Visual Analytics,National Visualization and Analytics Center.
Watch: Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you've ever seen, TED Talk.
Presentations:

Lab: TimeSearcher & GRIDL. Infozoom, Tableau Software & BlogPulse 

Project 5: Viewing Data from Multiple Perspectives
Due 02-27-2008 at 4pm (~ 2 weeks)

Class 7:  (02-21-2008) [ivc-class07.ppt]
Display techniques: Trees
Reading: Treemaps & Treemap publications. To Draw a Tree by Pat Hanrahan.
Presentations:

Overview & Discussion: Trees
Lab: Hyperbolic Trees, Radial Trees, Treemaps. Discussion of project 5 progress.

Class 8:  (02-28-2008) [ivc-class08.ppt, ivc-final-project.ppt]
Display Techniques: Networks
Reading: Force Directed Layout, Pathfinder Network Scaling, Network Analysis & Visualization,
Presentations:

Lab: Pajek, VxInsight. Simple graph match, ABSURDIST & Similarity Flooding.

Project 6: Design an Interactive Visualization of a Dataset
Due 04-16-2008 at 4pm (~ 6 weeks excluding Spring Break)

Class 9: (03-06-2008) [ivc-class09.ppt, iv-kdvis.ppt]
Display techniques: Text data and semantic data landscapes.
Reading: Katy Börner, Chaomei Chen, & Kevin Boyack. Visualizing Knowledge Domains. In Blaise Cronin (Ed.), Annual Review of Information Science & Technology, Volume 37, Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc./American Society for Information Science and Technology, chapter 5, pp. 179-255, 2003.
Presentations:

Overview & Discussion: Visualization of Knowledge Domains
Lab: Discussion of final project plans.

Class 10: (03-13-2008) Have a nice Spring Break!

Class 11: (03-20-2008) [ivc-class11.ppt]
Display techniques: Geographic data landscapes and activity patterns.
Reading: Election 2004 Results, Maps and cartograms of the 2004 US presidential election results, Worldprocessor.org
Presentation:

Lab: CAIDA tools, WiGLE, Urban Security Project, Time Maps, Named storms, Cabspotting

Class 12 - GUEST LESTURE: (03-27-2008) [ivc-class12.ppt, iv-activity-patterns.ppt]
Display techniques: Paper Printouts of large Scale Visualizations by Bruce Herr
Reading: Herr II, Bruce W. , Ke, Weimao , Hardy, Elisha F. & Börner, Katy . (2007). Movies and Actors: Mapping the Internet Movie Database . Conference Proceedings of 11th Annual Information Visualization International Conference (IV 2007), Zürich, Switzerland, July 4-6, IEEE Computer Society Conference Publishing Services, pp. 465-469.
Lab: Lilly Library Tour with Rebecca Cape, please meet her at the Lilly Library Foyer at 11am.

Class 13: (04-03-2008) [ivc-class13.ppt]
 Lecture: Interaction techniques (Interacting with visualizations [Ware, 1999] chapter 10).
Reading: Christopher Ahlberg, Christopher Williamson and Ben Shneiderman (1992) Dynamic queries for information exploration: An implementation and evaluation. Conference Proceedings on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 619 - 626. Magic Lens Demo, TaskGallery Video
Presentation:

Lab: Discussion of intermediate final project results

Class 14: (04-10-2008) [ivc-class14.ppt]
Distortion techniques.
Reading: Piccolo Toolkit, Map of Springfield and GeoZui3D
 Presentation:

Lab:  FishEye table, bifocal displays & zoom.

Student generated test questions: Write five test questions and exemplary answers that test main course topics. This will give you the opportunity to evaluate course topics, reflect on what you understood, and what are good test items for the upcoming final exam. Submit result via email to katy@indiana.edu by 4-16-2008. Use subject header ‘S637-5Q'.

Class 15:  (04-17-2008) [ivc-class15.ppt]
Current trends in information visualization & remaining fundamental problems in the field. Taxonomies. Scalability and complexity issues.
Reading: Keim, D. Visual Exploration of Large Data Sets. Communications of the ACM, Vol 44, No 8, August 2001.
Browse position papers for the Information Visualization Software Infrastructures workshop, Free Code Graphing Project and TeraGrid.
Presentations:

Lab: Discussion of test questions as preparation for final exam.

Talk by Pat Hanraham (04-17-2008)
See Networks and Complex Systems talk series web site for details.

Final Project & Exam

Class 16: (04-24-2008)
Final Project Demo

Final Exam on Monday April 28th, 2008, 10-11am, LI 001.
It will be open book - you can use all your notes etc. You will not be able to use a computer.

 

Description | Grade | Policies | Outline | Resources

Resources

This section of the course webpage will frequently be updated. Please suggest links to include.

Related Classes

Last Modified 01.07.08 | Design by Elisha Hardy & Katy Börner