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2007 GRC Program

Pre-conference Workshops

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Pre-conference Workshops

Pre-conference workshops will take place on Saturday, 30 June (morning and afternoon sessions) and Sunday, 1 July (morning session). Two concurrent workshops are scheduled:

• Design Principles for Creating Effective Visualizations
• Assessing the Effectiveness of Visualization Projects

The pre-conference Workshops are open only to conference participants, who must apply to participate in either workshop. The workshops are not affiliated with GRC, workshop applications are not accepted on the GRC website. They should be directed to the workshops organizer, Shaaron Ainsworth (shaaron.ainsworth@nottingham.ac.uk).

Design Principles for Creating Effective Visualizations

Workshop Leaders:

• Pat Hanrahan (Computer Graphics Laboratory, Stanford University, USA)
• Barbara Tversky (Psychology and Education, Columbia Teachers College and Stanford University, USA)

Prior to the workshop, participants should select and analyze for themselves some visualizations. Their analyses should consider what the visualization is meant to communicate and the graphic devices used in service of the communication. They should select 1-3 visualizations that are common and basic in their disciplines and/or they are working on for their own goals.

The first workshop session will overview how visualizations are perceived and understood and the tools for designing them.

A. From the mind to the external representation: Brief summary of research in perception and cognition that is relevant to the design of visualizations, including work on perception (color, shape, texture, light); attention (visual dominance, looking vs. attending, limited capacity, change blindness); and mental representations (verbal/symbolic vs. visuospatial; internal vs. external representations; graphic language (iconicity and meaning)).

B. From the external representation to the mind: Brief summary of graphic techniques that are effective in conveying different kinds of meaning, including the use of color, shape, texture, light; 3-D; and such non-iconic graphic devices as lines, arrows, boxes.

During the second session, participants will present for group discussion, their analyses of one or more visualizations basic to their disciplines. The ensuing discussion will raise such design challenges as: perspective, scale, and degree of visual detail; conveying change and invisible features such as force and weight; expressing sequential, branching, cyclical, and hierarchical structures and processes; conveying causation; using analogies; and creating narratives.

In the third session participants will work in small groups on examples of content they wish to visualize and/or on visualizations they wish to improve.

Prospective participants should provide a brief description of their visualization concepts or projects in their application for the Workshop, which should be forwarded to the Workshops Organizer, Shaaron Ainsworth (shaaron.ainsworth@nottingham.ac.uk), once they have been accepted as Conference participants.

The Workshop is only open to Conference participants. Further inquiries should be addressed to Pat Hanrahan (hanrahan@cs.stanford.edu) or Barbara Tversky (bt@psych.stanford.edu) or to the Workshops Organizer, Shaaron Ainsworth (shaaron.ainsworth@nottingham.ac.uk).

Assessing the Effectiveness of Visualization Projects

Workshop leaders:

• Michael Stieff (Curriculum and Instruction, University of Maryland, USA)
• David Geelan(Science Education, University of Queensland, AU)
• Shaaron Ainsworth (Psychology, University of Nottingham, UK)

The Assessment Workshop will describe the broad range of measures available to assess the potential outcomes of visualization technologies for teaching science. The objective of the workshop will be to familiarize participants with unique methodological approaches to assess changes in cognition, learning outcomes, pedagogical methods and social interactions that may result from using visualizations in scientific and educational settings.

The workshop will introduce methods in a practical manner, and participants are not expected to have prior experience in evaluation and assessment. Topics will include the justification and application of both quantitative and qualitative methods, formative and summative content assessment, protocolanalysis, case studies, randomized clinical trials, response time measures and participant observation. The workshop will emphasize the execution of various methods in authentic laboratory and classroom contexts.

During the workshop each participant will have the opportunity to design explicit assessment protocols for their own visualizations as well as collaborate with other workshop members on assessment designs. Workshop participants should come prepared to illustrate their own visualization tool or project and articulate potential assessment issues they wish to address. They should also bring with them a laptop suitably modified for wireless internet communication and problem-sharing. Prospective participants should provide a brief description of the visualization project they wish to assess in their application for the Workshop, which should be forwarded to the Workshops Organizer, Shaaron Ainsworth (shaaron.ainsworth@nottingham.ac.uk), once they have been accepted as Conference participants.

The workshop is only open to Conference participants and further inquiries should be addressed to Mike Stieff (mstieff@umd.edu) or to the Workshops Organizer, Shaaron Ainsworth (shaaron.ainsworth@nottingham.ac.uk).

Information

Enrollment in the workshops is limited. Inquiries and applications for participation in the workshops should be directed to:

Shaaron Ainsworth
School of Psychology
University of Nottingham
University Park
Nottingham NG7 2RD UK
shaaron.ainsworth@nottingham.ac.uk

There is a US$250 Registration fee for the Workshops, of which $125 will be covered by a grant from NSF. The fee includes room and board at Bryant University: lodging Friday and Saturday nights, 2 breakfasts and 2 lunches Saturday and Sunday, and coffee breaks during the Workshop. Participants are responsible for the cost of their Saturday evening meal. (The Conference Registration fee covers room and board at Bryant from Sunday evening through Friday morning, 1-6 July.)

After Conference Registration and acceptance for Workshop participation, a $125 check should be made out to "Middlebury College" and mailed to the Conference Co-Chair:

Dr. Christopher Watters
Department of Biology
Middlebury College
Middlebury, VT 05753

Only persons who have prepaid the Workshop Registration fee will be admitted to a Workshop.