Supporting Information Visualization Through Topic Maps

We are living a phenomenon of accelerated information production with different accessing sources. Hence users are faced with a growing problem: accessing (navigation) and filtering specific information contained in large datasets, which are increasing in size. Procedures such as data filtering and gathering are now simplified through a new concept known as Topic Maps. The application of Virtual Reality technologies enables to present and interact with multidimensional information in a 3D space. In this paper we present INSPHERE, a new visual metaphor for information visualization, based on both, Virtual Reality techniques, and “geographical information maps” provided by Topic Maps

Ulisses: um navegador conceptual para topic maps

A norma ISO-IEC 13250 – Topic Maps – faz a ponte entre os domínios de representação de conhecimento e gestão de informação. Tópicos e associações formam uma rede semântica estruturada sobre os recursos de informação. Este artigo tem por objectivo a visualização eficiente desta camada semântica, a qual é um assunto crítico porque topic maps podem conter milhões de tópicos e associações. Este artigo é dividido em 3 partes. Primeiro, apresenta-se brevemente os conceitos de Topic Maps. Então, são revistas algumas técnicas de visualização de Topic Maps. Finalmente, é descrita a ferramenta de visualização ao desenvolvida e descrita a forma de ser utilizada – e aprimorada – para a visualização de Topic Maps.The ISO standard ISO-IEC 13250 – Topic Maps – provide a bridge between the domains of knowledge representation and information management. Topics and topic associations build a structured semantic link network above information resources. This research aims at visualizing this semantic layer efficiently, which is a critical issue as topic maps may contain millions of topics and associations. This paper has 3 parts. First, we depict briefly basic Topic Maps concepts. Then, we review a few topic map visualization techniques. Finally, we describe the visualization tool we developed and study how this tool may be used – and enhanced – for Topic Maps visualization

Software for Spatial Statistics

We give an overview of the papers published in this special issue on spatial statistics, of the Journal of Statistical Software. 21 papers address issues covering visualization (micromaps, links to Google Maps or Google Earth), point pattern analysis, geostatistics, analysis of areal aggregated or lattice data, spatio-temporal statistics, Bayesian spatial statistics, and Laplace approximations. We also point to earlier publications in this journal on the same topic

Visualizing Social Science Research in an Institutional Repository

Using text mining and visualization techniques to identify the topical coverage of text corpora is increasingly common in a number of disciplines. When these approaches are applied to the titles and abstracts of articles published in an academic journal, it yields insight into the evolution of scholarly content in the journal. Similarly, text mining and visualization can reveal the topical coverage of items archived in an institutional repository. This poster will present initial results from mining the text and visualizing the abstracts of social science research in one university’s institutional repository. Generating a topic map visually demonstrates how research in a repository clusters around specific domains in the social sciences. These topic maps are potentially useful to librarians and researchers seeking to learn more about the topical coverage of items in their repository and determine if the research is reflective of the scholarly output from an institution more broadly

Topic Maps : a bibliometric study

Topic Maps is an international standard (ISO/IEC 13250) to describe and encode knowledge structures and associating them with relevant information resources. This thesis seeks to investigate what has been written about Topic Maps from year 2000 to 2011, as well as finding out the research and publication trend in Topic Maps. This study was based on quantitative methodology, which was bibliometric analysis. The data was collected from Scopus and Web of Knowledge databases. Search keywords used are “topic map”, “topic maps” and “ISO/IEC 13250”. A total of 356 publications (265 conference papers, 91 journal articles) from 2001 to 2011 taken into data analysis. The findings revealed that Topic Maps researchers had a preference to present their findings in conference rather than in journal. The authorship pattern was more towards coauthorship. Most researchers were coauthored locally, as international collaboration was very low. Computer science and library and information science related journals were the favourite publishing venue. Majority of the conferences were computer science and education related. The focus of the topic maps was on data integration and interoperability (2001-2004), information theory (2005 – 2008), knowledge and intelligent based system (2009 – 2011). Also, there were five themes identified, namely content management, repository, ontology, information architecture, retrieval and navigation, and semantic web. The future research areas will possibly be collaborative e-learning system, knowledge visualization system, visualization construction, semantic metadata creation from a relational database, knowledge navigation and retrieval improvement, intelligent topic map, distributed knowledge management based on extended topic maps, knowledge service system, knowledge representation modeling, and multi granularity and multi-level knowledge.Joint Master Degree in Digital Library Learning (DILL

Visualizing Fantasy Fiction: Design of a Class in Digital Scholarship and Visualization, including Research, Organization and Digital Visualization, that Does Not Require Programming or IT support

This paper outlines a course to integrate digital visualizations into undergraduate research. These visualizations will include mapping and timelines of events, and the ability to hyperlink the events, characters, and story lines in a fantasy fiction story such as Lord of the Rings or A Game of Thrones. The digital scholarship will involve the methodology for collecting, organizing, and representing the data for the visualizations. The topic for the visualizations in this paper is fantasy fiction; however the methods to develop these visualizations will be applicable to many academic disciplines, including the humanities and social sciences. The paper outlines the justification for this class, the appropriate audience for this class, and the tools needed. Types of projects and homework assignments to implement the visualizations are suggested. It concludes with a syllabus outlining a typical schedule for this class

Embedding Spatial Software Visualization in the IDE: an Exploratory Study

Software visualization can be of great use for understanding and exploring a software system in an intuitive manner. Spatial representation of software is a promising approach of increasing interest. However, little is known about how developers interact with spatial visualizations that are embedded in the IDE. In this paper, we present a pilot study that explores the use of Software Cartography for program comprehension of an unknown system. We investigated whether developers establish a spatial memory of the system, whether clustering by topic offers a sound base layout, and how developers interact with maps. We report our results in the form of observations, hypotheses, and implications. Key findings are a) that developers made good use of the map to inspect search results and call graphs, and b) that developers found the base layout surprising and often confusing. We conclude with concrete advice for the design of embedded software maps.Comment: To appear in proceedings of SOFTVIS 2010 conferenc