Report of the Indiana University Research Data Management Taskforce

The “data deluge” in the sciences—the ability to create massive streams of digital data—has been discussed at great length in the academic and lay press. The ability with which scientists can now produce data has transformed scientific practice so that creating data is now less of a challenge in many disciplines than making use of, properly analyzing, and properly storing such data. Two aspects of the data deluge are not as widely appreciated. One is that the data deluge is not contained simply to the sciences. Humanities scholars and artists are generating data at prodigious rates as well through massive scanning projects, digitization of still photographs, video, and music, and the creation of new musical and visual art forms that are inherently digital. A second factor that is not well appreciated is that data collected now is potentially valuable forever. The genomic DNA sequences of a particular organism are what they are. They are known precisely. Or, more properly, the sequences of the contigs that are assembled to create the sequence are known precisely, while there may be dispute about the proper assembly. Such data will be of value indefinitely – and for example to the extent that we wonder if environmental changes are changing the population genetics of various organisms, data on the frequency of particular genetic variations in populations will be of value indefinitely. Similarly, video and audio of an American folk musician, a speaker of an endangered language or a ballet performance will be of value indefinitely although argument might well go on regarding the interpretation and annotation of that video and audio. Such images and associated audio can never be recreated, and are thus of use indefinitely

Prepared for Bradley C. Wheeler, Chief Information Officer, and Pat Steele, Ruth Lilly Interim Dean of University Libraries

The “data deluge” in the sciences—the ability to create massive streams of digital data—has been discussed at great length in the academic and lay press. The ability with which scientists can now produce data has transformed scientific practice so that creating data is now less of a challenge in many disciplines than making use of, properly analyzing, and properly storing such data. Two aspects of the data deluge are not as widely appreciated. One is that the data deluge is not contained simply to the sciences. Humanities scholars and artists are generating data at prodigious rates as well through massive scanning projects, digitization of still photographs, video, and music, and the creation of new musical and visual art forms that are inherently digital. A second factor that is not well appreciated is that data collected now is potentially valuable forever. The genomic DNA sequences of a particular organism are what they are. They are known precisely. Or, more properly, the sequences of the contigs that are assembled to create the sequence are known precisely, while there may be dispute about the proper assembly. Such data will be of value indefinitely – and for example to the extent that we wonder if environmental changes are changing the population genetics of various organisms, data on the frequency of particular genetic variations in populations will be of value indefinitely. Similarly, video and audio of an American folk musician, a speaker of an endangered language or a ballet performance will be of value indefinitely although argument might well go on regarding the interpretation and annotation of that video and audio. Such images and associated audio can never be recreated, and are thus of use indefinitely. In 2005 then-Vice President Michael A. McRobbie commissioned a Cyberinfrastructure Research Taskforce to provide advice as regards Indiana University's cyberinfrastructure plans and goals

Visualizing the Spatial and Temporal Distribution of User Interaction Data Collected in Three-Dimensional Virtual Worlds

This paper reports work in progress on the analysis and visualization of the spatial and temporal distribution of user interaction data collected in threedimensional (3-D) virtual worlds. Two tools are introduced. The “WorldMapper ” reads in a so-called propdump file and creates a 2-D clickable map showing the layout of the world as well as interaction possibilities such as teleports and clickable web links. The second tool visualizes user interaction data such as navigation, chatting, and Web access activity overlaid on the world map. Resulting visualizations are meant to support social navigation, design evaluation and optimization, and the study of virtual communities. Both tools are demonstrated on a 19-person information treasure hunt for information in a 3-D virtual world. The paper concludes with a discussion and an outlook

Cognitive Foundations for Visual Analytics

In this report, we provide an overview of scientific/technical literature on information visualization and VA. Topics discussed include an update and overview of the extensive literature search conducted for this study, the nature and purpose of the field, major research thrusts, and scientific foundations. We review methodologies for evaluating and measuring the impact of VA technologies as well as taxonomies that have been proposed for various purposes to support the VA community. A cognitive science perspective underlies each of these discussions