Geovisualization for Constructing and Sharing

Concepts

Alan M. MacEachren, Mark Gahegan, & Bill Pike

GeoVISTA CenterGeography, Penn Statemaceachren@psu.edu

www.geovista.psu.edu

This work is supported by NSF (BCS-9978052, BCS-0113030, BCS-0219025) and the U.S.

Geological Survey

Outline

introduction background

HERO (human-environment regional observatory)

concepts and their visual representation

HERO geocollaboratory visually-enabled concept building

& sharing discussion: where next

www.geovista.psu.edu

Introduction scientific knowledge

science is dynamic scientific concepts change and evolve concepts are situated … in place, in time, in

tasks, in knowledge schemata, in paradigms …thus, static concepts (and ontologies and

knowledge maps) will produce static science we need methods to support dynamic and

situated concept development, sharing, and application

… our approach: visual representation, thinking, and collaboration methods

Background: HERO (human-environment regional

observatory)

conceptual and technological infrastructure to support long-term study of local implications of global environmental change

one goal support for defining and applying concepts

prototypical conceptvulnerability as a flexible

concept

Adaptive Capacity

Exposure

Sensitivity

Vulnerability

Assessment method

Vulnerability

Sensitivity C

Sensitivity B

Sensitivity A

Sensitivity A

Sensitivity C

Vulnerability

Vulnerability

Background: concepts and their visual

representation/exploration information visualization

representing and exploring hierarchies

depicting categorical information diagrammatic reasoning

visual languages for group learning spatial annotation for shared

decisions spatialization exploratory geovisualization

representing/exploring concepts: InfoVis

representing and exploring hierarchies

string theory landscape

source: Chen and Kuljis, 2003

job vacancies by region

source: Fluit, Sabou, van Harmelen, 2002

representing/exploring concepts: diagrams

visual languages for group learning

inputtexta b c

drawing

Belvedere – Suthers, 1999

conceptsprinciple

theory

hypothesisclaim

report

unspecified

relationssupports

explains

and

conflicts

justifies

undercuts

visual languages for group learning

spatial annotationfor shared decisions

inputtexta b c

drawing

Belvedere – Suthers, 1999

conceptsprinciple

theory

hypothesisclaim

report

unspecified

relationssupports

explains

and

conflicts

justifies

undercuts

Argumentation maps: GIS-based

discussion support for online planning

Rinner, 2001

representing/exploring concepts: diagrams

representing/exploring concepts: spatialization

source: Fabrikant & Skupin, in press

representing/exploring concepts: geovisualization

link graph … dynamically linked to … mapClearfieldClearfield ClearfieldClearfield

HERO geocollaboratory

collaboratory overview electronic notebook/knowledge

portal

HERO: geocollaboratory

a collaboratory is a: “... center without walls, in which the nation’s researchers can perform research without regard to geographical location – interacting with colleagues, accessing instrumentation, sharing data and computational resources, and accessing infor-mation from digital libraries” Cerf, et. al, NRC, 1993

HERO: collaboratory

supporting both synchronous and asynchronous joint work

HERO: collaboratorye-notebook

HERO: collaboratory

what does a geographic e-notebook look like?

HERO: elements in knowledge portal

Tools• GeoVISTA Studio applets• Web services

Files• Data• Images• Articles

Tasks• Experiment storyboards• Workflow diagrams

People• Individual scientists • Research groups• Domain communities

Concepts• Hypotheses• Categories

Visually-enabled concept building, sharing, and

application concepts to data and back

again visualizing structure in

scientific discourse concept graphing & acquisition

concepts to data and back again

knowledge mgt for collaborative science

instantiation

conceptualization

representation

capture

comparison

• ontology description language• meta-ontologies• concept graphs

• web interface• diagramming tools

• concept similarity measures• workflow discovery• exploratory visualization

concepts to data and back again

what concepts do we already have?

concepts to data and back againwhat concepts will be in the data?

concepts to data and back again

g

b

h

a fc e

ontological conceptualization

exploration of data to be analyzed

visual program of analysis sequence

resulting map overlay

operationalized concepts

d

visualizing structure in discourse

visualizing structure in discourse

Delphi discourse structure – concept development

visualizing structure in discourse

demographics

governance

development

climate trendsclimate trends

Delphi discourse structure – semantic network

concept graphing

interface to knowledge management

ontologiescreate from

scratchfrom

existing ontologies

editbrowse

HERO: knowledge portal

CODEX: a prototype knowledge management

system

Discussion

formalizing this approach extend concept visualization visual support for group

thinking empirical validation and

extension through the HERO living laboratory

challenges for collaborative science infrastructure

supporting situated work practices

overcoming resistance to introspection

relaxing domain constraints