Information Visualization Seminar 
Computers provide the most plastic medium for representation, communication, and interaction we have ever known. This plasticity and the myriad ways computers are now enmeshed in our lives and in the infrastructure of science and society present enormous challenges and opportunities. Computationally-based forms of communication and interaction are changing the world in which we live and the ways we interact within it.

Computation is plastic in the sense that we can employ it to:

• mimic other media (e.g. books, magazines, photographs, audio recordings, and films), devices, and mechanisms of interaction,

• create models that represent, with ever increasing fidelity, the physical world, spanning from models of atoms and molecules to those used to forecast weather,

• provide virtual worlds that range from the simple metaphorical desktop of the graphical user interface to the amazing digital effects and virtual characters of current cinema, or

• combine the real and the virtual (e.g., during computer-augmented surgery images of internal structure are projected onto a patient's body to guide surgery and robotic-assisted controls remove the tremor of human hands).

Computers are special in that they provide a new kind of stuff out of which to fashion representations. Representations aid our thinking and assist us in communicating with others. It is in the ability to augment our perceptual, conceptual, and social interactions that computers have had, and are likely to continue to have, their greatest impact. To understand this impact and to ensuring that computationally-based system respect and augment human needs and abilities is an intellectual challenge of the highest order.

This seminar provides an introduction to current research in the new field of information visualization. Information visualization has origins dating to the beginnings of symbolic representation, and involves a diverse set of disciplines, ranging across computer science, epistemology, graphic design, linguistics, psychology, and semiology to newer perspectives emerging from cognitive science. As a field, it has grown dramatically in the last few years. We may be in the midst of a paradigm shift in how we think about information, one that starts to view information as being much more dynamic and reactive to the nature of our tasks, activities, and even relationships with others.

The goal of the seminar is not a comprehensive survey of information visualization but rather to help prepare you to propose an original research project in an information visualization area you find of interest. Seminar meetings will be devoted to discussion of readings and issues raised on the class blog. Early in the quarter we will discuss possible research topics and as the quarter progresses we will shift to specific readings chosen by seminar members to provide background for their proposals or projects.

Readings and Discussion  
For the seminar to be successful, you must actively participate. As an on-going activity during the quarter, you will share with the class your thoughts on the readings.You should contribute to discussions in the class blog.

There will be a reading assignment each week. It consists of required and optional readings. You are expected to read the required articles and provide a blog entry about them before class. Doing the required reading before we discuss them is extremely important. You should post your blog entry each week by Tuesday evening. This should help you keep up with the reading and help the week's seiminar leader identify issues that are important for us to discuss. It will also result in our jointly building a body of critical analysis.

For the first couple of weeks of the course I will workd with each of you to help you focus on a specitic area of information visualization. During these first few weeks I will cover some topics I hope some of you will find interesting.

During the first fiew weeks you are expected to settle on a general area of information visualization to pursue in greater depth. For the rest of the quarter we will jointly cover readings from areas you have choosen. You will be responsible for selecting one or two required readings (and no more than four), as well as a set of background and related readings, for a seminar segment you will lead. Leading a session means preparing a set of slides and helping to manage the discussion.

In the later portions of the seminar we will also allocate time to discuss your developing research ideas. Each participant will develop an NSF style research proposal. At the end of the course you will give a short presentation about your proposal and turn in a written version.

Proposal
Your proposal will be prepared as if it were to be submitted to the National Science Foundation. You can obtain information about proposal format from the NSF web site (http://www.nsf.gov). The proposal you turn in for the course should include only the project summary and project description sections.

The project summary should be no more than one page in length. According to NSF:

It should not be an abstract of the proposal, but rather a self-contained description of the activity that would result if the proposal were funded. The summary should be written in the third person and include a statement of objectives, methods to be employed, and the potential impact of the project on advancing knowledge, science and mathematics education, and/or human resource development. It should be informative to other persons working in the same or related fields and, insofar as possible, understandable to a scientifically or technically literate lay reader.

The project description is the key content portion of a proposal. For NSF proposals, it is limited to 15 pages. According to NSF:

It should be a clear statement of the work to be undertaken and should include: objectives for the period of the proposed work and expected significance; relation to longer-term goals of the PI's projects; and relation to the present state of knowledge in the field, to work in progress by the PI under other support and to work in progress elsewhere. The statement should outline the general plan of work, including the broad design of activities to be undertaken, an adequate description of experimental methods and procedures and, if appropriate, plans for preservation, documentation, and sharing of data, samples, physical collections and other related research products.

NSF proposals are submitted via Fastlane (http://fastlane.nsf.gov), a web-based system. While you are not required to actually submit a proposal to NSF, you might want to examine the Fastlane web site in order to better understand the proposal process. If you intend to undertake a research career, gaining expertise with the process of creating and submitting proposals can be extremely beneficial. It is not at all uncommon for graduate students to play important roles in the development of proposals. One of my students helped prepare the NSF proposal referenced in the optional readings for week one. Another current student contributed to a successful NSF proposal that funded his final years of graduate school.