Cloud Revolution: Exploring the New Wave of Serverless Spatial Data
An Embeddable Dashboard for Widget-Based Visual Analytics on Scientific Communities
1. 12th International Conference on Knowledge Management
and Knowledge Technologies (i-KNOW 2012)
5-7 September 2012
Graz, Austria
An Embeddable Dashboard for
Widget-Based Visual Analytics on
Scientific Communities
Michael Derntl, Stephan Erdtmann, Ralf Klamma
RWTH Aachen University
Advanced Community Information Systems (ACIS)
Informatik 5, Aachen, Germany
derntl@dbis.rwth-aachen.de
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
(Information Systems)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
1 These presentation slides by Michael Derntl are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
2. Motivation
Scientific results socially created in scientific
communities1
Quality of products success of community
Stakeholder interest in success factors
Classic indices: publications, citations –
established communities
New publication channels, new collaboration means
– Web 2.0, social media/networks, etc.
– Scattered information and large data volumes
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
(Information Systems)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
1W. A. Kornfeld and C. Hewitt. The Scientic Community Metaphor. IEEE Trans. Syst., Man, and Cybern., SMC-11(1):24-33, 1981.
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4. Dashboards and Visual Analytics
Requirements for visual analytics1
– Interactive display supporting exploration and reasoning
– Stakeholder oriented flexible view – personalization, …
Dashboard: viable tool for visual analytics
on scientific community datasets?
http://cdn.speedhunters.com/wp-
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5 content/uploads/2010/01/gasser7.jpg
(Information Systems)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
1J. J. Thomas and K. A. Cook, eds. Illuminating the Path: The Research and Development Agenda for Visual Analytics. IEEE, 2005.
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5. Pilot Community: TEL
TEL-Map: roadmapping and weak signal analysis in Technology
Enhanced Learning (TEL); supported by the TEL Mediabase1
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
(Information Systems)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
1M. Derntl, R. Klamma. A Mediabase for Technology Enhanced Learning in Europe. IEEE Learn. Tech. Newsletter, 14(3):2-5, 2012.
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6. Challenges
Configuring personalized dashboards
– Addressing different stakeholder groups
– Easy to set up / configure / use for non-technical people
– Reusability of the solution beyond the pilot case
Interactive visualization of arbitrary database query
results
– Different types of charts / graphs
– New visualizations should easily be createable
– Compatible with existing and new databases
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
(Information Systems)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
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7. Objectives
Web-based dashboard for visualising SQL query
results
Decoupling the hosting application from dashboard
application
Implementation of
– Dashboard frame containing visualization widgets
– Data visualization generator app
For pilot case at learningfrontiers.eu:
– Dashboard frame as a Drupal module
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
(Information Systems)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke – Reuse of user credendials
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8. Use Cases & GUI
Embedding Application
Widget Container
Control Viz 1 Viz 2
Pane
Viz n
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
(Information Systems)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
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10. Widget Creator
Selecting a database
connection
Entering an SQL query
Selecting a
visualization type
Instant preview using
Google Visualization
API
Publish as OpenSocial
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
(Information Systems)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke widget
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11. Technical Architecture
Dashboard Legend
Control Pane Widget Container Previously
Visualization existing
Layer Visualization Widgets
Newly
implemented
LAS Ajax Client
Lightweight Application Server (LAS)1
LAS HTTP Connector
Application
Layer LAS Services
LAS Database Connector
Data User & Widget Data Sources for
Data Sources for
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
Layer Data Visualization
Visualization
(Information Systems)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
1M. Spaniol et al. LAS: A Lightweight Application Server…In Proc. i-KNOW 2006, pp. 592-599, 2006.
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12. Components Interaction
Dashboard Container Lightweight Application Application Data Legend
2 1a Server (LAS) Component of the
Dashboard dashboard framework
User Data
User Management 1b
3 Component of the
Service embedding application
6b Widget Data
4a Dashboard 4b
5a 6a Service
Visualization Data Sources
Widget
5b Query
5c Database(s)
Service
Visualization Layer Application Layer Data Layer
1 Register user (on first visit; automatically done by the embedding application)
2 Hand over LAS user credentials to the dashboard container
3 Dashboard container log in user on LAS
4 Retrieve list of available visualization widgets
5 Display visualization in widget
6 Store user preferences (after all personalization actions; during evaluation: action log)
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
(Information Systems)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
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13. End-User Evaluation
Goal
– Evaluation of usability and usefulness
– Obtain feedback for improvement
Methodology
– Creation of ~20 visualization widgets on 3 TEL-Map databases
– Definition of default dashboard for first login
– TEL-Map partners / researchers tested according to
predefined tasks (=> use cases)
– Rating of the test participants has been determined using
surveys (18 five-point Likert scale items + 2 open questions)
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
(Information Systems) – Collection of usage data (user action log)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
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14. Evaluation: Participants
Survey was completed by 20 participants from TEL
context
On average they
– dedicate 2/3 of their current working time to TEL.
– have 8.5 years of experience with TEL
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
(Information Systems)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
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15. Evaluation: Usability Results
Higher scores for usability compared to usefulness
Negative correlation (p<.01) between years of experience
and usability/usefulness
N = 20 (M = 4.21 ± .68) 1 2 3 4 5
It is easy to remove widgets 4.90
It is easy to rearrange widgets 4.40
It is easy to resize the widget height and width 4.15
It is easy to detach widgets 4.55
Usability
It is easy to find the description of a widget 4.15
The widget descriptions are sufficient to understand the
3.85
widget content
The search interface is easy to use 3.85
It was easy to find relevant widgets 3.50
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
(Information Systems) It was easy to add available widgets 4.55
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
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16. Evaluation: Usefulness Results
Higher scores for usability compared to usefulness
Negative correlation (p<.01) between years of experience
and usability/usefulness
N = 20 (M = 3.72 ± .84) 1 2 3 4 5
The data covered by available widgets appears relevant
3.80
to me
The data covered by the widgets appears relevant to the
4.05
TEL community
The available widgets cover a broad range of TEL 3.90
The available categories are useful to search for
3.45
widgets
Usefulness
The style of the data visualizations is appropriate 3.65
The range of available data visualizations is sufficient 3.40
This dashboard has all the functions and capabilities I
3.05
expect it to have
The dashboard is useful to support mapping and
4.11
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
roadmapping activities in TEL
(Information Systems) The dashboard can support different TEL stakeholders
4.00
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke in observing data
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17. Evaluation: Qualitative Results
Experiences with creating a new widget (exploring the
data, offering visualizations)
– 14 tried, 7 succeeded (3 w/ error message on embed)
– Problems: Incomplete documentation, DB schemas unknown
Suggestions for improvement
– Missing access to data behind a visualization
– Useful for statistics about TEL, but less useful for
understanding the future
– Problems with meaning of visualizations and categories
– Complex visualizations hard to read
– Data export functionalities needed
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
(Information Systems)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
– Unintuitive interaction with the dashboard
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18. Evaluation: Action Log
Action Ranking
687 actions by 25 users traced
0 50 100 150 200 250 300
over 13 days (~27 per user)
Toggle control pane 196
Embed widget 141
Remove widget 101
Move widget 88
Top 10: # Embeds / Widget / Category Search by category 50
0 1 2 3 4 Search by keyword 30
Resize column 26
Search (1) 4.00
Resize widget 28
Social (1) 4.00
Create widget 17 During evaluation
Radar* (3) 3.00 Add/Rem column 10 After evaluation
Network (4) 2.75
Content (3) 2.33
Histogram* (4) 2.25
Papers (7) 2.14
Blogs (6) 2.00
Geographical (6) 2.00
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(Information Systems) Pie* (4) 2.00
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
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19. Conclusions and Further Work
Key points
– Dashboard embeddable anywhere with few HTML lines
– Visualization of scientific community data
– OpenSocial based widgets
– Google Visualization API based on SQL query results
– Arbitrary relational DB sources possible
– Pilot case: Drupal-based TEL portal; generally positive
evaluation
Limitations
– Visualizations limited to single SQL query
– More interactive and explorative features needed for visual
Lehrstuhl Informatik 5
analytics tasks
(Information Systems)
Prof. Dr. M. Jarke
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