In the 2005 publication "Illuminating the Path" visual analytics was defined as "the science of analytical reasoning facilitated by interactive visual interfaces". A lot of work has been done in visual analytics over the intervening five years. While visual analytics started in the United States with a focus on security, it is now a worldwide research agenda with a broad range of application domains. This is evidenced by efforts like the European VisMaster program and the upcoming Visual Analytics and Knowledge Discovery (VAKD) workshop, just to name two.

There are still questions concerning where and how visual analytics fits in the large body of research and applications represented by the VisWeek community. This panel will present distinct viewpoints on what visual analytics is and its role in understanding complex information in a complex world. The goal of this panel is to engender discussion from the audience on the emergence and continued advancement of visual analytics and its role relative to fields of related research. Four distinguished panelists will provide their perspective on visual analytics focusing on what it is, what it should be, and thoughts about a development path between these two states. The purpose of the presentations is not to give a critical review of the literature but rather to give a review on the field and to provide a contextual perspective based on the panelists' years of experience and accumulated knowledge.

Each panelist will have at most 15 minutes to present their position in order to establish the context for the audience. The rest of the time will be open for questions. The panel organizer will oversee the panel and ensure there are numerous questions of the panelists.

On August 6, 2010 this world lost Jim Thomas. His influence and impact on our community were clear and profound with conferences, funding programs, research groups, consortia, government agencies, and industry. Through his intellect, energy, and passion Jim was able to create an international movement and shape a new discipline — visual analytics. This discussion on the future of visual analytics is dedicated to Jim and his work. Jim will be greatly missed but his influence and passion will always be felt.

The overall goal of this panel is to start a dialogue between the visualization community and the biology/bioinformatics community. The goal is to inform the visualization audience of challenges from both sides and encourage a discussion for how these communities can collaborate more extensively. Ultimately we hope to connect people between communities and to promote interaction between them. To that end, this panel is one part of a larger, more ambitious agenda.

» VisWeek Panel — Thursday, 10:30AM-12:10PM
Using Visualization for Storytelling on the Web

In recent years, interactive graphical visualization has begun to evolve from an analysis tool used within corporations and research labs to a medium for storytelling on the public web. One reason for this evolution has been advances in the technology for visualization on the web. Early experiments implemented as Java applets had limited audiences because most people did not install Java plug-ins in their browsers. Flash superseded Java because Flash was used to bring video to the web, which caused most people to install the Flash plug-in in their web browsers. However, iPads do not support Flash. In the future, we will probably be moving to the emerging HTML 5 standard, which looks like a promising technology for visualization on the web that will be supported by all major browsers. A second reason for this evolution is that data is indispensible to certain kinds of storytelling. For example, newspaper articles regularly report findings based on analyzing data from scientific and government sources. Bloggers at various institutions use data to challenge conclusions of traditional media and special interest groups. On the Internet, writers include links to raw data that can be used by readers to verify and understand a story's summary statistics. Online journals are increasingly requiring scientists to publish their data in addition to their conclusions. A third reason for this evolution is the increasingly availability of public data that can be used very effectively for storytelling on the web. For example, data.gov grew from a small number of data sets in May 2009 to over 1200 raw data sets in March 2010. However, we are still learning how to use visualization effectively on the web for storytelling.

This panel will give examples of how interactive visualization is already being used on the web to support effective storytelling. The goal is to identify areas for further research. We will consider both the authors and their readers. What requirements do authors have for creating visualizations? Do readers interact with visualizations? Are there particular design patterns that are effective?

» VisWeek Panel — Thursday, 4:15PM - 5:55PM
Perspectives on Teaching Data Visualization

We propose to present our perspectives on teaching data visualization to a variety of audiences. The panelists will address issues related to increasing student engagement with class material, ways of dealing with heavy reading load, tailoring course material based on the audience and incorporating an interdisciplinary approach in the course.

Developing and teaching truly interdisciplinary data visualization courses can be challenging. Panelists will present their experiences regarding courses that were successful and address finer issues related to designing assignments for an interdisciplinary class, textbooks, collaboration-based final projects.

» VisWeek Panel — Friday, 8:30 AM - 10:40 AM
Visualization Theory: Putting the Pieces Together

Theory is an increasingly hot topic in visualization, expanding from its traditional origins in low-level perception and statistics to an ever-broader array of fields and subfields. Modern visualization theory includes color theory, visual cognition, visual grammars, interaction theory, visual analytics, information theory, and a growing but so far vaguely defined area of theory specific to visualization itself. In this panel, we bring together researchers who are studying visualization theory from these numerous different perspectives and ask how these disparate topics can combine and comment on one another to create a more unified body of theory and answer pressing research questions.