[Infovis] CfP: VisWeek workshop on Collaborative Visualization on Interactive Surfaces

[Petra Isenberg]

*************** CALL FOR PAPERS  ******************

Workshop on Collaborative Visualization on Interactive Surfaces - CoVIS'09
http://www.medien.ifi.lmu.de/covis09

Approx. October 11, 2009, Atlantic City, New Jersey

In conjunction with VisWeek 2009 (Vis, InfoVis, VAST):
http://vis.computer.org/VisWeek2009/


IMPORTANT DATES

Submission deadline: August 1st, 2009
Notification of acceptance: August 26th, 2009
Final camera ready submissions: September 14th, 2009
Workshop: TBD - approx. October 11th, 2009


TOPICS

It is common for small groups of people to gather around visual displays 
of information to discuss or interpret the information to form decisions. 
Groups can share the task load of exploring large and complex datasets 
and can share various interpretations of a dataset when working together. 
However, tools to support synchronous collaboration between several people 
in their data analysis are still relatively scarce. Traditionally, 
visualization and visual analytics tools have been designed from a 
single-user perspective and for desktop computers. While hardware such as 
multi-touch displays and network capabilities have emerged that lend 
themselves especially well to collaboration, software support for 
collaboration around visualizations is still relatively scarce. One of the 
reasons is that single-user systems do not necessarily translate well to 
collaborative scenarios or interactive surfaces and require specific 
re-design.  
The design of digital systems for collaboration around visualization and 
visual analytics systems, therefore, poses additional challenges: we need 
to understand  (a) how people collaboratively work with visual representations 
of data and which methods they use to solve information analysis tasks as a 
team, and (b) what the exact design requirements are for collaborative 
visual analysis scenarios. 

In this workshop we would like to discuss these challenges and discuss 
the role of interactive surfaces as an emerging technology for supporting 
collaborative visualization and visual analytics settings.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

* the design of information visualization, scientific visualization, or visual analytics interfaces and environments for co-located collaborative work,
* design of interactive visual representations for collaborative work on interactive surfaces,  
* the use of interactive surfaces to visualize and interact with information and data,  
* social components in collaborative visual analysis environments,  
* aspects of cognition in multi-user visualization and visual analysis environments,  
* evaluation of collaborative information visualization, scientific visualization, and visual analytics systems,  
* multiple and coordinated views for collaborative visualization and data analysis systems,  
* design of multi-display environments for information analysis work,  
* collaborative visualization and visual analytics applications,  
* collaborative sensemaking, and
* experience with traditional collaboration in information and data intensive fields.  


OBJECTIVES

The main objective of the workshop is to bring people from academia and 
industry with relevant backgrounds together (a) to discuss ongoing research 
work in the field of multi-user collaborative visualization and visual 
analytics and (b) to jointly investigate how interactive surfaces can 
contribute to this area. This includes the analysis of problems encountered 
in the field, the presentation of specific solutions, and the discussion of 
special characteristics compared to the core research areas. The workshop 
is intended to be a platform to exchange information and experiences, to 
stimulate discussion, and to identify novel aspects and ideas to the topics 
above. During this workshop, we would like to identify a number of open 
problems that need further investigation and identify priorities to target 
research in this direction.

We would like to put an emphasis on the following two (interrelated) questions:

* What are the existing challenges inherent in designing interfaces 
  for visualizing, exploring, and analyzing data in a collaborative 
  fashion?
* What unique challenges exist in building visualization systems for
  collaborative environments?


SUBMISSIONS

Prospective participants are invited to submit position papers of up
to four pages in length which outline one or more potential
topics/solutions to discuss during the workshop. Accepted Papers will
be published in the technical report series of LMU Media
Informatics. This means that they will receive an ISSN number.

Papers should be formatted according to the IEEE Vis/InfoVis 2009 format:
http://www.cs.sfu.ca/~vis/Tasks/camera_tvcg.html

Submissions should be sent to Dominikus Baur:
dominikus.baur(at)ifi.lmu.de



ORGANIZERS
Petra Isenberg, University of Calgary (Primary Contact)
Michael Sedlmair, BMW Group - Research and Technology
Dominikus Baur, University of Munich
Tobias Isenberg, University of Groningen
Andreas Butz, University of Munich


PROGRAM COMMITTEE
Anastasia Bezerianos, Ecole Centrale Paris
Nathalie Henry, Microsoft Research
Stacey Scott, University of Waterloo
Michael Haller, Upper Austria University of Applied Sciences
Johannes Schöning, DFKI Saarbrücken
Shahram Izadi, Microsoft Research
Raimund Dachselt, Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg
Daniel Keim, University of Konstanz
David S. Ebert, Purdue University
Melanie Tory, University of Victoria


CONTACT US
If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at:
petra.isenberg(at)ucalgary.ca

For more information, please see the workshop web site:
http://www.medien.ifi.lmu.de/covis09