[Infovis] Visual Analytics Evaluation - SPECIAL ISSUE + other activities

[Plaisant, Catherine]

4 activities of interest related to the VISUAL ANALYTICS EVALUATION

1) CALL FOR PAPERS - Computer Graphics and Applications SPECIAL ISSUE 
 	(see details below)  SUBMIT by September 12th.

2) NEW RESOURCE on Visual Analytics Evaluation:  SEMVAST
 	http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/semvast/
JOIN our mailing list, CHECK our wiki listing workshops (e.g. Beliv'08)
and other activities

3) VAST CHALLENGE 2008 announced as a participation category of the
VisWeek 08 and the VAST symposium
	http://www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/VASTchallenge08/  now with
mini-challenges. PARTICIPATE, TEST your tools!

4) PAPER summurizing the findings of the VAST 2007 contest just appeared
in March issue of CG&A
	
http://www.computer.org/portal/cms_docs_cga/cga/homepage/2008/cg20080200
12.pdf 
	Read about the benefits of the contest to participants and our
community

Catherine Plaisant
HCIL, University of Maryland


Special Issue of IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications (CG&A)
                                 on 
                    Visual Analytics Evaluation

1st Call for Papers

Guest Editors:
Catherine Plaisant, Georges Grinstein and Jean Scholtz

Submissions Due:     September 12, 2008
Author Notification: December 15, 2009
Final Versions Due:  January 30, 2009
Publication:         May/June 2009 Issue of IEEE CG&A
    
Visual analytics (VA) is the science of analytical reasoning facilitated
by interactive visual interfaces. Assessing the effectiveness of visual
analytics technology is challenging because VA tools often combine
several disparate components, both low and high level, integrated in
complex interactive systems used by analysts. These components include
analytical reasoning, visual representations, computer human
interactions, data representations and algorithms, tools for
collaboration and especially for communicating the results of their
usage. Users' activities can be exploratory and can take place over
days, weeks or months. Users may not follow a predefined or even linear
work flow. Users may work alone or in groups. To understand these
complex behaviors, evaluation efforts can be targeted at the component
level, the system level, and the work environment level, and require
realistic data and tasks.  Traditional evaluation metrics such as task
time completion, number of errors, or recall and precision are
insufficient to quantify the utility of visual analytics tools, and new
research is needed to improve our visual analytics evaluation
methodology.

We invite submissions in all areas related to the Evaluation of Visual
Analytics. Topics include, but are not limited to

* Evaluation metrics and tools
* Insight characterization and measures
* Benchmark task and data set development
* Methodology of longitudinal case studies
* Characterization of the challenges of VA evaluation
* Survey of existing VA evaluation methodologies
* Lessons learned from specific evaluation activities
* Automation of evaluation
* Synthetic data set generation and usage

Articles should be no more than 10 magazine pages, where a page is 750
words and an image counts as 200 words. Citations should consist of the
12 most relevant references. Background can be provided for non-expert
readers in sidebars. Color images can be interspersed through the
article and should be limited to a total of 10. Visit CG&A style and
length guidelines at http://www.computer.org/cga/author.html.

Please submit your paper using the online manuscript submission service
at https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cs-ieee. When uploading your paper,
please select the appropriate special issue title under the category
"Manuscript Type." Also include complete contact information for all
authors and coauthors in the submission. If you have any questions about
submitting your article, please contact Manuscript Assistant Alkenia
Winston at cga-ma at computer.org.

Please direct any correspondence prior to submission the guest editors:
  Email: plaisant at cs.umd.edu; grinstein at cs.uml.edu; jean.scholtz at pnl.gov
  Phone: (301) 405-2768 - Catherine Plaisant
  Phone: (978) 934-3627 - Georges Grinstein