Our user testing on TaxonTree did indicate that undergrads at least enjoy browsing when there is animation and optional zooming. However, I'm concerned at the speed of the animation in this particular implementation -- there is a risk of disorientation even though the layout is more predictable and retrievable than a hyperbolic tree. Personally, I found it a little difficult at first to distinguish the children with different parents at the same level. DOI does help. We used DOI (among other techniques) in CandidTree, an app. that is being presented tomorrow at Interact 2007. Our focus was on comparing trees, and I guess I can't say we tested with "normal folk" as our subjects were either curators or Microsoft employees :-)

Cyndy

Rebecca Shapley wrote:

Yes, it's a degree of interest interaction. There have been various attempts to implement this DOI idea since it came out, and I'm pointing to this one as a rather novel implementation, that may overcome some of the usability issues seen with hyperbolic trees, etc.

I would definitely test its usability with a taxonomic tree data set and some "normal folk" before advocating it as the ultimate solution for an EOL project. Denise Green and I did these types of usability tests on three interactive tree presentations available in 2005, providing something of a baseline against which this particular interaction style might be judged. See: http://groups.sims.berkeley.edu/TOL/docs/GreenShapleyTOLFinalReport.pdf (4 MB)

-R.

May be a reason why few people use these nice tools is, that you do not get a lot out of them. And this might also explain, why such highly unstructured initiatives like Wikipedia or ecoport are flourishing. They have content, and to some extent, individuals can add more to it, and thus feel to be part of the initative, and get used to know where and how they can find their stuff.

Donat

_____

From: tdwg-bounces@lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Roderic Page Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 8:45 AM To: Rebecca Shapley Cc: Bob Morris; tdwg@lists.tdwg.org; Denise Green; bmishler@berkeley.edu Subject: Re: [tdwg] Interesting example of tree navigation

Much as I think interfaces like this are way kewl, I think it is revealing that nobody has successfully applied this sort of approach to browsing the large hierarchy that many of us interact with on a daily basis - the file system on our computer. Those efforts that have been made have not caught on (remember the flyby navigation in Jurassic Park? - http://www.slipups.com/items/2786.html ).

In the same way, there have been a slew of attempts to display search engine results in forms other than Google's list of top hits, but none have caught on -- people know how to interpret lists, but often struggle with graphical displays of information, much to the chagrin of the people who make cool interfaces.

Much as I think EoL might indeed make a splash with something like this, it will be empty unless it actually helps people find things without getting lost. In the same way, I thought the tree navigation shown in the EoL release video was perhaps the worst possible way of doing things, ignoring pretty much everything people have written about navigating in large trees.

Regards

Rod

On 14 Sep 2007, at 03:52, Rebecca Shapley wrote:

My guess -

a) there aren't many information sets that are difficult enough to present in standard ways AND benefit from this type of presentation b) there haven't been enough of (a) with the programmers/money/willingness to try something novel c) some concern over limiting the audience for the info, because it requires Flash or some other plug-in. Potentially a high bar in terms of browser capability, internet connection, etc. Or because Flash isn't open-source.

To get around (c), I'd take this implementation as a spec for the desired interaction behavior and see if it can be done in any other more acceptable technology, OR if it can be primarily Flash-based, but also degrade to something acceptable for older browsers.

No reason the EOL project can't make a splash with something as exciting as this.

-R.

On 9/13/07, Richard Pyle < mailto:deepreef@bishopmuseum.org deepreef@bishopmuseum.org> wrote:

As Rod suggested, this is pretty old news.

This begs the question: has this style of user-interface failed to catch on more widely because of:

1) Technological limitations; 2) Insufficient creativity and inspiration; or 3) Insufficient usability?

I'm tempted to eliminate #3 on the grounds that I don't think this style of UI has been widespread enough to have been subjected to, and then failed, some sort of usability meta-experiment.

This is not to say that it won't ultimately fail such a meta-experiment -- just that it hasn't really had a chance to fail it yet.

Rich

_______________________________________________ tdwg mailing list tdwg@lists.tdwg.org http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg

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----------------------------------------

Professor Roderic D. M. Page

Editor, Systematic Biology

DEEB, IBLS

Graham Kerr Building

University of Glasgow

Glasgow G12 8QP

United Kingdom

Phone: +44 141 330 4778

Fax: +44 141 330 2792

email: r.page@bio.gla.ac.uk

web: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html

iChat: aim://rodpage1962

reprints: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/pubs.html

Subscribe to Systematic Biology through the Society of Systematic

Biologists Website: http://systematicbiology.org

Search for taxon names: http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/

Find out what we know about a species: http://ispecies.org

Rod's rants on phyloinformatics: http://iphylo.blogspot.com

Rod's rants on ants: http://semant.blogspot.com

What I like about it has nothing to do with the actul data they displayed, or even exactly how they displayed it, per se. What I like is:

- The idea that the field of available information is greater than what you see on the window itself -- that you can zoom in and out, and pan around. It gives the impression of a literal window on a much larger world, rather than a confining box with too much information crammed into it.

- The thumbnail tiles which, when zoomed out, give the appearance of a mosaic, but when zoomed in reveal that each tile is the portal to a whole new world (unlike on the page in question, I would imagine that each tile would open up another pattern of tiles within it). If it scaled appropriately, it could really help give the impression of where any given critter fits in the larger context of biodiversity. I could imagine one level where there are dozens of tiles, with all of chordata being only one small bit off in the corner -- and a proportional number of tiles for single-cell organisms vs. multicellular, and so on. I see great potential for giving people a visual "feel" for what biodiversity means. I can also imagine a bunch of empty tiles (maybe a faint "?" mark) representing the guestimated proportion of species not-yet described, with less than 10% with content -- again to give a sense. And maybe another view that contrasts extant organisms to extinct. And so on...

- The mouse acting like a magnifying glass. I would prefer it to behave more like the taskbar on the bottom of an OS-X Mac, but the point is you can scan the big picture, and by simply moving your mouse soom in for a closer look at the bits that seem interesting to you -- with context-sensitive pop-ups in appropriate places.

There are other things I like about it as well, but in a word, I found it "engaging" -- exactly the sort of thing we need to capture the imagination of the people who select our leaders and policymakers.

Maybe it's not original, and maybe the technology isn't quite there yet. But I still like it -- both for the "kewl" factor, and more importantly the way it draws me in to the subject while allowing me to keep a sense of the broader perspective.

Rich

________________________________

From: tdwg-bounces@lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Donald Hobern Sent: Thursday, September 13, 2007 9:58 PM To: Donat Agosti Cc: tdwg@lists.tdwg.org; 'Bob Morris'; 'Denise Green'; bmishler@berkeley.edu Subject: Re: [tdwg] Interesting example of tree navigation In the case of this particular tool (once I found that what I was seeing in my instance of Firefox was missing something others were seeing and tried it in Safari), the value seems very minimal to me. The actual tree being browsed is rather small and not really needing such a fancy interface. More importantly the rescaling of text only seems to affect the item you are currently inspecting rather than the children of that item. If the children too were enlarged, it could be a tool which made it easier to select the next level in a navigation. As it is, you still have to track (frequently kinked) lines to find the small-text children. Donald Donat Agosti wrote:

May be a reason why few people use these nice tools is, that you do not get a lot out of them. And this might also explain, why such highly unstructured initiatives like Wikipedia or ecoport are flourishing. They have content, and to some extent, individuals can add more to it, and thus feel to be part of the initative, and get used to know where and how they can find their stuff.

Donat

________________________________

From: tdwg-bounces@lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Roderic Page Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 8:45 AM To: Rebecca Shapley Cc: Bob Morris; tdwg@lists.tdwg.org; Denise Green; bmishler@berkeley.edu Subject: Re: [tdwg] Interesting example of tree navigation

Much as I think interfaces like this are way kewl, I think it is revealing that nobody has successfully applied this sort of approach to browsing the large hierarchy that many of us interact with on a daily basis - the file system on our computer. Those efforts that have been made have not caught on (remember the flyby navigation in Jurassic Park? - http://www.slipups.com/items/2786.html ).

In the same way, there have been a slew of attempts to display search engine results in forms other than Google's list of top hits, but none have caught on -- people know how to interpret lists, but often struggle with graphical displays of information, much to the chagrin of the people who make cool interfaces.

Much as I think EoL might indeed make a splash with something like this, it will be empty unless it actually helps people find things without getting lost. In the same way, I thought the tree navigation shown in the EoL release video was perhaps the worst possible way of doing things, ignoring pretty much everything people have written about navigating in large trees.

Regards

Rod

On 14 Sep 2007, at 03:52, Rebecca Shapley wrote:

My guess - a) there aren't many information sets that are difficult enough to present in standard ways AND benefit from this type of presentation b) there haven't been enough of (a) with the programmers/money/willingness to try something novel c) some concern over limiting the audience for the info, because it requires Flash or some other plug-in. Potentially a high bar in terms of browser capability, internet connection, etc. Or because Flash isn't open-source. To get around (c), I'd take this implementation as a spec for the desired interaction behavior and see if it can be done in any other more acceptable technology, OR if it can be primarily Flash-based, but also degrade to something acceptable for older browsers. No reason the EOL project can't make a splash with something as exciting as this. -R.

On 9/13/07, Richard Pyle < deepreef@bishopmuseum.org mailto:deepreef@bishopmuseum.org > wrote:

> As Rod suggested, this is pretty old news. This begs the question: has this style of user-interface failed to catch on more widely because of: 1) Technological limitations; 2) Insufficient creativity and inspiration; or 3) Insufficient usability? I'm tempted to eliminate #3 on the grounds that I don't think this style of UI has been widespread enough to have been subjected to, and then failed, some sort of usability meta-experiment. This is not to say that it won't ultimately fail such a meta-experiment -- just that it hasn't really had a chance to fail it yet. Rich _______________________________________________ tdwg mailing list tdwg@lists.tdwg.org http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg

_______________________________________________

tdwg mailing list

tdwg@lists.tdwg.org

http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg

----------------------------------------

Professor Roderic D. M. Page

Editor, Systematic Biology

DEEB, IBLS

Graham Kerr Building

University of Glasgow

Glasgow G12 8QP

United Kingdom

Phone: +44 141 330 4778

Fax: +44 141 330 2792

email: r.page@bio.gla.ac.uk

web: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/rod.html

iChat: aim://rodpage1962

reprints: http://taxonomy.zoology.gla.ac.uk/rod/pubs.html

Subscribe to Systematic Biology through the Society of Systematic

Biologists Website: http://systematicbiology.org

Search for taxon names: http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/~rpage/portal/ http://darwin.zoology.gla.ac.uk/%7Erpage/portal/

Find out what we know about a species: http://ispecies.org

Rod's rants on phyloinformatics: http://iphylo.blogspot.com

Rod's rants on ants: http://semant.blogspot.com

________________________________

_______________________________________________ tdwg mailing list tdwg@lists.tdwg.org http://lists.tdwg.org/mailman/listinfo/tdwg

-- ------------------------------------------------------------ Donald Hobern (dhobern@gbif.org) Deputy Director for Informatics Global Biodiversity Information Facility Secretariat Universitetsparken 15, DK-2100 Copenhagen, Denmark Tel: +45-35321483 Mobile: +45-28751483 Fax: +45-35321480 ------------------------------------------------------------

Actually, here is an interesting article in yesterdays press.co.nz regarding open access http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/thepress/4199988a12935.html

An information revolution

The Press | Thursday, 13 September 2007

New Zealand scientists need to get aboard the coming revolution in information access, writes DAVID PENMAN.

Social networking, data modelling, real-time measurement, broadband and so on are all bound in the internet age. It is somewhat ironic that the internet was conceived as a means to share scientific data, yet it is now an enormous vehicle for social change and commercial benefit. Somehow, the scientists have become the laggards in sharing information, yet there are enormous benefits that can come from a greater sharing of data. We see public sharing of financial data - the stock market, the exchange rate and interest rates - yet we see little evidence of open sharing of other information that affects our lives. ECan has some pilot projects in real-time monitoring of water resources that water users and communities can access. Wouldn't it be fantastic to roll out such a system across Canterbury and make the information freely and openly available to all? Can we not envisage information on water use, water quality, greenhouse gas emissions, public transport use, air quality, waste generation etc being available on television, the internet or even in Cathedral Square? Is this the sort of information we need to change our behaviour in the drive for sustainability? Why can't we just do it, then? We require an information infrastructure. We can now share data at least among research active institutions through Karen, the "big pipe" broadband; we can store vast amounts of data in networked servers and now in the new IBM supercomputer "Blue Fern" at the University of Canterbury; we can model and visualise current states and future scenarios; and the technology to do real-time measurements is becoming available. Right now, most information is accessed from so-called legacy data. The next revolution will be real-time data collection and access. So we have most of the bits; we just need the resources and the will to bring the pieces together. From this platform, new businesses will emerge and communities will become engaged with the regulators (the councils), the scientists, and businesses. No longer will officials be able to hide behind the lack of resources to measure use and change. We will have scientific evidence of what change might look like before decisions are taken, and we will become more involved as citizens in a civil society with what our politicians and officials are doing. Yes, we will take ownership of information about us, our communities and the impacts of our activities. Because we can "own" and visualise information we will be able to use it in an active democracy. The information embedded behind each pixel on your screen should be yours and you should be confident that it is scientifically robust and freely available. Open Access is a rapidly growing movement committed to making data openly and freely available. Where data are generated using taxpayers funds, it should be made openly and freely available. This is now a requirement for some of the major US and European science funds. Basically scientists will have two years to publish papers based on their data, and then the data become available to others. Many journals now require authors to at least indicate where the raw data may be located. The internet then becomes what it was intended to be - a means to share scientific data. So what is the situation in New Zealand? Our scientific institutions have been required to make data publicly available at the cost of access if the information was contained within a designated "nationally significant database or collection" and only if the request was for a "public good" purpose. If a commercial product might emerge, then an agreement to pay a commercial rate was negotiated. Other data from publicly-funded research are not generally available. The great temptation for institutions is to hold the data because it might be commercially significant. In a few cases this may be so, but mostly there is a false sense of value of individual data sets. Experience tells us that the real value comes from looking at multiple data sets in new ways and with new tools. The Foundation for Research, Science and Technology is now reviewing its data policy and moving towards the norm for the OECD - greater open access for publicly-funded data. Rather than the research provider deciding on access, all information is openly and freely available unless restrictions such as national security, environmental damage (eg, the GPS co-ordinates of threatened species), or clear commercial disadvantage can be justified. Our researchers will also have to change. No longer can they sit with filing cabinets full of data waiting for the definitive experiment or the life time monograph. Publish quickly in electronic media, make your data and models freely available and get rewards from both publishing and showing that your data are being used by others - this should become the norm. Many initiatives are now underway to liberate data. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility, of which New Zealand is a member, has just launched its new data access portal (www.data.gbif.org) and now makes over 130 million records on species openly and freely available. The Encyclopedia of Life (www.eol.org) is making a webpage on every known species, and investments in monitoring networks such as Neon (Near Earth Observation Network) in the United States are providing real-time data to communities. We are facing the new revolution and either we join now to lead developments or we find communities bypassing our scientists by accessing information in the social networks. Libraries are becoming available to all without leaving your home, information on your environment will become openly and freely available and communities will be able to use the internet to take more control of our institutions - a new style of democracy will emerge. * Professor David Penman is Assistant Pro Vice-Chancellor (Research) in the College of Science at the University of Canterbury. He also chairs the Governing Board of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility based in Denmark.

________________________________________ From: tdwg-bounces@lists.tdwg.org [mailto:tdwg-bounces@lists.tdwg.org] On Behalf Of Donat Agosti Sent: Friday, September 14, 2007 10:21 AM To: tdwg@lists.tdwg.org Subject: [tdwg] copyright, creative commons licences, etc.

TDWG is about making data interoperable, thus leading, in the best case, to a seamless system of our knowledge linked to those of other domains.

This is a huge technical challenge, but by getting closer to technical solutions, other issues become relevant, such as who is generating content, how is content acknowledged and how is copyright and IPR handled.

This is especially important, since we now face for the first time a system, which aims at being the mother of all the biodiversity information, the Encyclopedia of Life which is playing the same game as the publishers of our scientific knowledge. Being corporate, they care about the copyright and IPR, and thus send out forms to transfer your rights to them. These are individual licenses which often lead to the situation, that you loose all rights, and thus we can not access our publications in an open way, be it as open access or via self archiving.

Our community has to be more vigilant the way we operate in this realm. We need to define what we want, and act accordingly. If we want to be able to have open access to our data, we should not sign contract which do not allow this. We have to negotiate individually and through whatever channels we have, such as our societies, that we only provide the publishers the right of the article for the specific publication they do, but that you can at least self archive or deposit the publications in thematic repositories, such as could be Zoobank. Regarding access to databases, we have to be clear when we sign contracts like a Creative Commons license with institutions like EOL. Should they have the right to develop commercial products? Should they use a share a like license? If they want to produce commercial products, how is assured that the revenues are shared, or do you not mind? Should we allow individual contracts which at the end need zillions of lawyers? BHL is spending considerable amount of time to resolve all this existing contracts, so do all of the institutional repositories, and which seems clearly not something we want to initiate.

Regarding participation in initiatives which live on our data, it needs to be clear what each of the parties does. Do you build on the assumption, that you do not mind that one party is patenting some of the programs or should all what they do open source? For example, if UBIO at Woods Hole is patenting their taxonomic infrastructure, can we agree to that?

We need a debate about this, and we should not let EOL go ahead, especially since many of us hope that it is a step closer to an open access infrastructure for biodiversity information. To signs right now are that we run into a lot of troubles and unease if we continue with what is happening right now, that is listen to the corporate lawyers and not of what we as a community really want.

So, before you sign any contracts, think twice. The publishers need your content, especially if it went through peer review. EOL needs our content, so you do not have to sign whatever you get offered. A discussion within bodies like TDWG would be very timely and useful.

Donat