Workshops (June 7th)

Abstract: Cultural Heritage (CH) is one challenging domain of application for novel Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), where visualization plays a major role. Advanced and natural human-computer interaction is a key factor in enabling access, both on-site and online, to collections of CH institutions and in attracting even wider audiences than those that visit the physical museums. The range of visualization devices – from tiny smart watch screens, through wall-size large public displays, to the latest generation of immersive Head-Mounted Displays – together with the increasing availability of real-time 3D rendering technologies for on-line and mobile devices and, recently, Internet of Things (IoT) approaches, require to explore how they can be applied successfully to the CH domain. The goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners interested in presenting and discussing the potential of state of the art of advanced visual interfaces in enhancing our daily cultural heritage experience.

Abstract: Handling the complexity of relevant data requires new techniques about data access, visualization, perception, and interaction for innovative and successful strategies. In order to address human-computer interaction, cognitive efficiency, and interoperability problems, a generic information visualization, user empowerment, as well as service integration and mediation approach based on the existing state-of-theart in the relevant areas of computer science as well as established open ICT industry standards has to be achieved. This workshop will address these issues with a special focus on supporting distributed Big Data Analysis in VREs. In this way, the overall scope and goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers active in these areas to achieve a road map, which can support the acceleration in research activities by means of transforming, enriching, and deploying advanced visual user interfaces for managing and using eScience infrastructures, i.e., supporting creation, configuration, management and usage of distributed Big Data Analysis in VREs.

Abstract: While educational technology has a long pedigree, the last few years have seen dramatic changes. These have included the rise and institutionalisation of MOOCs, and other web-based initiatives such as Kahn Academy and Peer-to-Peer University (P2PU). Classrooms have also been transformed with growing use of mobile devices and forms of flipped classroom; and educational progress and engagement has been increasingly measured leading to institutional and individual learning analytics. This workshop seeks to understand the interaction of these issues with human–computer interaction in a number of ways. First to ask what HCI has to contribute to these in terms of the design of authoring and learning platforms, and the wider socio-political implications of increasingly metric-driven governance? Second to discuss how will these changes affect HCI education? Together practice-based and theoretical approaches will help us build a clear understanding of the current state and future challenges for educational technology and HCI.

Abstract: Recent technology advances support the interconnection of smart objects, enabling their communication according to the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. IoT is promising important changes in our lives. The opportunities offered by such technologies can be amplified, by investigating new approaches that, thanks to high-level abstractions, can enable non-expert users to compose data and functionality of things, as well as the communication among them, by means of “natural” composition paradigm. Today, in fact, this is a prerogative almost always reserved to developers who, through the use of specific programming languages, provide pre-packaged solutions to users. The workshop aims at stressing the Human-Computer Interaction perspective, i.e., it acknowledges the importance of enabling even non-technical users to manipulate data and functionality of things in a simple and natural way. It brings together researchers interested in approaches and visual tools that can reduce the burden of creating smart ecosystems.

Abstract: Big data analytics in healthcare would be almost useless, without suitable tools allowing users "see" them, and gain insight for their situated decisions. The workshop focuses on the role of interactive data visualization tools by which people can make sense of healthcare data, including sensor data, the messages exchanged in social media, the emails between patients and their doctors, the content of patient records as well as the discussions among different specialists that led to such record content. All these data are used by doctors, nurses, policy makers and common citizens. The workshop welcomes contributions on: the assessment of the usability of advanced interactive tools of health-related data visualization, and the quality of the information and value for insight made available to their users; reports of either success stories or failures in the appropriation and use of complex and multidimensional healthcare datasets; methodological and design-oriented contributions sharing methods, techniques, and heuristics for the design of interactive tools and applications supporting data work, data telling and data interpretation in healthcare.