Teaching Information Visualization - Information Visualization: Human-Centered Issues and Perspectives - page 87

are used to support learning against broad aims and outcomes provide a way
forward. It is well worth using the URLs listed in the Dagstuhl survey to learn
from colleagues who use this approach (see Stasko, Munzner and Heer's courses
for example). The kinds of repositories of examples and teaching materials dis-
cussed and suggested in Section 4.1 will help, as will a focus on generic methods
of teaching such as those that involve critique and active learning rather than
developing monolithic curricula that will age rapidly in response to new devel-
opments. Portfolio-based assessment that involves the focused combination of a
series of activities supports this flexible approach.
Adoption of the ideas discussed here would continue to move visualization
education away from core Computer Science. Doing so will continue the trend of
enabling more students to participate in visualization education and help address
the diculties associated with multi-disciplinary domains - how do we focus si-
multaneously on the concepts listed in our tag cloud of the scope of Information
Visualization education (Figure 1)—computer science and algorithms, the sci-
ence of perception and cognitive studies and concepts derived from the arts such
as composition and design? The Dagstuhl survey has certainly helped inform
my approach to visualization education. Perhaps this discussion will help the
community when considering the nature of Information Visualization education
and how to best it might be supported and developed. I'd certainly be delighted
to debate the ideas and their relevance further.
5Conluon
This paper describes the results of our teaching survey based on the information
given by the Dagstuhl attendees. It covers several aspects of offered InfoVis
courses that range from different kinds of study materials to practical exercises.
We have reproduced the discussion during the Dagstuhl Seminar and added
our own experiences. In this regard, we have found that teaching InfoVis is
challenging because it is a new and growing field. There exist a lot of open
questions regarding the syllabus, a consistent theory, or the abstraction level of
single topics. In consequence, it is also a great subject for teachers, not only for
students: we are convinced that teaching InfoVis also leads to a better reflection
on the topics and to new ideas which can induce new projects. Finally, we hope
that this paper can serve as an interesting and helpful source for current and
future InfoVis teachers.
Acknowledgments. We would like to thank all participants at the seminar [13,
36] for filling out the teaching survey and for the lively discussions. The survey
was developed by Keith Andrews, and a first analysis of the results was also
made by him. We thank him for his ideas and efforts.
References
1. Amar, R., Eagan, J., Stasko, J.: Low-level components of analytic activity in
information visualization. In: Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE Symposium on In-
formation Visualization - INFOVIS '05, October 2005, pp. 111-117 (2005)