Revealing hidden structure: Visualizing bibliographic coupling and co-citation relations in multimedia collections

Candidate: Yingjie Chen
Type: Master of Science (MSc), School of Interactive Arts and Technology
Date: November 21, 2006
Senior Supervisor: Dr. Robert Woodbury, Professor
Thesis: Download Thesis Document

Abstract

Many digital collections share a common structure in which a collection, the objects collected and the meaning of the collection can be separately considered. We present data structure of exhibition, annotation, and resource (EAR) as a general device for organizing such collections. People author EAR structures and other people value these acts of authorship in understanding a large collection. Through co-citation and bibliographic coupling, EAR structure forms a general graph which is hard for people to interpret. My research hypothesis is that recognizing, analyzing, prototyping and evaluating the EAR triangle can result in both generalizeable insight and creating new tools for information visualization and system design. My implementation devises a graph visualization tool helping people to understand and use EAR structures. The design, implementation and evaluation follow a user-centered design process in three spiral cycles. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the design and generalizability raised in the process.