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Visualization for Constructing and Sharing Geo-Scientific Concepts

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Visualization for Constructing and Sharing Geo-Scientific Concepts Colloquium Visualization for constructing and sharing geo-scientific concepts Alan M. MacEachren*, Mark Gahegan, and William Pike GeoVISTA Center, Department of Geography, Pennsylvania State University, 302 Walker, University Park, PA 16802 Representations of scientific knowledge must reflect the dynamic their instantiation in data. These visual representations can nature of knowledge construction and the evolving networks of provide insight into the similarities and differences among relations between scientific concepts. In this article, we describe scientific concepts held by a community of researchers. More- initial work toward dynamic, visual methods and tools that sup- over, visualization can serve as a vehicle through which groups port the construction, communication, revision, and application of of researchers share and refine concepts and even negotiate scientific knowledge. Specifically, we focus on tools to capture and common conceptualizations. Our approach integrates geovisu- explore the concepts that underlie collaborative science activities, alization for data exploration and hypothesis generation, col- with examples drawn from the domain of human–environment laborative tools that facilitate structured discourse among re- interaction. These tools help individual researchers describe the searchers, and electronic notebooks that store records of process of knowledge construction while enabling teams of col- individual and group investigation. By detecting and displaying laborators to synthesize common concepts. Our visualization ap- similarity and structure in the data, methods, perspectives, and proach links geographic visualization techniques with concept- analysis procedures used by scientists, we are able to synthesize mapping tools and allows the knowledge structures that result to visual depictions of the core concepts involved in a domain at be shared through a Web portal that helps scientists work collec- several levels of abstraction. tively to advance their understanding. Our integration of geovi- sualization and knowledge representation methods emphasizes To contextualize our own work, and make the problem the process through which abstract concepts can be contextualized tractable, we focus on applicability of visual knowledge capture by the data, methods, people, and perspectives that produced and representation methods for use in the science domain of them. This contextualization is a critical component of a knowl- human–environment interaction. Specifically, emphasis is on edge structure, without which much of the meaning that guides science work associated with the local human impacts of global the sharing of concepts is lost. By using the tools we describe here, environmental change. Knowledge about human–environment human–environment scientists are given a visual means to build interaction is contextualized or ‘‘situated’’ by factors such as the concepts from data (individually and collectively) and to connect places to which scientists direct their research, their aims, and these concepts to each other at appropriate levels of abstraction. their underlying theories. The structure of human–environment knowledge also depends on the choice of relevant datasets and cientific knowledge is dynamic. Its continuous evolution is methods and the scientist’s experience applying them. Vulner- Smarked by branches that diverge and converge and by ability to environmental changes, for example, is assessed (and conceptual frameworks that expand until they no longer support possibly even conceptualized) quite differently in Massachusetts new insights, triggering dramatic reorganizations. In the earth and Arizona. However, at certain levels of abstraction, some sciences, perhaps the most poignant example is the theory of agreement among researchers in different locations about what ͞ plate tectonics, originating in the early twentieth century with constitutes vulnerability is essential for joint work. Geographic the work of Alfred Wegener, and eventually causing a massive information visualization can help collaborators construct and reconceptualization of geological knowledge. Wilson (1) offers communicate knowledge structures that reflect the multidimen- insight into this restructuring from a conceptual and philosoph- sional connections among people, perspectives, data, and con- ical perspective, and Giere (2) offers insight from a cognitive cepts at different conceptual scales. perspective. Although most changes in science are not as dra- The research we report is part of a science infrastructure matic as those stimulated by the theory of plate tectonics, the project within which we are building a distributed collaboratory concepts used by geologists, environmental scientists, and ge- to support the work of four research sites that make up the ographers to understand the Earth’s complex systems and their Human Environment Regional Observatory (HERO) network. interaction with human activities are nevertheless evolving as This developing collaboratory is an ideal ‘‘living laboratory’’ in understanding evolves and as the needs of society change. which we can explore the construction of scientific knowledge ͞ Information geographic visualization can play a vital role in and the role of visualization in enabling that construction. stimulating and communicating the evolution of conceptual HERO collaborators are developing protocols to guide the structures. The case of plate tectonics provides a compelling collection of geospatial data for environmental monitoring and example of the potential. In this case, visual representations applying these protocols and data to problems such as assessing influenced eventual acceptance of the theory (2). Specifically, the vulnerability of local places to global environmental change the visual representations that provided evidence of tectonic activity interacted with geologists’ different conceptualizations of the problem domain to produce both new concepts and new This paper results from the Arthur M. Sackler Colloquium of the National Academy of explanations for existing data (3). Sciences, ‘‘Mapping Knowledge Domains,’’ held May 9–11, 2003, at the Arnold and Mabel Here, we focus on dynamic visual representations of concep- Beckman Center of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering in Irvine, CA. tual frameworks that support (i) the process of knowledge Abbreviation: HERO, Human Environment Regional Observatory. construction and the application of that knowledge to scientific *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected]. work and (ii) the connections between concepts in the mind and © 2004 by The National Academy of Sciences of the USA www.pnas.org͞cgi͞doi͞10.1073͞pnas.0307755101 PNAS ͉ April 6, 2004 ͉ vol. 101 ͉ suppl. 1 ͉ 5279–5286 Downloaded by guest on September 28, 2021 and the relationship between global environmental processes relationships among concepts. Such representations can enable and local-scale land use͞land cover change. computational environments to visualize and reason with con- In the first section below we review previous research in both cepts by integrating knowledge structures within an individual’s concept representation and the geographic͞information visual- concept space and across multiple users and domains. Natural ization methods and tools on which our work builds. Then, we language is one medium for representing conceptual informa- introduce the HERO problem context, review the concept of tion, and in later sections we describe a visualization tool that scientific collaboratories, and provide an overview of the HERO helps reveal structure in natural discourse. However, it is (at collaboratory. Next, we outline methods we have developed and present) difficult for systems that track the construction of implemented to support visually enabled concept building, shar- concepts to reason with knowledge presented linguistically. As a ing, and application. In the final section, we discuss future work. result, our research relies on computational representations of knowledge and corresponding visual languages that allow infer- Background ences to be drawn more efficiently from complex bodies of A critical component of science work involves developing, scientific knowledge. These representations, as a complement to sharing, and comparing concepts and then applying those con- sharing knowledge through natural language, also support shar- cepts to data to generate new knowledge. Within the HERO ing and negotiation among scientists about the concepts that project, for example, a core concept is vulnerability of people and underpin joint work. We propose that the visually enabled places to environmental change. This concept serves as a focal concept representation and sharing methods we are developing point that guides the process of posing research questions, will be particularly useful for asynchronous collaboration. collecting data, and producing communicable results. Vulnera- Typically, knowledge representation systems derive from first- bility is also typical of many concepts in the social and environ- order logic and its variants; popular examples include Prolog (5), mental sciences; it is a complex, multifaceted, and context- Loom (6), and more recent developments such as frame logic (7). dependent concept that has both everyday and scientific Despite (or perhaps because of) enforced decidability and meaning. Despite the lack of apparent consistency in the mean- consistency that can make knowledge representations
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