Choosel Mashup Framework Available on Google Code

I released the choosel mashup framework under the Apache 2.0 license on Google Code. It is a research prototype platform that is used in our Bio-Mixer tool, which is developed at the CHISEL group.

Choosel supports the creation of web-based information mashup environments. These mashup environments facilitate the flexible recombination of information in different views such as maps, timelines and graph viewers. Users without any programming expertise can remix information using drag and drop interaction and explore data sets. The workspaces (mashups) can be stored and shared among users.

We are looking for contributors. If you are interested, please post on the choosel mailing list.

Supporting End Users in Coordinating Multiple Visualizations

As part of my PhD research, I am looking at ways to make visual data analysis more accessible to end users without data analysis expertise. Specifically, I am researching how they can easily coordinate multiple visualizations. This has led to the development of web-based visual analytics research prototype, which I evaluated in a user study. The results indicate that novel concepts such as drop target highlighting, drop previews and using multiple user defined sets are useful and easily usable for end users.

I presented the tool and the results (see poster and presentation below) at the IBM University Days 2010. A version of the visual analytics environment that is tailored to exploring biomedical ontologies is available at: bio-mixer.appspot.com

Poster "Web-based Analytics with Multiple Coordinated Visualizations"

Presentation "A web-based environment for visual client side mashups"

View more presentations from Lars Grammel.

Bio-Mixer Early Research Prototype Released

I am happy to announce the early alpha release of Bio-Mixer, a research prototype developed at the CHISEL group at the University of Victoria in collaboration with the National Center of Biomedical Ontology. Bio-Mixer is available at:

bio-mixer.appspot.com

Bio-Mixer is a web-based environment that supports the flexible exploration of biomedical ontologies. The concepts in the ontologies and their mappings can be explored in different views such as graph views, lists and timeline views. Drag-and-drop interaction can be used to show items and collections in different views, to create filtered views and to synchronize selections. Bio-Mixer enhances drag and drop with a new drop target highlighting and preview approach to make working with multiple collections and views easy. Bio-Mixer also provides support for ontology annotation and workspace sharing between collaborators.

Bio-Mixer Overview



Bio-Mixer Features in Detail