An embeddable dashboard for widget-based visual analytics on scientific communities

  • Authors:
  • Michael Derntl;Stephan Erdtmann;Ralf Klamma

  • Affiliations:
  • RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany;RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany;RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Knowledge Management and Knowledge Technologies
  • Year:
  • 2012

Quantified Score

Hi-index 0.00

Visualization

Abstract

The web hosts massive amounts of data about scientific communities, for instance in bibliographic databases, research project databases, and more recently on the social web. These data sets provide key information on the activities and artifacts relevant to the community. Due to the scattered nature and sheer size of Web 2.0 data sets it is currently difficult for stakeholders to comprehensively and effortlessly monitor key indicators hidden in that data. To address this issue, we developed an embeddable, personalizable dashboard, which can be populated with widgets that visualize the results of arbitrary queries over relational databases in real time. As a pilot case the dashboard was deployed at LearningFrontiers.eu, a service and support portal for the European Technology Enhanced Learning community, to provide access to pre-configured visualizations of queries over their data sources. Community stakeholders evaluated the dashboard and generally responded positively in regard to its usability and usefulness. From a technical perspective the main advantage of the proposed dashboard infrastructure is the simple and seamless integration with a community's existing data sources and web portals.