Visual support for group work with geospatial information: Taking a cognitive-semiotic approach

Speaker
Alan M. MacEachren
Professor of Geography and Director of the GeoVISTA Center, Pennsylvania State University

When
-

Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)

Description

This presentation will provide an overview of visually-enabled geocollaboration research underway in the GeoVISTA Center at Penn State. The outlines of a human-centered conceptual approach to working with visual displays of geospatial information will be sketched; and the role of this approach in design and assessment of geocollaboration environments will be discussed. The approach integrates cognitive perspectives on human understanding of visual displays and knowledge construction (by individuals and groups) with semiotic perspectives on signification and communication of meaning. A pair of group work environments currently under development will be highlighted, one focused on same-time and same-place crisis management and the other on different-time different-place collaborative human-environment science.

Speaker's Bio

Dr. Alan M. MacEachren is Professor of Geography and Director of the GeoVISTA Center (www.GeoVISTA.psu.edu) at Pennsylvania State University. He received a PhD from University of Kansas in 1979 and held faculty positions at Virginia Tech and the University of Colorado before joining Penn State in 1985. Dr. MacEachren is currently chair of the International Cartographic Associations Commission on Visualization and Virtual Environments. He is also an associate editor of Information Visualization and was a member of the 2001–2003 National Research Council Computer Science and Telecommunications Board Committee on the Intersections Between Geospatial Information and Information Technology (which published their report, IT Roadmap to a Geospatial Future, in spring 2003). Dr. MacEachren’s research foci include: geographic visualization, geocollaboration, interfaces to geospatial information technologies, human spatial cognition as it relates to individual and group use of those technologies, human-centered systems, and user-centered design. He is author of Some Truth with Maps (AAG, 1994) and How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization and Design (Guilford Press, 1995) as well as co-editor of several additional books and journal special issues, including Research Challenges in Geovisualization, a special issue of Cartography and Geographic Information Science, Jan. 2001, Vol. 28, No. 1.

Speaker's Website
http://www.geog.psu.edu/people/maceachren/

Host
Brad Myers