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1. 0 06901510000000854 11 11 2007 Rank 20 0 05911225110000373 10 23 2007 Rank 21 0 05847161979999527 10 20 2007 Rank 22 0 057475105500003565 11 01 2007 Rank 23 0 05054289330000472 11 07 2007 Rank 24 0 028595828699991444 10 28 2007 Rank 25 0 0 11 12 2007 Rank 26 0 0 11 10 2007 Rank 27 0 0 11 09 2007 Rank 28 0 0 11 04 2007 Rank 29 0 0 10 24 2007 Figure 5 7 Visual cue 1 values 5 4 CALCULATE CUE 2 LOTS OF NODES Calculate Cue 2 option in the Task menu performs the visual cue 2 calculations over the experiment data and displays the results in a format similar to that explained in Section 5 3 The visual cue 2 values indicate the level of participation based on the number of 20 nodes in the grapevine structure and the votes received by them The output of this option is displayed in a format similar to the one illustrated in Section 5 3 5 5 CALCULATE CUE 3 LOTS OF BUDS Calculate Cue 3 option in the Task menu allows the users to perform the visual cue 3 calculations indicating the level of participation based on the number of buds and the replies received by them A detailed explanation of the formula and the significance of visual cue 3 are given in Section 4 1 3 Cue 3 values are calculated for each day during the experiment period and ranked in decreasing order as shown in the Figure 5 8 for the same data Message Cue 3 value for the entire grapevine structure 157 9516129032258 Cue 3val2. The user can enter a decimal number which may be used as a factor for expansion of the grapevine structure For example if the user enters 5 as an expansion factor and clicks on the Expand button the grapevine structure will be stretched by a factor of 5 causing it to appear five times bigger while still retaining its basic structure Figure 5 12 shows two images the first one is the image of the grapevine structure in its original size whereas the second one is with an expansion factor of 2 and is therefore twice the size of the original structure The textbox and the Expand button are available in the main screen UI as seen in Figure 5 13 24 Figure 5 12 Stretch grapevine 5 11 ROTATING GRAPEVINE ALONG HORIZONTAL AND VERTICAL AXES The ODEV allows the user to re orient the grapevine and the map in the virtual universe for better visual display This can be done using the mouse or the buttons on the control panel on top of the virtual universe window Using the left mouse button user can drag and rotate the contents of the screen along any axis The buttons in the control panel are Rotates the grapevine map in clockwise direction along the vertical axis perpendicular to the plane of the map by PI 24 radians or 7 5 degrees per click Ta r Task Settings About lt I gt at v a Enter factor for expansidn l Expand J Reset Exit S SS Figure 5 13 UI for
3. entering grapevine expansion factor Rotates the grapevine map in anti clockwise direction along the vertical axis perpendicular to the plane of the map by PI 24 radians or 7 5 degrees per click v Rotates the grapevine map along anti clockwise direction along the horizontal axis parallel to the plane of the map by PI 24 radians or 7 5 degrees per click ls Rotates the grapevine map along clockwise direction along the horizontal axis parallel to the plane of the map by PI 24 radians or 7 5 degrees per click 5 12 PANNING RE ORIENTATION OF THE GRAPEVINE USING MOUSE DRAG The ODEV allows the user to re orient the grapevine structure within the virtual universe using the mouse drag The user can drag the grapevine map around in the virtual universe space using the right mouse button As mentioned in one of the previous sections 26 the user can also adjust the panning speed through the Panning Speed Setting option in the Settings menu 5 13 ZOOM IN AND ZOOM OUT The ODEV has implemented the zoom in zoom out feature to allow the user to zoom in and out of the grapevine structure to view it from different levels of magnification Zooming in and out can be done using the mouse wheel This enables the user to take a closed look at a section of the grapevine without altering its basic structure Figure 5 14 provides a zoomed in view of the grapevine where the nodes and tendrils can be s
4. leaf ABS Longitude of bud Longitude of leaf ABS Time of bud creation Time of leaf creation e Visual cue 5 An open proliferation of Tendrils Visual cue 5 is calculated similar to visual cue 4 with the exception that the calculation is done for nodes and tendrils instead of buds and leaves The formula used for calculating visual cue 5 is ABS Latitude of node Latitude of tendril ABS Longitude of node Longitude of tendril ABS Time of node creation Time of tendril creation 4 2 GENERAL ACTIONS Most functionality is made accessible to the users as menu options in the Menu bar More details about using the software and its various functionalities will be described in the next chapter This section lists and describes briefly the various actions that the ODEV will allow the users to perform 4 2 1 Load Database File This option allows the user to be able to specify the compatible MS Access database file mdb file which contains all the input data about the discourse events collected during the experiment The database file is picked up by the ODEV s database query interface module which will execute relevant database queries to retrieve required data and will populate the corresponding data structures 4 2 2 Compare Sections This option permits the user to specify two time periods for comparing the sections of the grapevine structure for those periods It helps perform the visual analysis of the
5. WEB BASED TOOL FOR VISUALIZATION OF ONLINE DISCOURSE EVENTS A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of San Diego State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science in Computer Science by Tanveer Singh Randhawa Fall 2010 SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY The Undersigned Faculty Committee Approves the Thesis of Tanveer Singh Randhawa Web Based Tool for Visualization of Online Discourse Events Piotr Jankowski Chair Department of Computer Science MAME William Root Department of Computer Science Kha lo Mi g Hsiang Tsou Department of Geography lO 27 ZoloO Approval Date Copyright O 2010 by Tanveer Singh Randhawa All Rights Reserved 111 1v DEDICATION I would like to dedicate my thesis to Dr Piotr Jankowski and Dr Robert Aguirre who gave me this opportunity to work on this thesis project and also to my family members for being there for me all the time whenever needed ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS Web Based Tool for Visualization of Online Discourse Events by Tanveer Singh Randhawa Master of Science in Computer Science San Diego State University 2010 The Online Discourse Event Visualizer ODEV is an analytical tool which will be used for visual representation and performing visual and mathematical analysis for research on social science evaluation of Human Computer Human Interaction Users of a set of research portals provide their inp
6. abase from a remote location over the internet is a suggested enhancement Database Query Interface The DB Query Interface is the module which is responsible for querying the user selected database for the relevant attributes and values The data retrieved by this module as a result of the database queries are then used to populate the various data structures which are in turn used by other modules such as the Grid Java3D virtual universe for graphical representation of the discourse events as well as the cue calculator for calculating the various visual cues involved in the analysis of the discourse event data Grid The grid is a virtual grid made from two sets of parallel lines in the horizontal X Z plane in the virtual universe The grid simulates the latitude longitude on the map Based on the latitude longitude and the time of the occurrence of an event a specific point in the 3D virtual universe is rendered to graphically represent that event Cue Calculator One of the main functionalities of the software is to perform a set of analytical calculations for enabling the visual analysis of the discourse event occurrence pattern over time The cue calculator is the module within the ODEV that performs these calculations A detailed description about visual cues and their significance is given in the next chapter that describes the various conceptual entities involved in the research that inspired the development of this ana
7. ared understanding The following is the list of five visual cues calculations which are implemented within the cue calculator module of the ODEV Visual cue 1 Coiling stem The main stem of a grapevine structure progresses vertically with time from one node to the next The horizontal axes represent the geographical location of the occurrence of the event whereas the vertical axis represents the time Therefore if there are fewer nodes in the grapevine s main stem and if the nodes are not widely scattered along the horizontal plane it would indicate that the user participation is geographically restricted to a certain region and events are less frequent in occurrence On the other hand a more rapidly turning main stem with dense nodes represent richer user participation with users from various geographical locations participating more frequently The mathematical formula used for calculations corresponding to the visual cue is SUM of ABS of from Node i to j LAT i LONG 1 LAT j LONG j For all nodes from 1 to j that lie within a certain span of time in this case each DAY Visual cue 2 Lots of Nodes Visual cue 2 calculation points directly at the level of participation based on the number of nodes and the votes received by those nodes For example more number of nodes and votes indicate higher participation by the users The calculation corresponding to visual cue 2 is based on the following formula as implement
8. cnonanos 20 5 6 Calculate Cue 4 An Open Proliferation of Shoots and Leaves 0 0 0 eee 21 5 7 Calculate Cue 5 An Open Proliferation of Tendrils oooonncnnnnnnnnnnocnnancnnnnnonn 21 SS SEINES osc cided n E sea eantasybencaagsuaaasacaastauyesacadsien es Codedade L e ea 21 AN o sisine a A EE 21 5 8 2 Panning Speed Setting casi ij scesisuscenstans saecysesden va seesdueasdedacetersecevssessaactdevecs 22 5 9 Reset Displaying the Original Grapevine Structure cooocccconcccnocccnnonccinnnccnnnos 22 5 10 Stretching Shrinking the Grapevine Structure for Clear Visual Display ii A a AA A AAA a 23 5 11 Rotating Grapevine along Horizontal and Vertical Axes ooononoccnnoconocnconncnns 24 5 12 Panning Re Orientation of the Grapevine Using Mouse Drag 4 25 5 13 Zoom In and Lo MED In 26 A Creme CERES Pct OE TO ttl Heer ORE N Pert rc PE Cer OCT SOE a 26 6 CLASS AND FUNCTION REFERENCE ir 28 6 1 Class Name CODA nda ii iran 28 6 2 Class Name New Action Node cconiiinicic tai er 30 6 3 Class Name GrapevineLinK is as 30 6 4 Class Name Cue VY alO Decana 31 7 POSSIBLE ENHANCEMENTS iii didas 32 PIBLIOCRA PI A 33 viii LIST OF FIGURES PAGE Figure 3 1 ODEV process QUIM iii tr 6 Proure 4 l Grapevine SU hires sieges saeti e steiert 9 Figure 4 2 Node information dialO said 10 Figure Sde Task ment Opos de 15 Bistro 5 2 File Ty Pe SELECT OM i n 15 Figure 5 3 Database file chooser dialog bOX esseesesseeseseessrsssesresstse
9. ct the file to load see Figure 5 3 The user may then navigate to the location of the compatible MS Access database file mdb file or Excel file xls file depending on the file type selected previously and select the file to be picked up as input for the ODEV In the sample screenshot below the user is selecting the local database file names Six_Tables mdb Select Data File Look In Thesis G Robert_Meeting_26 txt D scratch txt G SDSUTemplate doc G sig page template_3 signatures doc C Six_Tables mdb G Six_Tables_Backup mdb 4 File Name Six_Tables mdb Files of Type All Files Select Data File Cancel Figure 5 3 Database file chooser dialog box Once the database file is selected the Database Query Interface module executes a set of database queries to retrieve relevant data required for rendering the discourse events visualization in the form of a grapevine structure see Figure 5 4 and for calculating the visual cues 5 2 COMPARE SECTIONS This option in the Task menu allows the user to select two sections of the grapevine structure from two different durations of time during the experiment and renders the sections side by side for visual comparison On selecting the Task menu option from the main screen a dialog box is displayed see Figure 5 5 allowing the user to select two pairs of dates each specifying the durations
10. defines the color of the grapevine link e origNode This is a NewActionNode object representing the node from where the link originates For example for a link connecting a node to a vote the node parameters will define the origNode e targNode It is a NewActionNode object representing the target of the link 31 6 4 CLASS NAME CUEVALOBJECT This class defines the cue value objects for each date There are five visual cue calculations each generating a set of cue values one for each day Each cue value is represented by a CueValObject Variables defining the CueValObject parameters are e cue The cue value generated for a particular date according to its respective formula e date The date for which the cue value has been calculated Functions implemented in the CueValObject class are e setCue Sets the cue value to the object e setDate Sets the date for the object of CueValObject 32 CHAPTER 7 POSSIBLE ENHANCEMENTS As is the case with any software tool there is always a room for further enhancements The enhancements extensions to the ODEV are recommended here based on the features needed by members of the various user groups or audience segments The implementation presented in this thesis manuscript caters primarily and directly to the needs of social scientists and visual analysts I suggest the following areas for enhancement in the ODEV to aid visual analysts as well as social scientists The size
11. e e Time The time of generation of the node that corresponds to the time of the occurrence of the event e Latitude The latitude of the location of the occurrence of the event e Longitude The longitude of the location of the occurrence of the event The main functions defined in the NewActionNode class that implement the handling and manipulation of node objects are e long2coord Corresponding to every latitude and longitude value in the geographical space there has to be a pair of coordinate values representing its location on the map in the 3D virtual universe This function generates the coordinate value on the X axis corresponding to the longitude of the node e lat2coord This function generates the coordinate value on the Z axis corresponding to the latitude of the node e mouseClicked This function generates the implements the functionality for the operation to be executed when the mouse click event is generated 6 3 CLASS NAME GRAPEVINELINK This class creates the links in the grapevine structure that connect the nodes buds with the votes replies Each link is an object of the GrapevineLink class which contains the variables for defining the parameters of the link objects and the functions that implement the handling and manipulation of the links Variables holding data about the link objects are e width This is a double value indicating the width of the line representing the grapevine link e color This variable
12. e the calculations for visual cue 1 which is used to analyze the pattern of the grapevine structure by assessing the extent to which the main stem of the grapevine structure has the coiling tendency It is mandatory to load a database file and render the basic grapevine structure prior to calculating any of the visual cue values Selecting this option after loading a database file will calculate the following values and display the results in a dialog box e Cue value for the entire grapevine structure e Cue 1 values for each day ranked in decreasing order For the sample database file cue 1 values generated were as shown in Figure 5 7 Message Cue 1 value for the entire grapevine structure 9 704105093699908 Cue 1 values for each day Rank 1 1 8273981567999869 Rank 2 0 9599164029000136 Rank 3 0 7992906969999822 Rank 4 0 6560934677000105 Rank 5 0 5639123786000013 Rank 6 0 4123652844999697 Rank 7 0 30063772890001417 Rank 8 0 27511543929998084 Rank 9 0 2707706802999894 Rank 0 2563954915000153 Rank 11 0 2153444188000293 Rank 0 17778097909999957 Rank 0 1526238484999496 Rank 0 140986177900011 Rank 0 13946739319996482 Rank 0 13136762880001385 Rank 0 130617799999996 Rank 0 1182089056999871 10 18 2007 10 19 2007 10 14 2007 10 15 2007 10 29 2007 10 22 2007 11 02 2007 11 08 2007 10 17 2007 10 16 2007 10 26 2007 10 31 2007 11 06 2007 10 25 2007 10 21 2007 11 05 2007 11 03 2007 10 27 2007 19 Rank
13. ed within the ODEV SUM Node i to Node j AVE No of VOTES Node i to Node j Visual cue 3 Lots of Buds Visual cue 3 is similar to the cue 2 except that it deals with the buds and the leaves It points to the level of user participation based on the number of buds and the leaves A higher number of leaves would indicate that a large number of users replied to the posts or concerns on the main stem The calculation corresponding to visual cue 3 is based on the following formula as implemented within the ODEV SUM Bud i to Bud j AVE No of REPLIES Bud i to Bud j Visual cue 4 An open proliferation of Shoots and Leaves A node becomes a bud when it is replied to leading to generation of leaves A productive pattern will have a large number of shoots branching out at a low angle to the bud and extending out in all directions This would indicate that large number of participants from many different locations replied to the posts The greater are the differences in participant locations and the more rapid the replies the higher the rank 12 Cue 4 is calculated as the ratio of total spatial differences divided by total temporal delays This is achieved by dividing the absolute value of the sum of differences in participant latitude and longitude locations by the absolute value of the sum of differences in time between the message and the reply The formula for calculating the visual cue 4 is ABS Latitude of bud Latitude of
14. een more closely aaa Task Settings About lt gt v Enter factor for expansion fl Expand Reset Exit A E i j y E 7 Figure 5 14 Zoomed in view of the Grapevine 5 14 EXIT Finally this section explains how the user can exit the ODEV tool and close the application The Exit button on the far right corner of the control panel on top of the 21 window allows the user to exit the application and executes the proper cleanup by releasing all acquired resources See Figure 5 15 Task Settings About luz gt v A Enter factor for expansion Expand Reset Lem Figure 5 15 Exit button on control panel 28 CHAPTER 6 CLASS AND FUNCTION REFERENCE This chapter describes the various classes and functions defined for implementing the various features and functionality of the ODEV Following are the main classes that identify the objects that build the ODEV 6 1 CLASS NAME COORDINATESYS This is the main class that creates a Java3D universe object and implements all the functionality pertaining to the creation handling and modification of the 3D objects comprising the grapevine structure All features related to the re orientation of the grapevine map and other visual effects such as zoom in zoom out panning stretching shrinking of the grapevine etc are also implemented i
15. for the two sections of the grapevine structure to Task Settings About lt gt v A Enter factor for expansion _ Expand Reset Exit Figure 5 4 Grapevine structure generated after loading the database file Compare Sections Select Start Date for Section 1 4 Oct w 2007 v Select End Date for Section 1 4g Oct w 12007 v Select Start Date for Section 2 22 Oct w 2007 v Select End Date for Section 2 26 w Oct v 2007 v Figure 5 5 Compare sections dates input dialog be compared In the sample screenshot the user has chosen to compare the following two sections of the grapevine structure e Grapevine generated between 10 12 2007 and 10 18 2007 e Grapevine generated between 10 22 2007 and 10 26 2007 18 On selecting the date corresponding to the sections the user intends to compare two grapevine structures get generated next to each other which can be compared visually for studying the patterns reflecting the participation over those periods of time See Figure 5 6 for the result of the Compare Sections operation fe Task Settings About lt gt v A Enter factor for expansion Expand i Reset Exit a mvs d basiss Figure 5 6 Compare sections 5 3 CALCULATE CUE 1 COILING STEM The Calculate Cue 1 option in the Task menu allows the user to execut
16. g speed The higher the factor the more sensitive the contents of the virtual universe grapevine structure and map will be to the movements of the mouse Panning Speed Setting Enter a floating number between 0 5 and 1 0 Enter Factor for Panning speed Apply Pan Speed Figure 5 10 Panning speed setting 5 9 RESET DISPLAYING THE ORIGINAL GRAPEVINE STRUCTURE The Reset button on the control panel on top of the window Figure 5 11 allows the user to display the original grapevine structure when the user has filtered nodes compared sections or manipulated the grapevine in any other way For example say the user has compared two sections in using the Compare Sections option in the Task menu After the analysis user can revert back to viewing the original grapevine structure that was displayed initially prior to comparing sections by clicking on the Reset button Task Settings About lt gt v a Enter factor for expansion Expand reset Yate v Reply v Exit S Figure 5 11 Reset 5 10 STRETCHING SHRINKING THE GRAPEVINE STRUCTURE FOR CLEAR VISUAL DISPLAY The ODEV serves as a tool to aid visual analysis Therefore several features have been implemented which aim to enhance visual clarity and representation On such feature is the ability to stretch or shrink the grapevine structure along the vertical axis axis perpendicular to the plane of the map
17. hing the grapevine structure for clear visual display e Rotating the grapevine structure along horizontal and vertical axes for re orientation e Panning Re orientation of the grapevine structure using mouse drag e Zoom in and Zoom out e Exiting the Discourse Event Visualizer Analyzer 5 1 LOAD DATABASE FILE The first step in using the ODEV is to load the compatible database file Currently the tool supports MS Access database files mdb as well as MS Excel spreadsheet files 15 xls conforming to certain schema requirements which are explained in section name the section here The database file may be loaded using the Load File option in the Task menu see Figure 5 1 al Task Settings About lt gt v A Load File Compare Sections Calculate Cue 1 Calculate Cue 2 Calculate Cue 3 Calculate Cue 4 Calculate Cue 5 Enter factor for expansion Expand Reset Exit KS Figure 5 1 Task menu options On clicking the Load File a dialog box containing two options in the form of radio buttons appears see Figure 5 2 The user may choose to select the file type that he she intends to load B Select File Type DER Select file type O Select MS Access database file Select MS Excel file Figure 5 2 File type selection 16 After selecting the file type to load a file chooser appears prompting the user to sele
18. imensional virtual universe in which the data is represented graphically in the form of a grapevine structure as described in the paper titled Geovisual Evaluation of Public Participation in Decision by Robert Aguirre and Timothy Nyerges 1 which as the name suggests resembles a grapevine with each node representing the occurrence of an event The three coordinates that determine the position of the node are the self reported geographical coordinates of the individual initiating the occurrence of the event e g zip code centroid and the time of its occurrence The grapevine structure will be described in detail in one of the later sections Another important module in the tool is the cue calculator that performs the calculations pertaining to the visual cue analysis There are five cue calculations that help better analyze the visual tendencies of the grapevine In addition to the above mentioned modules there is a data extraction module that handles functionalities such as querying the database for the visual rendering of the grapevine as well as the cue calculations However the tool requires the database to be in a specific format which will be explained in a later section 1 1 NEED FOR THE DISCOURSE EVENT VISUALIZER ANALYZER The National Research Council NRC was given the task to report on ways to improve the decision making about risks to public health public safety and environment According to two publications f
19. is values indicating geographical location and a vertical Y axis value indicating the time of occurrence of the event As can be seen in Figure 4 1 a map of the US with a grid of latitude and longitude lines is placed at the base of the graph along the horizontal plane X Z plane The Z axis extends perpendicular to the screen The vertical Y axis perpendicular to the plane of the map is the time axis According to Robert Aguirre and Timothy Nyerges creators of the grapevine technique it is a geovisual analytic for evaluating the quality and scale of the lask Settings About lt v A Entor factor for expansiorc Expand Reset Exit Figure 4 1 Grapevine structure analytic deliberative process in public participation decision making 2 The grapevine structure provides a visualization of the analytic and deliberative activities of the participants who were engaged in an online and asynchronous decision making problem about improvement in transportation in the Puget Sound region of Washington State In Figure 4 1 the grapevine is the green structure progressing along the vertical axis representing time perpendicular to the plane of the map Since all the data used in the generation of this grapevine structure was collected from the Central Puget Sound area around Seattle the grapevine is generated in that area on the map The red dots on the grapevine structure represent the new post nodes which were generated as a re
20. lytical tool CHAPTER 4 CONCEPTUAL ENTITIES The purpose of this chapter is to present the different concepts and conceptual entities involved in the project and describe the significance and roles of each of them within the system and how they are functionally related to each other The software development processes involved in this project are documented here In a latter section details pertaining to accessing the various functionalities will be described which will serve as a user s manual for this tool 4 1 ENTITIES INVOLVED IN THE DISCOURSE EVENT VISUALIZER ANALYZER AND THEIR ROLES The ODEV involves three important conceptual entities which are described in detail in the following subsections Each concept listed here corresponds to a relevant software module in the ODEV which handles its implementation 4 1 1 The Grapevine The most fundamental functionality implemented in this tool is the rendering of the grapevine structure The database accumulates data pertaining to the users and events occurring on the portal over time An event may be defined as one of the following posting a new message concern replying to an existing post concern and voting on a post concern The data extraction module Database query interface queries the database and extracts the relevant data needed for visually rendering the events Each new post or concern is represented in the 3D virtual universe as a node with horizontal X and Z ax
21. most importantly as without their support this work would not have been possible I dedicate this work to all of them CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The Online Discourse Event Visualizer ODEV is a software tool designed and developed to aid in the visual representation and analysis of research data for social science evaluation of human computer human interaction HCHI The general purpose of the tool is the evaluation of human interactions in time space balancing the power of computing with human spatial thinking skills This tool should be particularly useful to visually evaluate human computer human interactions of an analytic deliberative decision making process when large amounts of unobtrusively collected client server event log data have to be analyzed It combines the theoretical insights from exploratory sequential data analysis social network analysis and time geography The HCHI data for the tool comes from an online portal allowing a large number of participants to propose projects aimed at improving the local transportation of the Central Puget Sound area of Washington as well as providing their comments and votes Through the implementation of several analytical calculations on the research data the Online Discourse Event Visualizer provides useful feedback that helps a geovisual analyst interpret time space patterns about the quality of online deliberation The ODEV is developed using the Java3D API It generates and displays a 3 d
22. n this class In addition this class handles the most fundamental functionality of rendering the 3D grapevine This is done by creation and maintenance of the tree structure responsible for creating and transforming 3D objects in Java3D It also defines the UI for the control panel attached to the top of the virtual universe screen It also handles the database connectivity and the data structures that contain the data retrieved from the database Following is a list of the main functions and their descriptions e createGUI This function creates the graphical user interface with the various GUI components for the displaying to the user It includes the creation of the virtual universe and the control panel that user can use to interact with the tool or change the settings e addAllNewActionNodes This function is responsible for reading the relevant data from the various populated data structures corresponding to the new action nodes and creating the 3D objects accordingly Once the data structures are populated with node information after querying the database 3D objects representing the various nodes and buds are created and attached to relevant Java3D transform group that identify their locations in the virtual universe e addAllGrapeVineLinks The link connecting the nodes with the votes and the buds with the replies tendrils are Java3D objects which are rendered in the virtual universe This function creates the Java3D objects represe
23. ng any further into social science evaluation Fourth and possible future user group Participants themselves may find it useful to see a real time visual depiction of their interactions to date as a sort of formative feedback They may then choose to use the graphic to help them navigate back in time space throughout the discussion to see where and when their more productive deliberations occurred This would be similar to a kind of sophisticated visual sort by quality of deliberation tool to help them decide what content they really want to discuss or reply to CHAPTER 2 DESIGN RATIONALE This chapter describes the various software tools programming languages and technologies used for the design and development of the modules and components of the ODEV It also describes the reasons these programming languages databases and technologies were chosen for the purpose of development The software development has been done in Java The visual representation of the discourse events in an interactive 3 dimensional format is done using the Java3D API It was decided that the ODEV would support the use of MS Access as well as MS Excel for storing relevant research data required for the analysis 2 1 JAVA3D API AND THE VIRTUAL UNIVERSE One of the most fundamental functionalities of this tool is to be able to represent visually a set of HCHI discourse events in time space Since each event has three important parameters associated with it la
24. nnals of the Association of American Geographers forthcoming 2010 WORKS CONSULTED D J Bouvier Getting started with the Java3D API Sun Microsystems Inc Mountain View CA 2000 Hongxin Technology amp Trade Ltd of Xiangtan City HXTT JDBC Drivers 2005 http www hxtt com accessed Oct 2009 C S Horstmann and G Cornell Core Java 2 volume 1 Fundamentals Sth Ed Prentice Hall PTR Palo Alto CA 2000 Oracle Java3D Project Home 2009 https java3D dev java net accessed Sept 2009 Oracle JavaSE Technologies DataBase http www oracle com technetwork java javase tech index jsp 136101 html accessed Oct 2009
25. nting links between the nodes buds with the votes replies 29 actionPerformed This function defines the actions to be performed in when different events generated such as clicking of the various buttons in the user interface addSection1 Grape VineLinks This function is responsible for creating and rendering the Java3D links connecting the nodes buds with the votes replies in section 1 of the two sections created after selecting the time durations for the grapevine sections to be compared addSection2GrapeVineLinks This function is responsible for creating and rendering the Java3D links connecting the nodes buds with the votes replies in section 2 of the two sections created after selecting the time durations for the grapevine sections to be compared filterNodes This function filters the nodes from the data structure for node object based on the selection parameters entered by the user such as node type calcCuelValue This function calculates the cue 1 values for the nodes arraylist passed to it as input parameter calcCue2Value This function calculates the cue 2 values for the nodes arraylist passed to it as input parameter calcCue3Value This function calculates the cue 3 values for the nodes arraylist passed to it as input parameter calcCue4Value This function calculates the cue 4 values for the nodes arraylist passed to it as input parameter calcCue5Value This function calculates the cue 5 values for
26. of the ODEV and how different modules of the project interact with each other Even though this tool will be deployed online once downloaded to the local system it will function as a standalone software Figure 3 1 represents a data flow diagram of the ODEV representing 1ts software architecture and the process Each arrow represents a data flow between two processes or between a process and the database Renders the graphical representation in 3D virtual universe Cue Calculation results to output t Cue Calculator Grid A Database Query Interface NS r Research Database Figure 3 1 ODEV process outline This section provides a detailed explanation of each of the various components in the data flow diagram displayed above e Research Experiment Database The research or experiment database contains the HCHI data collected over the research period from the Let s Improve Transportation project convened in October and November of 2007 The database was stored in the form of a Microsoft Access relational database The ODEV requires the database to be in a specific format to be able to query the relevant data successfully The expected format for the database is described in one of the later sections Currently the database query interface requires the database files to be located locally As will be mentioned in a later section the enabling the software to be able to pick up a dat
27. of the nodes and buds could be made proportional to the number of votes or replies they receive This would aid in better visual analysis since it would be quite easy for the analyst to recognize the nodes buds receiving greater number of votes replies Currently the tool uses the average of 10 nodes to determine the geographic center of the progressing grapevine structure This could be made configurable to allow the user to select the number nodes used for the main stem of the grapevine The tool can be extended to support local area maps to get a detailed view of the grapevine structures more local than the current scope Finally this software tool could be deployed over the internet through the use of a web server Another enhancement would serve moderators whose activities involve intervening during the process of event collection to improve the quality of user interaction A software module could be developed to parse the event logs generated on the portal and collect relevant data into Excel spreadsheets MS Access database files in the format that would be compatible with the ODEV 33 BIBLIOGRAPHY WORKS CITED 1 R Aguirre and T Nyerges Geovisual evaluation of public participation in decision making The grapevine Journal of Visual Languages and Computing forthcoming 2010 2 R Aguirre and T Nyerges Public participation in analytic deliberative decision making Evaluating a large group online field experiment A
28. ports portability and is therefore ideal for web based applications that will be run on different platforms Java3D is also efficient for managing computer resources and is therefore fast Java3D is comparatively easier to use since it is a scene graph based 3D application programming interface that provides for an organized object handling structure The Java Database Connectivity JDBC allows for connectivity of the application with the database and allows the application to query the database and retrieve the required data 2 2 DATABASE MICROSOFT ACCESS AND MICROSOFT EXCEL A database can be defined as an organized collection of data records stored electronically in a uniform file structure that allows data elements to be manipulated correlated or extracted to satisfy diverse analytical and reporting needs The research data is collected on the research portals which undergo a phase of filtering resulting in a standard format of the database which may be compatible with the discourse event visualizer analyzer Microsoft Access has been used as database management software for the purpose of this project for ease of connectivity with Java via JDBC and efficient handling of queries Another convenience MS Access database provides is the ease of exporting to and importing from the Excel format The application also supports connectivity to Excel spreadsheets CHAPTER 3 PROJECT ARCHITECTURE This chapter describes the project architecture
29. ration of shoots and leaves using the formula mentioned in the previous section It generates the cue 4 values for the entire grapevine structure In addition to that it generates the cue 4 values for each day of the experiment and ranks the days in decreasing order of their cue 4 values 4 2 7 Calculate Cue 5 Values This option allows the user to execute the calculations corresponding to the visual cue 5 An open proliferation of tendrils using the formula mentioned in the previous section It generates the cue 5 values for the entire grapevine structure In addition to that it generates the cue 5 values for each day of the experiment and ranks the days in decreasing order of their cue 5 values 14 CHAPTER 5 USER MANUAL This chapter serves as the user s manual for the ODEV It explains how the various features and functionalities of the application may be used Screenshots have been used for better understanding The following section explains how the users can perform all the functions made available by the discourse ODEV These sections include e Tasks e Load Database File e Compare Sections e Calculate Cue 1 Coiling Stem e Calculate Cue 2 Lots of Nodes e Calculate Cue 3 Lots of Buds e Calculate Cue 4 An open proliferation of Shoots and Leaves e Calculate Cue 5 An open proliferation of Tendrils e Settings e Color Settings e Panning Speed Setting e Reset Displaying the original grapevine structure e Stretc
30. rom the National Research Council the analytic deliberative process has been shown to improve decision making In short decisions based on analysis and deliberations are better than the decisions made on the basis of analysis alone The inspiration for the discourse event visualizer analyzer comes from the need for a software tool to aid in the evaluation of online participatory decision making through the use of a custom geovisual analytic technique The design and architecture of the discourse event visualizer analyzer is largely based on the work of Robert Aguirre and Timothy Nyerges at the Department of Geography at the University of Washington who designed a 4D geovisualization called grapevine in order to evaluate the quality and scale of participatory interactions during an online field experiment about improving transportation in Seattle WA 1 The recommended method for using the grapevine technique is to get an overall feel for the quality of interactions use specific visual cues to rank and compare various segments and then use other types of statistical and content and discourse analyses to compare and contrast higher ranking segments versus lower ranking segments as clues to why interactions were more productive in some places and not others The grapevine technique can support better social evaluation of online deliberations by balancing the power of computing to process fine grained interaction event data with the human proces
31. rssresseserssressessresressesseesees 16 Figure 5 4 Grapevine structure generated after loading the database file eee 17 Figure 5 5 Compare sections dates input dialog oonnnccnnnoninnnnonononnnonnnononcnononnnnn nan cc no nono ncnnnno 17 Figure 5 6 Compare SCCUOms uti ii ie 18 Fistite 3 e visual cue L Wales e e Unie at cate 19 Figure 58 Cue 3 a e e a e ed acto dE 20 Figure 5 9 Color SEAS A A A A aed 22 Figure 5 10 Panning speed setting td eo ol 22 Figure 5 11 ROS tra 23 Figure 312 Stretch rape vine a he aie E A eee ARA eee E 24 Figure 5 13 UI for entering grapevine expansion factor 0 0 eee esseceseceeeeeeseecsaeceseeeeeeeenees 25 Figure 5 14 Zoomed in view of the Grapevine oooocccnoccconccconononcnonnnonancnon ccoo nnnnnnnnnn corn n cnn nccnnnos 26 Figure 5 15 Exit button on control panel iaa ts 27 1X ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to many people who have helped and encouraged me in completing this project First I would like to thank my project advisors Dr Piotr Jankowski of the Department of Geography at San Diego State University and Dr Robert Aguirre of the Department of Geography at University of Washington who gave me this opportunity to work on this thesis project and which also led toward the completion of this study I would like to extend my special thanks to Dr Ming Hsiang Tsou and Dr William Root who have accepted my invitation to review my work Lastly I would like to thank my family
32. s analytical calculations on the data and generates and handles the results vi TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ABSTRACT ti v EAST OE FIGURES e e eg es viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS siii di riada ix CHAPTER Yf ANT RO ON a 1 1 Need for the Discourse Event Visualizer AnNalyZer oooonnnccnnnocccooncccnoonccnnnncnnnns 2 1 2 People Who Could Use the ODEV ooo iii data decana arica 3 2 DESIGN RATIONALE siii dc 4 2 1 Java3D API and the Virtual UV A 4 2 2 Database Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel ooooonncnnoconocccoonncnnncnnnncnnncnnns 5 3 PROJECT ARCHITECTURE estira 6 4 CONCEPTUAL EN TITIES tad 8 4 1 Entities Involved in the Discourse Event Visualizer Analyzer and Their Roles e E e a dee ae 8 SI A Ee 8 ALD A O ie ak ae aga owen wares 10 4 1 3 VISUAL CUES tance O O ate Boros 10 42 General ACOSTA td 12 4 2 oad Database Pale ee 12 42 2 Compare Sections sasasssiadinsscdaachagessdes a na E aa a EA E a Da 12 ADS Calculate Cue 1V Ae ss iite uein as 13 4 24 Calculate Cue 2 Values 0 eae A A Ea Ria 13 425 Calenlate Cue 3 Valles id 13 4 2 0 Calculate Cue 2 Valles oi ia 13 4 21 Calculate Cue 3 Valles 200 A eee 13 gt USER MANDA 0 AA aaepa naan naan sassy 14 3 1 Load Database Pile usais nd 14 9 2 COMPare A ll e 16 5 3 Calculate Cue COME SEU 18 5 4 Calculate Cue 2 Lots of Nodes cccocccnnonoconnnononcconanananonononocnoncannnonononcncononanos 19 5 5 Calculate Cue 3 Lots of BUAS cocccccnnonononannnoncnnnonanananononocnononnnnononononc
33. s of spatial thinking According to Aguirre and Nyerges the grapevine is a synthesis of three different methodologies exploratory sequential data analysis social network analysis and space time or time geography 1 1 2 PEOPLE WHO COULD USE THE ODEV Although the potential audiences most likely to use this tool could be segmented into many different user groups the ODEV was designed principally for the geovisual analyst segment The following considers other user groups who could use the ODEV Main user group social science evaluators of participatory situations including software developers who a have some interest experience or familiarity using geographic information and b have large amounts of client server interaction data to analyze but c have misgivings about using or meeting the assumptions necessary to use advanced statistical methods Second user group social science evaluators with large amounts of client server interaction data to analyze who have misgivings about using advanced statistical methods regardless of their interest or experience in GIS or geographic methods Third user group Anyone including social science evaluators software developers or moderators of online situations who have some sort of suitable HCHI data that they could convert into input as coordinate locations times and types of interactions in order to visually explore patterns and make some rough judgments without necessarily goi
34. sult of users posting new posts comments or concerns Details pertaining to any event new post reply or a vote can be displayed by simply clicking on that node in which case a dialog box is displayed See Figure 4 2 for example A typical grapevine structure will contain one or more of the following elements e Nodes A node is a point on the main stem of the grapevine structure that represents a new post or a concern by a user An event on the main stem is a node regardless of whether it has any replies i e whether another user has provided a response in the 10 Node Info G Node Type VOTE_ON_CONCERN Latitude 47 638426 Longitude 122 392986 Date amp Time 2007 10 18 10 43 26 Figure 4 2 Node information dialog form of a reply or comment on this posting If another user replies to a node it is said to have become a bud see below In the ODEV a node is represented by a red point on the main stem of the grapevine structure e Buds A bud represents a node event on the main stem of the grapevine structure that has been replied to or commented upon by other users e Leafs A leaf represents the location in time space of a reply event to a bud event on the grapevine main stem For example a reply to a new post or a comment on a concern would be represented by a leaf A leaf is connected to the bud to which it is a response however it itself does not lie on the main stem of the grapevine structure bu
35. t rather extends from a bud to the location in time space from which a participant made a reply e Tendril A tendril represents another type of reply event in form of an agree or disagree vote and like a leaf extends from a node to the location in time space from which a participant made a reply 4 1 2 The Grid The grid is the module within the discourse event visualizer analyzer software tool that implements two sets of parallel lines each set perpendicular to the other on the x z plane horizontal plane holding the map One represents the latitudes and the other set represents the longitudes A set of functions define accurately the latitude and the longitude divisions on the map thereby enabling the tool to successfully identify a location on the map based on its latitude and longitude The grid simulates a GIS experience by defining the latitude longitude network on the map 4 1 3 Visual Cues According to the paper titled Geovisual Evaluation of Public Participation in Decision Making The 4D Grapevine Technique by Aguirre and Nyerges 1 there are two main aspects to the grapevine structure which help in the analytic and deliberative in public 11 participation decision making Visual cues are a set of five analytical calculations which provide a numerical equivalent of the visual analysis of the event occurrence pattern They help the visual analyst to find the most productive clusters of sh
36. t the user voting on existing posts and concerns are geographically located 5 8 SETTINGS The Settings menu provides options for changing some basic settings pertaining to the appearance and handling of the grapevine structure 5 8 1 Color Settings This option allows the user to change the color code for the various nodes types links and tendrils The default colors are as follows New Post Red Reply Pink Vote Green Link Green Tendril Grey Selecting the Color Settings option from the Settings menu displays an interactive dialog with combo boxes to allow the user to select the color corresponding to each entity See Figure 5 9 22 Color Settings Grapevine link color GREEN x Tendrill color v New Post node color RED w Reply node color PINK Figure 5 9 Color settings 5 8 2 Panning Speed Setting The Panning Speed Setting option in the Settings menu allows the user to set the panning speed Panning refers to the user s ability to move the contents of the screen the map and the grapevine structure using the mouse drag This setting allows the user to alter the sensitivity of the screen contents movements to mouse drag speed On selecting this option Panning speed setting see Figure 5 10 screen is displayed which allows the user to enter a decimal number between 0 5 and 1 0 which will serve as a factor to regulate the pannin
37. the nodes arraylist passed to it as input parameter collectNodesForDay This function collects all the new action nodes into a data structure ArrayList that were generated on a particular day which is passed to it as an input parameter collectReplyNodesForDay This function returns all reply nodes generated on a particular day which is passed as an input parameter to it collectVoteNodesForDay This function returns all vote nodes generated on a particular day which is passed as an input parameter to it compareSec This function generates the two sections of the grapevine and compares them against each other by placing them side by side redrawGrapeVine This function implements the generation and rendering of the grapevine structure based on the filtered nodes It reads the data from the datastructures for nodes and links and renders them in the virtual universe mouseClicked Implements the functionality to be invoked on when the mouse click event is received It causes the ODEV to display details pertaining to the node on which the user clicks mouse WheelMoved This function implements the zooming effect in response to the mouse wheel event generated 30 6 2 CLASS NAME NEWACTIONNODE This class contains the variables defining the parameters and functions defining the behavior of the various types of nodes such as new post nodes replies and votes The main parameters containing information pertaining to a node ar
38. titude longitude and the time of occurrence it was decided that the representation of the data could be done best in a 3 dimensional environment Java3D is an open source API chosen for the purpose of development because it allows for an interactive 3 dimensional virtual universe to which 3D objects can be added at runtime The Java3D API enables the creation of three dimensional graphics applications and Internet based 3D applets applications It provides high level constructs for creating and manipulation 3D geometry and building the structures used in rendering that geometry With this software you can efficiently define and render very large virtual universes The virtual universe is interactive meaning that the user can alter the content as well as the orientation of the objects in 1t at runtime The user can use the mouse for reorientation of the graph for optimal positioning and ease of viewing since the application responds to the events generated by the mouse such as moving the mouse wheel or dragging with the mouse buttons etc Java3D API operates by relying on the creation and maintenance of a tree structure the nodes of which identify the 3 dimensional objects in it as well as the orientation and position of these objects in the virtual universe The various 3 dimensional objects and the design of the virtual universe specific to this tool are listed and explained in a later section describing the various entities of the tool Java sup
39. ucs lor cach day Rank 1 29 607142857112858 10 18 2007 Rank 2 27 75 10 19 2007 Rank 3 19 0 1045 2007 Rank 4 15 920571420571429 10 16 2007 Kank gt 120 11022007 Rank 6 10 142857142857112 10 20 2007 Rank 7 9 714285714285715 10 14 2007 Rank 20 1101 2007 Rank 9 7 333333333333333 1107 2007 Hank SISISTSIISISIIS 1022 2004 Rank 7 2 10 26 2007 Rank 7 0 1105 2007 Rank 17 7 0 10737007 Rank 7 0 10 17 2007 Kank coo 1020 2400 Rank 5 5 1108 2007 Rank 6 25 1106 2007 Rank 625 10717007 Rank 62 10 25 2007 Hank z 5 0 10312007 Rank 1 0 11 04 2007 Rank 30 1109 2007 Rank 27 20 1098 2007 Rank 24 3 0 10 24 2007 Figure 5 8 Cue 3 values 21 5 6 CALCULATE CUE 4 AN OPEN PROLIFERATION OF SHOOTS AND LEAVES Cue 4 calculations provide an assessment of the user participation based proliferation of the shoots and leaves which indicate how far apart the users generating replies to existing comments and posts are geographically located The calculation can be performed by selecting the Calculate Cue 4 option from the Task menu The output format is similar to that explained in previous sections 5 7 CALCULATE CUE 5 AN OPEN PROLIFERATION OF TENDRILS Cue 5 calculations can be performed by selecting the Calculate Cue 5 option from the Task menu Cue 5 values provide an assessment of the pattern of the user participation based on the proliferation of the tendrils which indicate how far apar
40. user participation through comparison of the patterns in the grapevine structure over two separate periods of time in the experiment 13 4 2 3 Calculate Cue 1 Values This option allows the user to execute the calculations corresponding to the visual cue 1 Coiling stem using the formula mentioned in the previous section It generates the cue values for the entire grapevine structure In addition to that it generates the cue 1 values for each day of the experiment and ranks the days in decreasing order of their cue 1 values 4 2 4 Calculate Cue 2 Values This option allows the user to execute the calculations corresponding to the visual cue 2 Lots of nodes using the formula mentioned in the previous section It generates the cue 2 values for the entire grapevine structure In addition to that it generates the cue 2 values for each day of the experiment and ranks the days in decreasing order of their cue 2 values 4 2 5 Calculate Cue 3 Values This option allows the user to execute the calculations corresponding to the visual cue 3 Lots of buds using the formula mentioned in the previous section It generates the cue 3 values for the entire grapevine structure In addition to that it generates the cue 3 values for each day of the experiment and ranks the days in decreasing order of their cue 3 values 4 2 6 Calculate Cue 4 Values This option allows the user to execute the calculations corresponding to the visual cue 4 An open prolife
41. uts on various propositions for transportation related projects in the form of concerns comments votes etc This tool tracks the events and activities occurring over the duration of research at various geographical locations and graphically represents the research data in an interactive 3 dimensional visual format In addition to that this tool performs analytical calculations on the data and provides feedback helpful in visual analysis of the participation of the users of the portal The ODEV is a Java based software application which facilitates visualization and analysis of spatio temporal data in a 3 dimensional virtual environment It extracts the essential data required for the visualization of the discourse events from an MS Access database and then performs a set of calculations The horizontal axes represent the location of the event defined in latitude and longitude whereas the vertical axis represents the time at which the event occurred The grapevine structure generated as a result of this 3D rendering of the data progresses vertically as time passes The ODEV has the following main modules 1 a Java3D virtual universe module that generates an interactive 3 dimensional platform for rendering the discourse event related data visually 2 a data extraction module that queries the database for extracting the essential and relevant data needed for analysis and visualization and finally 3 a cue calculator module which performs the variou
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