Building a Multi-Year Database of AAG Conference Abstracts

André Skupin / Shujing ShuDept. of Geography / Dept. of Computer Science

University of New Orleans

Knowledge Domain Visualization

• Why?– understand knowledge domains in terms of:

• Past how did this research area develop?• Present who are the leading researchers and topics?• Future what will have high priority for federal funding?

• Who are the users?– non-specialists:

• teaching tool– specialists:

• find trends, emerging topics, potential collaborators– b/w specialists from different domains:

• enable communication about knowledge domains– funding agencies

• research impact analysis

Knowledge Domain Visualization

Example: domain experts

Knowledge Domain Visualization (KDV)

Knowledge Domain Visualization

• Geographic/Cartographic/GIScience Perspectives on:– Metaphors

• map, landscape

– Technology• GIS

– Methods• objects vs. fields• visualizing change

– Challenges• computation• cognition

Typical KDV versus KDV based on AAG

Typical Knowledge Domain

Geographic Knowledge Domain via AAG Meeting

Topic serious serious to whimsical

Peer review peer-reviewed not peer-reviewed

Project Phase final planning to final

Career Phase early to late pre- to mid/late-career

Abstract-to-Content Prox.

close medium to far

Co-Authorship

moderate to extensive

limited

Citations citations no citations

KDV methods structure-based content-based

AAG abstracts 1993 – 2002from unstructured to structured data

• Issues:– parse documents

• begin/end

– parse document components• metadata

– author name, address, email

• content– title, abstract text, keywords

– variations in format between years– variations in format within years– author disambiguation

AAG abstracts 1993 – 2002from unstructured to structured data

AAG abstracts 1993 – 2002n abstracts by year

0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000 3500

[Atlanta - 1993]

San Francisco - 1994

Chicago - 1995

Charlotte - 1996

Fort Worth - 1997

Boston - 1998

Honolulu - 1999

Pittsburgh - 2000

New York - 2001

Los Angeles - 2002

AAG abstracts 1993 – 2002interesting facts

• abstracts: 22,089• authors: 30,589• unique authors: ~ 13,521

– disambiguation of author names difficult• same authors counted more than once

– “Andre Skupin” versus “André Skupin”

• multiple authors with same name– “Michael Smith” versus “Michael Smith”

• max authors for one abstract: 17• Knight et al. (1999) A framework for integrated regional assessment

of global climate change. (Penn State)

• max abstracts for one author: 29• Kam-biu Liu, Louisiana State University

AAG Meeting 1992 – 2003: Term Dominance Landscape

AAG Meeting 1992 – 2003: Term Dom. Landscape + Neuron Label Clusters

AAG Meeting 1992 – 2003: Term Dom. Landscape + Neuron Label Clusters

NAS Workshop on Uncertainty Visualization: 3 sessions w/ 3-4 speakers + 1 discussant

2005 AAG Meeting: Sessions on “Mapping Humanity’s Knowledge in the Digital Domain”

Author Change Surface – Michael Goodchild1970 - 1979 1975 - 1984

[’75-’84] minus [’70-’79]

Author Change Surface – Michael Goodchild1980 - 1989 1985 - 1994

[’85-’94] minus [’80-’89]

AAG Abstract Database – Future Work

– Tool development and deployment• AbstractMap System

– AbstractMap Manager

– AbstractMap Viewer

• scalability to large data sets?

– Tool application• time / geographic space / attribute space

– cluster emergence/growth/abandonment

– disciplinary evolution

– institutional evolution

– author trajectories

– links between conference site and topics

• integrate across disciplines– map of science

THE END