I am a data analyst at Counting Opinions, Inc. designing various types of visualizations of diverse statistical datasets, which is deeply grounded in my research on visual analytics, sense-making, information visualization, and organization of geo-referenced collections. Some of my recent publications appear in Knowledge Organization and Information Research Journal. I teach Geospatial Data courses at the Faculty of Information and Media Studies (University of Western Ontario, Canada), online workshops on representing geographic information with map mashups, and I will teach online workshop on visual analytics with d3.jc at Library Juice Academy in January 2015. In the past, I worked as a Research Associate at the Alexandria Digital Library, the first geo-digital library in the world.
Selected Publications:
Buchel,O., & K. Sedig. 2014. Making Sense of Document Collections with Map-Based Visualizations: Interaction with Representations. Information Research Journal. (Forthcoming)
Buchel, O., & K. Sedig. 2013. From data-centered to activity-centered geospatial visualizations. In T. Huang and W. Huang (Eds.), Innovative Approaches of Data Visualization and Visual Analytics.
Buchel, O., & K. Sedig. 2011. Extending Map-Based Visualizations to Support Visual Tasks: The Role of Ontological Properties. Knowledge organization 38 (3), 204-229
Visualization Projects:
VICOLEX
VIsual COLlection EXplorer (VICOLEX) is a prototype map-based visualization built with Google Maps Version 2. The prototype was used to develop a conceptual model for visualization of document collections on Google Maps. It has rich representations and interactions suitable for sensemaking activities. Because of its representations and interactions, VICOLEX allows users to make a large number of insights about various aspects of collections and geographic locations.
Overview of VICOLEX representations in PREZI:
Dinoflagellattes
Researchers in many fields are collecting datasets about sightings of species and fossils. When these datasets are visualzied for retrieval in digital libraries, the datasets loose their contexts and are simply visualized as single dots on maps which are difficult to understand and make sense of. This goal of this project is to enhance visual analyses and knowledge discovery in scientific datasets.
More information about this project can be found in:
Fischer, E., Buchel, O. (2012). “Can interactive map-based visualizations reveal contexts of scientific datasets?” CAIS 2012.
Whales Sightings
The Whales Sightings project is an example of a map-based visualization created for a community of Naked Whale Researchers, http://www.nakedwhaleresearch.org. This project received funding for the visualization from Google. The visualization shows sightings of whales, sea lions, and seals along the North America\’s Pacific Coast. The goal of the researchers is to identify spatio-temporal patterns of whale sightings.
Research interests:
Knowledge Organization
Knowledge organization systems/services; gazetteers; geospatial ontologies
Information Visualization
interactive map-based visualization of knowledge organization schemas; graphical representation of ontological properties of publications and classifications; knowledge discovery with graphical representations
Information Retrieval
extraction techniques; retrieval tasks; geographic information retrieval; location-based queries
Human Information Interaction
usability; sensemaking; visual tasks; epistemic activities; dynamic queries; dynamic maps; geobrowsing; cognitive tools
Membership in Professional organizations:
American Society for Information Science & Technology (ASIS&T) – 2002-Present
International Society for Knowledge Organization (ISKO) – 2006-Present
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) – 2011
Networked Knowledge Organization Systems/Services (NKOS) – 2003-Present