Thematic Papers

The course is structured around weekly paper readings. All students are required to read the same papers each week, but each student will have a unique, rotating role. This role defines the lens through which you will read one of the two papers and determines what you prepare for the group in-class discussion.

Each role involves writing and submitting a written essay of about one page, i.e. up to 5,000 characters (excluding whitespace). See details of what the essay should contain below. Everyone is also required to actively contribute to the in-class discussion, with more specific content to discuss for each role (see below).

Roles

This seminar-based course is organized around the different "roles" students play each week: Reviewer, Historian & Researcher.

Reviewer

Complete a full---critical but not necessarily negative---review of the paper.
The review should include a clear articulation of the key contributions of the work, its strengths and utility, and the limitations and weaknesses. A fundamental criterion for the evaluation of all papers is the submission’s contribution to visualization research. In all cases, a paper must break new ground and make an original research contribution. However, it is important to recognize that there are many ways for which a paper can make a contribution to visualization, and you should review the paper appropriately. Make sure to unclude suggestions on how to improve the work.
Consult the guidelines on writing reviews, from Ken Hinckley, Niklas Elmqvist and John Stasko. An example of a set of submissions, open reviews and meta-review for a papers in Human-Computer Interaction, Visualization and Computer Graphics I can be found on the OpenReview platform for the Graphics Interface conference.

• Essay: Submit a full review for the paper.
• In-class Discussion: You will be asked to share your critical thoughts on the paper based on what you wrote in your essay. You are welcome to prepare a few slides to discuss your points, should you deem it will help, but it's not required.

Historian (Looking Back)

Determine where this paper sits in the context of previous work. Identify at least two of the most relevant papers that this paper builds on, and reflect on how influential is the prior work you chose to the current work.

• Essay:Submit a discussion essay explaining why you selected the papers you chose for this exercise (among all other papers referenced), how the current paper relates to the prior work in the selected papers, and your reflections on how influential the selected works were to this paper.
• In-class Discussion: You will be asked to describe the contribution of the current paper in the context of previous work based on your essay.

Researcher (Looking Forward)

You’re a researcher who is working on a new project in this area. Propose an imaginary follow-up project not just based on the current but only possible due to the existence and success of the current paper.

• Essay: Submit an essay comprising of a full research proposal. Your essay should describe the topic of your project: motivation, e.g., why it is important (why care? who cares?), why it is difficult, and the research question(s) that you are trying to address, a brief positioning situating your work with regard to the area, a description of your envisioned research methodology and associated limitations and risks, as well as expected outcomes. The very brief positioning can build on the paper's related work section and optionally, additional papers you decide to consult. We do not expect a full account of the related work (outside of the scope of this assignment), but we expect to understand why your project is only made possible due to the existence and success of the current paper, and what gap it would address, e.g. what has been done in the area, and why these prior works are limited; what are prior works you bear inspiration from and why.
• In-class Discussion: You will be asked to describe and defend your proposal based on your essay.

Expectations: Essay and In-Class Discussion

When should I submit the essay?

Submit your essay one hour prior to class at the latest.

What should I prepare for the in-class discussion?

Recall that everyone is required to have read the papers and therefore you can assume that the audience will already be familiar with the papers' content.
Everyone: Even if you are not submitting an essay for a given paper, you should have an opinion on the readings, and points of discussion that you would like to bring up.
Reviewers, historians, researchers: You should be prepared to cover your content within 5 minutes. We encourage that you come with discussion points that will engage the audience. You are welcome to share your screen while you present if it is necessary.

Grading

Each assignment (essay + participation to the in-class discussion) is worth 6% of your final grade.

The base grade for this assignment will pertain to the quality of your written essay.

Excellent (5-6 pts)	Organized, concise, complete and relevant discussion that develops critical thoughts and personal reflection.
Good (4 pts)	Reasonably well organized, thoughtful discussion that develops critical thoughts and personal reflection. Some areas could be further improved with regard to organization, completdness, conciseness and clarity.
Satisfactory (3 pts)	Discussion is relevant, but lacks depth and/or is not quite well organized and/or lacks completedness, conciseness and clarity.
Unsatisfactory (0-2 pt)	Discussion is too short, too basic, off-topic and/or difficult to understand.

Your base grade will then be multiplied by a participation to in-class discussion factor as follows:

Prepared and Engaged (x 1)	Was well prepared for, and active and engaged during the in-class discussion.
Poorly prepared / Minimal Engagement (x 0.75)	Preparation was poor and intervention in the in-class discussion minimal.
Unprepared / Absent (x 0.5)	Didn't participate to the in-class discussion, or was off-topic.

Your written documents should be of top professional quality. Note that points will be subtracted subject to the following motives: missing components, poor presentation (e.g. poor formatting), lack of clarity (e.g. poor writing, poor organization).