Research intelligence - Damming the 'data deluge'

This is an article in the Times Higher Education about an interesting workshop that I'll be attending -

Research intelligence - Damming the 'data deluge'
7 October 2010

By Neha Popat

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=413722&c=2

"A workshop aims to bring design to bear on increasingly complex scientific information. Neha Popat reports

Rapid advances in the technology and methods used in research have undoubtedly yielded great benefits for scientists and society at large.

But the new techniques have also resulted in a surge in both the volume and complexity of the information researchers are expected to analyse.

The challenges of coping with this "data deluge" have been recognised by the UK's Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. They are working in tandem to address the lack of "visualisation" techniques available to present biological data in a user-friendly way.

David McAllister, the strategy and policy manager at the BBSRC, said visualisation was not just about how information is presented on web pages or other electronic media.

"Rather, it is about how researchers can handle and present their data in ways in which new and better analyses can take place. For example, spreadsheets are a good way to store large amounts of numerical data, but are less good as tools for spotting a particular pattern or trend," he said.

To examine the problem, a workshop to be held jointly by the two research councils next month, titled The Challenges of Visualising Biological Data, will bring biologists together with researchers in other disciplines to discuss the difficulties they face and provide insights into how large and complex datasets can be 'fully exploited'."

I'm looking forward to it and designing a poster for it. It's 16th and 17th November invitation only due to numbers, but I hope to link to whatever is put online.

Peter Hale