Badges for Visualization Micro-Certification

Presenter: Jeff Sale, Learning Design Technologist, San Diego Supercomputer Center, UC San Diego

Date: August 2, 2017

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEkDwe6q6Cw

Abstract

The XSEDE 2 partnership is developing a self-assessment instrument for establishing beginner, intermediate, and advanced level expertise in the field of scientific visualization. An award in the form of an official XSEDE Badge will be issued to anyone who successfully passes the assessment. In this seminar we we discuss the motivation for a scientific visualization badge, and we present methods we are currently using to develop the assessment. To our knowledge no such certification currently exists. In general, scientific visualization tutorials and their accompanying assessment instruments are limited in scope, too application-specific, and not general enough for most researchers interested in this sort of certification. We hope this seminar evolves into a dialog about the role of self-assessment and certification in online training.

Target Audience: Scientific visualization community who may be interested in contributing feedback to such a certification, and researchers interested in being certified.

Prerequisites: None

Biography

Jeff received a B.S. in Physics and a Masters Degree in Learning Design Technology from San Diego State University. Early in his career, Jeff supported clinical neuroscience research with the Loma Linda University Medical Center’s Neurology Research Team. During this time he helped pioneer new ways of integrating and applying virtual reality technologies and data visualization techniques to the clinical setting in areas such as quantitative assessment of movement disorders (Parkinson’s Disease, Huntington’s Disease, ALS), physical rehabilitation, augmentative communication, environmental control, and electro-physiological analysis and visualization of bio-electro-magnetic data (EEG, ECG, EMG, MEG). This work was the focus of numerous news reports and was included in one of the first books on Virtual Reality nearly 25 years ago.

Jeff also currently serves as visualization consultant for SynGlyphX, and Washington D.C.-based visualization startup. Jeff has published and presented work in visualization of electrophyisological data, virtual reality technologies applied to neuro-rehabilitation, and distributed medical intelligence.