ArgVis — COMMA Workshop on Argument Visualization

Perugia Panorama

Due to the global COVID-19 pandemic, ArgVis 2020 will take place as a virtual workshop via zoom. Please register for the workshop via the COMMA conference website. You will receive an email with the access details after your registration.

Program Overview

13:45–14:30: Shared Talk for all workshops

Speaker: Guillermo R. Simari, Universidad Nacional del Sur

Title: The Dynamics of Knowledge: Argumentation and Belief Revision

Abstract: The exploration of the relationships between belief revision and computational argumentation has led to significant contributions for both areas; several techniques employed in belief revision are being studied to formalize the dynamics of argumentation frameworks and the capabilities of the argumentation-based defeasible reasoning are being used to define belief change operators. By briefly considering the fundamental ideas of both areas it is possible to examine some of the mutually beneficial cross-application in different proposals that model reasoning mechanisms that combine contributions from the two domains.

14:45–14:50: Welcome and Introduction

14:50–16:05: Invited Talk & Paper Presentations

Tamara Mchedlidze (Invited)
OpMAP: Applying argumentation to structure and visualize multi-dimensional opinion spaces

Michael Hoffmann
Teaching the Reflection on Argument Quality with a novel Visualization Tool (PDF)

Lars Malmqvist, Tommy Yuan and Suresh Manandhar
Visualising Argumentation Graphs with Graph Embeddings and t-SNE (PDF)

Fabian Sperrle, Mark-Matthias Zymla, Mennatallah El-Assady, Miriam Butt and Daniel Keim
Guided Linguistic Annotation of Argumentation through Visual Analytics (PDF)

Matt Foulis, Jacky Visser and Chris Reed
Interactive Visualisation of Debater Identification and Characteristics (PDF)

16:10–17:00: Panel Discussion

We will explore the intersection of computational argumentation and visualization, bringing the two communities together. We plan to discuss, among others, what the biggest upcoming challenges in argumentation are, what lessons have been learned in the past years, and how visualization can support argumentation.

Our panelists are:

Alice Toniolo

Anna De Liddo

Chris Reed

Mennatallah El-Assady

17:00–17:50: Keynote

             Speaker: Andreas Kerren (Linnaeus University, Sweden)

Title: Visual Text Analytics: Overview, State-of-the-Art, and Challenges

Abstract: The interest for text visualization and visual text analytics has been heavily increasing for the last ten years. The reasons for this development are manifold, but for sure the availability of large amounts of heterogeneous text data (caused by the popularity of online social media) and the adoption of text processing algorithms by the visualization community are possible explanations. This invited talk at the COMMA 2020 Workshop on Argument Visualization will primarily give an overview of visualization research with a focus on text visualization. In order to classify traditional and state-of-the-art visualization methods, I will present and use an interactive visual survey of text visualization techniques, called TextVis Browser, which is freely available online (textvis.lnu.se). My talk will conclude with a discussion of the most important challenges and open problems in text visualization. All together I hope that this talk can serve as a starting point for further discussions and the identification of synergies between the fields of information visualization and computational argumentation.

Bio: Andreas Kerren received his PhD degree in Computer Science from Saarland University, Saarbrücken (Germany). In 2008, he achieved his habilitation (docent competence) from Växjö University, Sweden. Dr. Kerren is currently a Full Professor in Computer Science at the Department of Computer Science and Media Technology, Linnaeus University, Sweden, where he is heading the research group for Information and Software Visualization, called ISOVIS. His main research interests include the areas of Information Visualization, Visual Analytics, and Human-Computer Interaction. He is, among others, editorial board member of the Information Visualization and Computer Graphics Forum journals, has served as organizer/program chair at various conferences, such as IEEE VISSOFT 2013/2018, GD 2018, or IVAPP 2013-15/2018-20, and has edited a number of successful books on human-centered visualization.

17:50–18:00: Closing & Outlook

All times are GMT+2.

Important Dates

The virtual ArgVis workshop will take place on zoom as part of COMMA 2020 on September 08 2020.

Analyzing and visualizing argument structures is a notoriously difficult task, as the data consists of large relational structures. Scalable (interactive) visualization techniques have been shown to reduce the cognitive effort when analyzing such complex structures. By bridging the gap between the argumentation and visualization communities, we aim to foster novel approaches facilitating argument visualization.

The workshop aims to bridge the gap between researchers from computational argumentation and information visualization. In particular, we want to raise awareness for the challenges that argumentative data and its annotation brings with it (e.g. the multidimensionality of the feature set, its uncertainty) and explore how information visualization can support their solution. At the same time, information visualization can push the state of the art by tackling exactly those challenges and testing their efficacy in user studies.

  1. Spell out existing challenges in argumentation theory and argument mining and discuss how can they be translated into subproblems that information visualization can help solving.
  2. Showcase how information visualization facilitates argument analysis.
  3. Propose new ways of making argumentative data accessible for the general public with methods from information visualization.
  4. Discuss the background and design justifications for systems presented in the COMMA 2020 demo track.
  5. Enable inter-disciplinary collaboration

Date and Location

September 08 2020; online via zoom.

Call for Submissions

We invite papers, which have to be in English and formatted according to the IOS style (template), in the following two categories:

Short Papers Short papers present a novel approach to the visualization of arguments, showcase the applicability of existing visualization research to the field of argumentation, or highlight initial results of ongoing work. Short papers are 4 to 6 pages, excluding references.

Position Papers Position papers present novel positions, theories and concepts that provide opportunities for future research. While these ideas do not have to be already implemented, they should be grounded on previous research in related fields. Position papers are 4 pages in length, excluding references.

Submission will be handled through the EasyChair conference management system. All papers will be peer-reviewed by the international program committee to ensure their quality and relevance to the workshop. The workshop proceedings containing all accepted papers will be published via CEUR-WS. At least one author of each accepted paper must register for and attend the workshop to present the paper.

Topics

Topics of interest to the workshop include, but are not limited to:

Paper Submission

Paper submissions must be in PDF format following the IOS style (template). All submissions must be double-blind.

Papers should be submitted via EasyChair (https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=argvis2020) by July 15, 2020 (AoE, 23:59 UTC-12). Notifications will be sent on August 15, 2020.

Organizers

Program Committee