Barbara Mirel - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Barbara Mirel

Interactive network visulalizations are critical for exploring and hypothesizing about mechanisti... more Interactive network visulalizations are critical for exploring and hypothesizing about mechanistic molecular processes of diseases. Yet user studies show that network tools insufficiently support the higher order cognition in these workflows. Purpose of our work is to:-optimize interactive network tools for complex exploratory/explanatory analysis-map cognotive tasks in this workflow torequirements for usefulness and usability-propose a package of requirements necessary for one workflow Sample Case: We present one exemplary cognitive task and its associated package of user requirements. The task involves classifying by two or more similar traits or values. This task is core to initially uncovering interactions relevant to a disase. Cognitively, scientists interweave classification by similarity and metacogniotion (see Figure 1). The mapping of user requirements to task chunks clearly shows overlaps and thus relationships between the task chunks, pointing out the network rather than list structure. Methods: We studied scientists' common exploration of protein-protein interaction (PPI) networks to uncover and initially explain functional relationships relevant to a disease. Scientists analyzed data from microarray samples of clinical/animal samples and lab experiments. Based on field studies, interviews and scenario-based modeling, we compiled this workflow, its task chunks and associated cognitive tasks and mapped its cognitive tasks to user requirements. We synthesized the requirements from the research literature and critically reviewed and revised them for relevance, redundance, clarity and granularity.

especially f.or adult students. SNL students are adults, age 24 or older, who want to accelerate ... more especially f.or adult students. SNL students are adults, age 24 or older, who want to accelerate their progress to a degree by using experience as well as classwork for academic credit, and who want to design their own programs with help from an advisory committee of experts. The undergraduate curriculum is competence-based (that is, focused on learning outcomes), student-centered, and interdisciplinary. SNL assesses students on 50 learning outcomes or competence statements, targeted to and organized into 5 domains, each of which is comparable to a discipline found in a traditional liberal arts program. An assessment study of this program was needed to describe the range of written reports assigned in content courses, identify teachers expectations for the written reports that they assign, and rate students' performance against teacher criteria. The goal of the study was to define problems and to propose reforms for improvement. Two theoretical frameworks undergirded the study: (1) a psychological model of intellectual development in college students; and (2) an instructional design for complex problem solving. Methods included analyses of teachers descriptions of assignments, categorization of assignments, rating's of student papers, and surveys of student perceptions of teachers' expectations and criteria. Results, which are various and copious, are logged on numerous data sheets. Surveys are appended. (TB)

Summit on translational bioinformatics, 2009

Many methods and tools have evolved for microarray analysis such as single probe evaluation, prom... more Many methods and tools have evolved for microarray analysis such as single probe evaluation, promoter module modeling and pathway analysis. Little is known, however, about optimizing this flow of analysis for the flexible reasoning biomedical researchers need for hypothesizing about disease mechanisms. In developing and implementing a workflow, we found that workflows are not complete or valuable unless automation is well-integrated with human intelligence. We present our workflow for the translational problem of classifying new sub-types of renal diseases. Using our workflow as an example, we explain opportunities and limitations in achieving this necessary integration and propose approaches to guide such integration for the next great frontier-facilitating exploratory analysis of candidate genes.

Journal of biomedical discovery and collaboration, 2009

Current usability studies of bioinformatics tools suggest that tools for exploratory analysis sup... more Current usability studies of bioinformatics tools suggest that tools for exploratory analysis support some tasks related to finding relationships of interest but not the deep causal insights necessary for formulating plausible and credible hypotheses. To better understand design requirements for gaining these causal insights in systems biology analyses a longitudinal field study of 15 biomedical researchers was conducted. Researchers interacted with the same protein-protein interaction tools to discover possible disease mechanisms for further experimentation. Findings reveal patterns in scientists' exploratory and explanatory analysis and reveal that tools positively supported a number of well-structured query and analysis tasks. But for several of scientists' more complex, higher order ways of knowing and reasoning the tools did not offer adequate support. Results show that for a better fit with scientists' cognition for exploratory analysis systems biology tools need t...

AMIA ... Annual Symposium proceedings / AMIA Symposium. AMIA Symposium, 2006

Clinical care management promises to help diminish the major health problem of depression. To rea... more Clinical care management promises to help diminish the major health problem of depression. To realize this promise, front line clinicians must know which care management interventions are best for which patients and act accordingly. Unfortunately, the detailed intervention data required for such differentiated assessments are missing in most clinical information systems (CIS). To determine frontline clinicians' needs for these data and to identify the data that CIS should keep, we conducted an 18 month ethnographic study and discourse analysis of telehealth depression care management. Results show care managers need data-based evidence to choose best options, and discourse analysis suggests some personalized interventions that CIS should and can feasibly capture for evidence.

AMIA Joint Summits on Translational Science proceedings AMIA Summit on Translational Science, 2010

The CTSA Inventory of Resources Explorer facilitates searching and finding relevant biomedical re... more The CTSA Inventory of Resources Explorer facilitates searching and finding relevant biomedical resources in this rich, federated inventory. We used efficient and non-traditional formal usability methods to define requirements and to design the Explorer, which may be extended to similar web-based tools.

ACM SIGDOC Asterisk Journal of Computer Documentation, 1998

Computational Systems Bioinformatics - Proceedings of the Conference CSB 2007, 2007

Searching the Medline database is almost a daily necessity for many biomedical researchers. Howev... more Searching the Medline database is almost a daily necessity for many biomedical researchers. However, available Medline search solutions are mainly designed for the quick retrieval of a small set of most relevant documents. Because of this search model, they are not suitable for the large-scale exploration of literature and the underlying biomedical conceptual relationships, which are common tasks in the age of high throughput experimental data analysis and cross-discipline research. We try to develop a new Medline exploration approach by incorporating interactive visualization together with powerful grouping, summary, sorting and active external content retrieval functions. Our solution, PubViz, is based on the FLEX platform designed for interactive web applications and its prototype is publicly available at: http://brainarray.mbni.med.umich.edu/Brainarray/DataMining/PubViz.

Proceedings of the 21st annual international conference on Documentation - SIGDOC '03, 2003

Proceedings of the 7th annual international conference on Systems documentation, 1989

Interaction Design for Complex Problem Solving, 2004

Management Communication Quarterly, 1990

In-house software manuals must satisfy many internal audiences that are adapting to computerizati... more In-house software manuals must satisfy many internal audiences that are adapting to computerization. Manuals must meet the operational needs of users, represent the technical requirements of in-house programmers, and achieve the goals of upper managers for stability and productivity. To achieve these multiple objectives, in-house writers, with support from their managers, need two special strategies for project management: conducting a contextual audience analysis and acting as liaisons in their workplaces. Contextual audience analyses examine the organizational dynamics that influence how users learn about and respond to a new system. These analyses investigate the relationship between users' task responsibilities and job satisfaction; the consequences of current interchanges among users, programmers, and managers; and successful adoptions of other manuals in the organization. In-house writers must also become liaisons who diagnose sources of resistance to computerization, nego...

Leonardo, 2011

If whole communities of domain analysts are to be able to use interactive network visualization t... more If whole communities of domain analysts are to be able to use interactive network visualization tools productively and efficiently, tool design needs to adequately support the metacognition implicit in complex visual analytic tasks. Metacognition for such exploratory network-mediated tasks applies across disciplines. This essay presents metacognitive demands inherent in complex tasks aimed at uncovering relevant relationships for hypothesizing purposes and proposes network visualization tool designs that can support these metacognitive demands.

Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2013

Many recent studies on MEDLINE‐based information seeking have shed light on scientists’ behaviors... more Many recent studies on MEDLINE‐based information seeking have shed light on scientists’ behaviors and associated tool innovations that may improve efficiency and effectiveness. Few, if any, studies, however, examine scientists’ problem‐solving uses of PubMed in actual contexts of work and corresponding needs for better tool support. Addressing this gap, we conducted a field study of novice scientists (14 upper‐level undergraduate majors in molecular biology) as they engaged in a problem‐solving activity with PubMed in a laboratory setting. Findings reveal many common stages and patterns of information seeking across users as well as variations, especially variations in cognitive search styles. Based on these findings, we suggest tool improvements that both confirm and qualify many results found in other recent studies. Our findings highlight the need to use results from context‐rich studies to inform decisions in tool design about when to offer improved features to users.

Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, 2001

This study suggests that documentation is a complex technical communication genre, encompassing a... more This study suggests that documentation is a complex technical communication genre, encompassing all the texts that mediate between complex human activities and computer processes. Drawing on a historical study, it demonstrates that the varied forms given to documentation have a long history, extending back at least to the early days of commercial mainframe computing. The data suggest that (1) early forms of documentation were borrowed from existing genres, and (2) official and unofficial documentation existed concurrently, despite efforts to consolidate these divergent texts. The study thus provides a glimpse into the early experimental nature of documentation as writers struggled to find a meaningful way to communicate information about their organization's developing computer technology.

Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 1998

This inquiry explores the practical implications of constructivist theory for documentation that ... more This inquiry explores the practical implications of constructivist theory for documentation that is targeted to complex tasks and experienced users (users who are less than experts but more than novices). It argues that current task-oriented documentation falls short in addressing these tasks and users and examines the contributions that constructivism can make, contributions that will lead to documentation that differs in kind not just degree from conventional task-oriented manuals and help systems. This inquiry synthesizes the following four themes from constructivist theory and analyzes their relevance to documentation development: (1) changing the object of instruction to “activity in context,” (2) shaping instruction around problems experienced by users in work contexts, (3) highlighting users' social stock of knowledge, and (4) adopting a rhetoric of problem-based instruction expressed through cases. Examples are given from current efforts in interface and instructional de...