Collaborations

And no, this brand new column, sheltered by the newborn LSI+ newsletter somewhere in a local road of the information highway, doesn't have, despite its title, any apocalyptic overtones. If anything, it shares the partying mood of The Buggles' original (Anybody alive remembers them?... gosh! techno, when did we lose our innocence?)

Video Killed the Journal Star (a.k.a. VKJS) is born, as almost anything is, out of a silly coincidence (well, at least that's what my girl said, and now I am a father): that of the Data Mining master course I teach and a curious email from Elsevier publisher that I recently received. In the Data Mining course, I teach some seminars on the relevance (usually overlooked) of information visualization in the process of knowledge extraction from data. Elsevier's email, on the other hand, was, at the very least, intriguing.

Elsevier was pondering the possibility, as an author that has previously published with them, that I was ready to pay for videos of the international conferences I usually attend, as well as for the corresponding presentations (say, for the power points). Blimey! I though to myself, taking into account how bad conference presentation usually are, I don't quite see myself paying (or making UPC pay) for them. And do not think I am picky when it comes to scientific communication. It is not that. Let's be honest: most of us were not born with the gift of extraordinary communication skills (moreover, that is not a pre-requisite to obtain AQU's research accreditation). And what can I say about the power points? Honestly, I wouldn't touch most of them with a ten-foot bargepole. They are not usually made for the audience, but for the speaker to navigate through its own message and not sink in the uncharted waters of a challenging audience.

Possibly, the best presentation I have ever attended was that of Kevin Warwick at Biosignals conference, a few months ago. Professor Warwick is renowned for being the first (?) voluntary cyborg in history. Well then, he gave his 45 min. talk, titled "Outthinking and Enhancing Biological Brains", without a beamer and facing the audience. How human of him. How fascinating.

So, does it really make sense that a big publishing machine such as Elsevier makes me that kind of offer?. Please think twice before answering to that. Do not underestimate Elsevier's marketing department, because they may have something in their hands. I admit I'd rather see scholar.google dishing their own scientific video service, but, until that time comes, we better get used to the fact that this type of multimedia is already here, and it is here to stay. No, it won't kill the journal star, but video can supplement very nicely, thank you, the stuffy, hard-nosed offer of the more traditional scientific publications we are so used to.

Given that a video is worth a thousand words, let me go back to my post grad Data Mining course. As part of their evaluation, students must publicly defend in front of an audience (composed of the rest of the students and the lecturers) a research report they have previously submitted in written. This is meant to be, in a way, some training for their future coming-out in the conference circuit. There are usually plenty of students, so that we can allocate no more than 15' to each of their presentations. True, it is not much, is it? As a result, they usually moan a lot, complaining along the lines of "How on earth am I going to tell all about my work in 15 miserable minutes?". As a scratch for that itch, we recommend them to watch Hans Rosling's video, where, within roughly 20', the speaker synthesizes the amount of information that would take the rest of us hours to convey. Out of those reading this column right now, how many have attended a scientific conference in which the speaker is interrupted by impromptu applause? Well, that's exactly what happened at Rosling's. And, believe me, it has nothing to do with his experimental work showing that chimpanzees are better- or equally well-informed than Swedish university students and senior lecturers on issues of World Health. Nop, it has to do with the superb Gapminder information visualization tool, developed under the wing of, surprise, surprise, Google, which he uses to illustrate his arguments. Knowledge in the form of visual pills: from today, this is what VKJS will be all about.

An yes, as everybody knows, penguins can fly.
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