Description of Catalog Entries
Catalog entries are structured as a series of fields, each of which is a key:value pair. To get the Wiki to do the formatting correctly, the line "#FORMAT keyval" must appear at the beginning of every entry.
Some of the fields are structured, requiring one of a specific set of values, and other are free form. Of course, the catalog is always in some state of flux, and many entries are not complete or properly formed. But this page attempts to define what a complete and properly formed catalog entry may contain. It is important that entries be well formed so that they can be interpreted by analysis tools. Note: In this description, "entry" refers to the catalog entry content, and "AV" refers to the artifact that the catalog entry is about.
Recommendation: This is an overall, coarse recommendation for the AV, as assigned by the Wiki Editors. Valid field values are:
Recommended: AVs with this rating do a good job of conveying meaningful content to the user. Usually, they also have a strong component of active engagement for the user. Students can typically use these AVs to study the topic on their own.
Has Potential: Minor pedagogical issues or some technical difficulties. Instructors can use this (most often as a lecture aid), but caution is recommended if a student is to use this unassisted. When possible, suggestions should be given on how authors of the AV can correct these errors.
Not Recommended: Such AVs either do not work at all or cannot be made to work with reasonable effort; or the presentation is so unclear as to not convey meaningful content to the student; or the content is so trivial as to not convey significant information. Occasionally an AV might be designated as Not Recommended if several other AVs on the same topic are available that are clearly better. Educators are advised to avoid and authors are advised to overhaul the AV.
Unrated: Default value when no recommendation has yet been assigned. Indicates an incomplete entry.
For more information on how we assign these ratings, see EditorialRating.
Link: The URL from which this AV can be obtained. Depending on circumstances, this might be a link to the AV itself (most typical for applets, Java Script, Shockwave, and Flash presentations), or a link to a page that in turn links to the downloadable material.
Delivery Method: Technology or environment for delivering the AV. Valid field values are:
Java Applet: A Java Applet directly accessible from a web browser.
Java Application: Written in Java, but must be downloaded before it can be used.
Java Web Start: Accessible via the Java Web Start mechanism.
Flash: Written in Flash, available via web broswer.
Shockwave: Written in Shockwave, available via web browser.
JavaScript: Written in Java Script, available via web browser.
Windows Application: Must be downloaded and run in MS Windows.
PalmOS Application: Runs on a Palm Pilot or similar device.
Animal Animation: Written in the Animal scripting language.
GTK Application: Written in GTK.
Linux Application: Must be downloaded and run in Linux.
Multi-Platform Application: Application to download, available on multiple platforms (e.g., Windows, Linux, Apple).
License: Indicates status of sourcecode availability, and the license type if there is one. Valid entries are:
Unavailable: Authors either explicitly withhold sourcecode, or we have been unable to locate a link to it.
By Request: Authors indicate that they might provide source in response to an explicit request.
BSD-like: Source explicitly references a standard BSD-like license.
GPL: Source explicitly references some version of the GNU General Public License.
CreativeCommons: Source explicitly references the Creative Commons license.
Non-OSI Open Source: Source explicitly indicates that it is open source, but does not references a recognized OSI-approved license.
Non-Commercial: Source explicitly indicates that it is not available for "commercial" use, but does not reference any form of standard license.
Unlicensed Sourcecode: Source is obtainable at the site (either explicitly or by deconstructing URLs), but no indication is provided of the terms and conditions for its use. Such source is usually protected by explicit or implied copyright, so others need to be careful of how they use such source.
Public Domain: Authors explicitly place the source into the public domain.
Language: The language in which any text in the AV is presented. If possible, please include the ISO 639-2 language code as well. This field does NOT represent the programming language in which the AV was written.
Author: Semi-colon separated list of authors/developers for the AV.
Institution: Name of the institution that the author is affiliated with. This is nearly always an academic institution at which the AV was created or sponsored. On rare occasion, it is a company. Some entries are created by individuals that do not associated themselves with an institution (the authors are out of school, and the material was not created as part of their work). In this case, the proper designation is None.
Project: Name of the project (if any) that this AV is associated with. This relates to the RelationshipToProject field. When RelationshipToProject is StandAlone, then the proper value for Project is also StandAlone.
RelationshipToProject: The relationship that this entry holds with respect to an existing project.
PartOfProject: Belongs to some recognized project, and the entry was developed by the project's developer.
PartOfCommunity: Belongs to or built on a larger project, but not developed by the project's developer.
PartOfCollection: The entry's developer has created other, similar visualizations, but they aren't considered part of a unified "project".
StandAlone: The entry is not connected to other visualizations in any meaningful way.
Works: Indication (Yes or No) that the last evaluator was able to make the AV work within its intended context. In a few cases, this might be problematic to determine, due to limited access to the AV's intended working environment. Unavailable means that we are no longer able to locate the AV on the Internet, despite efforts to recover it.
Description: Free-form text description for the AV. This should be as objective and factual as possible -- subjective, evaluative information belongs in the Evaluation field. At a minimum, this field should document what topic(s) the AV covers, how it operates, and major features.
Evaluation: Free-form text evaluation for the AV. Evaluator should indicate good and bad aspects of the AV, focusing most importantly on how it can be productively used to teach the topic.
ActivityLevel: Semicolon-separated list containing one or more of the following values. Note that the first three values are refer to how the user controls the AV. Most entries indicate this, but in a few cases where the main action is the user inputting data (for a stack AV, for example), this might not be indicated since it is not important.
SlideShow: A static slide show. Not really an AV, but rather a static presentation of content.
Animation Only: The AV is primarily an animation with no ability to control the pacing (aside from possibly a framerate speed control).
Animation: The user has the option of setting the presentation to run as an animation (typically with a speed control).
Step Control: Progression through the stages of the presentation are controlled by the user hitting a "step" or "next" button, as opposed to an animation.
Canned Data: The AV provides one or more set of data input selected by the developers to demonstrate the algorithm or data structure.
Random Data: Input data to test the algorithm or data structure are generated randomly.
User Data: Users can (or must) supply their own data on which the algorithm or data structure operates.
Questions: Questions to the user are an integrated part of the experience, through means such as intermittent pop-ups, a post test, or associated guide questions.
Predictions: Users (either optionally or by requirement) provide predictions on algorithm/data structure behavior before it happens. For example, users might indicate where a data item will go next in a storage structure before the actual positioning is revealed.
Exploration: Users direct the AV in some way to explore the behavior and/or performance of the algorithm or data structure.
GoodFor: Semi-colon separated list containing one or more of the following values.
Teaching the Concept: An instructor could use this visualization as part of a lecture or give instructions in a homework/lab assignment for students to follow. Must include a good default dataset that shows some interesting (or at least typical) behavior of the algorithm. These tend to be conceptual rather than implementation-focused.
Exploring the Concept: As students gain knowledge about the concept, this visualization can be used for them to experiment on their own without explicit direction. Often, these allow users to enter their own data. These can be conceptual or implementation-focused.
Debugging: This visualization has an API or support for plugging into student code, so students can see visually what their code is doing in the machine. These tend to be implementation-focused, but their output may be conceptual or machine-oriented. Alternatively, the AV might simply serve to illustrate the exact steps that a student's code should follow or outcome that it should produce. The student can then debug her output by comparing it to the visualization.
Comparison: Students or instructors could use the visualization to illustrate the differences and similarities between algorithms that operate in the same domain or competing data structures.
Lecture Aid: The visualization is best used during lecture by an instructor who is using the AV to illustrate an algorithm that they are simultaneously explaining to the class. Without this accompanying explanation by an instructor, the visualization itself does not explain or make clear the algorithm that it portrays.
Lab Exercise: The visualization offers ways of interactively testing the learner's understanding of the algorithm. Examples would be pop-up questions that ask the viewer to predict what will happen next in the algorithm's execution or the opportunity to create input data sets that exercise the algorithm in some prescribed fashion.
Self Study: The visualization is provided in the context of supplementary text that describes the algorithm in a fashion similar to a textbook explanation of the algorithm.
Nothing: Rarely used, this indicates that the AV is judged to have no pedagogical use.
Screenshots: A list of direct URLs to screenshots, or a URL to a gallery of screenshots, of the AV in action.
Videos: A list of direct URLs to videos, or a URL to a gallery of videos, of the AV in action.
References: A list of URLs or DOIs to papers, articles, and other reference works about the AV or its development system.
HowToUse: Installation and usage notes for this AV. Could be a URL to a page at the authors' website containing suitable instructions.
First Visited: Ideally, this indicates when this entry first appeared in the Catalog. Unless this is a newly added entry, an editor generally should not change the value in this field once it has been set. Format: YYYY-MM-DD where month and day are optional.
Last Visited: When the AV was last visited, most likely also an indication of when this catalog entry was actually updated. Format: YYYY-MM-DD where month and day are optional.
Last Updated: Best available estimate for when the AV was last updated by its developer. The intent is to give some indication for the time period when the AV was created, and whether it is actively maintained. Of course, it is possible that the AV was created and then trivially updated at a much later date. Format: YYYY-MM-DD where month and day are optional.
Topic: A reference to the Catalog page in which this entry appears.
Community: Automatically generated by the Catalog system, this contains mechanisms for the general community to provide input on the AV. Catalog users can give star ratings, or leave comments.
Edit: A link for convenient editing access by Catalog editors.