One of the reasons this research is important for educators is that we've done the legwork of identifying "good" ADSVs. However, new visualizations are constantly being created and old ones disappear, so another important goal is to describe how we systematically developed the original catalog in order for others to retrace our steps in the future. This way, educators who need visualizations for categories we overlooked or where all of our recommendations have disappeared can find examples efficiently.
Our algorithm for seeking out data structure visualizations is:
- Select a data structure to search for, e.g. "linked list".
Browse the EducationalResourceRepositories looking for all appropriate visualizations.
If we somehow discover that any of the visualizations are also listed in another repository not on our list, update the list to include it (if we believe the new repository is likely to contain other relevant visualizations).
Search the list of PublicationVenues for "algorithm visualization" and note all hits for the data structure.
If a paper references a journal or publication venue not on our list, update the list to include it (if we believe the new publication is likely to contain other relevant works).
Search Google for the data structure and the word "visualization", e.g. "linked list" visualization, and browse the first 5 pages of results for relevant visualizations. You might also try "linked list" applet -- we sometimes get good results this way.