ITI 2009 - Panel Discussions / Workshops

Panel Discussion
Title: "Medical Informatics, Healthcare Providers, and Information Overload: Are we Informing our Doctors to Death?"
Moderator: Andreas Holzinger, Medical University Graz (MUG), Austria
Scheduled for Monday, June 22 from 18:30 till 20:00 in Orlando Hall.

Panelists:

Simon de Lusignan, St George’s University of London, UK
Lisa Neal Gualtieri, Tufts University School of Medicine, eLearn Magazine, USA
Assa Reichert, European Federation for Medical Informatics (EFMI), Israel
Josipa Kern, School of Medicine, University of Zagreb, Croatia

General Framework for Discussion:
Panel discussion will be centered around the problem of having too much information due to the possibilities of modern IT, i.e., how can end users distinguish between relevant and irrelevant information.

Are we (as people from informatics) responsible for this issue? IT professionals often don't care about information overload – they just develop technology.

The discussion topic will include ethics in informatics, which would lead to the issues concerning the interface between medicine and informatics. Local and international medical informatics experts will take part in the discussion.

All the participants are invited to contribute to the discussion.

Workshop
Title: "ITI Presentation Skills Workshop 2009 - It's Worth Doing Well"
Presenter: George S. Nezlek, Grand Valley State University, USA
Scheduled for Monday, June 22 from 12:30 till 18:30 in Salon 6.
Abstract:
Excellent papers are sometimes hindered by mediocre presentations. Putting in the time and effort to have a paper accepted makes it worth the time and effort to give it an effective presentation. This workshop will help authors to focus on things to do and things to avoid when giving presentations that add value to their research. It is designed for students and other first-time presenters, but all are welcome. The workshop is conveniently offered in two parts. The morning session will examine critical success factors in making effective presentations, and the afternoon session will allow participants to fine tune the presentations and materials they may be using at this year's conference. Student authors are encouraged to provide preliminary versions of their presentation materials (before 15 June if possible) via e-mail to the workshop coordinator at nezlekg@gvsu.edu.

Workshop
Title: "Visualisation in Science"
Presenter: Natasa Tepic, National Center for External Evaluation of Education, Croatia
Scheduled for Tuesday, June 23 from 8:30 till 14:00 in Salon 6.
Abstract:
Old chinese proverb says "A picture is worth a thousand words". Can you tell how much is worth your plot, chart or graph?
Due to an easy access to friendly-to-use graphical and tabular software, sometimes we have opportunity to be too creative. Good data visualization is a fine balance between informativeness and attractiveness. Last year, during this workshop, participants had the opportunity to learn how to avoid traps in the process of data visualization. Now, however, participants could take part in a newer version of the workshop which is expanded with a lot of new features compared to the previous release.

Topics that will be discussed during the workshop are:

History of data visualization,
Human visual system,
Optical illusions - what they got to do with it?,
Things to absolutely avoid in visualization,
The best and the worst of statistical graphics,
The evils of using 3D effects in graphs,
Pie charts and visualization diets,
Color blind graphs,
Maps: right or wrong?

This workshop is particularly intended for students, but all conference attendees are welcome. Especially if they want to discuss examples of bad data visualization.
Don't break the Myth: Learn how to create a picture worth a thousand words.