JUCS - Journal of Universal Computer Science 25(8): 967-987, doi: 10.3217/jucs-025-08-0967
The Role of Verification and Validation Techniques within Visual Analytics
expand article infoBenjamin Weyers, Ekaterina Auer§, Wolfram Luther|
‡ University of Trier, Trier, Germany§ University of Applied Sciences Wismar, Wismar, Germany| University of Duisburg-Essen, Duisburg, Germany
Open Access
Abstract
We suggest to widen the focus of the scientific computations community from an isolated consideration of reliable numerical algorithms using standardized arithmetic to a broad user-centered system modeling and simulation approach relying on an appropriate verification and validation (V&V) design. Most V&V works rarely consider human-related issues specifically. However, modern applications generate and employ huge amounts of heterogeneous data and usually exhibit high complexity - challenges that are best tackled by augmenting human reasoning with automated techniques. That is, novel visual and collaborative approaches are needed to interpret the results, which has to be accounted for in the general V&V procedure. This should include an assessment of (meta-) data and code/outcome quality, selection of methods to propagate and bound uncertainty and, lastly, formally rigorous validation efforts. We present an approach to reliable visual analytics (i.e., analytics subjected to this V&V assessment), which can in turn contribute to the overall V&V procedure after that. Two use cases illustrate the potential of the introduced framework for reliable visual analytics.
Keywords
verification and validation assessment, accurate modeling and simulation systems, reliable collaborative visual analytics, data quality assessment