ImpVis website structure
The ImpVis website can be found here: https://impvis.co.uk. This Wiki is within a subdomain of that: https://wiki.impvis.co.uk.
The website caters for an audience comprising three groups of people:
- Learners: students of STEMM courses who use our interactive visualisations to gain a deeper understanding of abstract concepts taught within their module.
- Instructors: (mostly) staff members of HE institutions who wish to use a visualisation as a teaching & learning tool for their module.
- Creators: ImpVis project partners engaged in creating new visualisations.
The website is therefore split into three main areas: 'Learn', 'Teach' and 'Code'. Any website visitor can browse to any of these environments; however if users register with the website they will have additional functionality available to them. Registered users can request higher access permissions such as 'instructor' and 'creator' - this is described in the User roles Wiki page.
The 'Teach' environment
The ‘Teach’ environment holds every individual visualisation that has been uploaded by a creator and subsequently approved and published. Here visualisations can be sorted by category. When visualisations are launched from the 'Teach' environment, it will appear full screen (via URL parameter, eg ‘teach=1’) by default, with any text panes minimised (if the visualisation is written using the 2020 ImpVis template). If a user is signed-in to the website, they can 'favourite' visualisations.
The 'Teach' environment is designed with the needs of the instructor in mind, as they can browse the full range of ImpVis visualisations available to find ones that best fit their learning & teaching needs.
The 'Learn' environment
The ‘Learn’ area is where ‘Collections’ appear. A Collection can be a single visualisation or a combination of visualisation pages and are linked to specific modules. It is therefore particularly useful for learners, as they will easily be able to find Collections that were created specifically for their module, by filtering the Collections by module, department, or year group.
Any creator or instructor can create Collections. Any signed-in user can ‘favourite’ a Collection. A creator or instructor can copy an existing Collection to link it to their own module - this will create a stand-alone copied version of the Collection which can subsequently be edited to suit the instructor's needs.
The 'Code' environment
The 'Code' environment is a one-stop-shop for everything you need to get involved and get started on creating and coding your own visualisation.
The Code environment therefore caters for creators, in particular two sub-groups: (a) aspiring creators, either staff or students, who would like to either propose a new visualisation or sign up to a previously proposed idea; (b) current creators who are in the process of designing & developing their visualisation.
Central to the Code environment is the presentation of current projects. Current projects are divided in two categories: (i) looking for collaborators and (ii) work in progress. Within each of these categories, they can either be in the design phase or in the development phase. For the latter, there should be a fully agreed design in place.
Projects generally have Wiki pages associated with them. Anybody can see the projects and enquire about them, but only signed-in users can sign up to projects and view their Wiki pages. Once a user requests to sign up to a project, one of the existing project partners will need to approve the request; the user will then become a full project partner with the same access permissions to the project as the previous project partners.
Signed-in users who are staff members are able to propose new projects directly. These will appear in the 'Code' environment when a superadmin has accepted the idea. Everybody else can propose ideas by sending an email to the ImpVis email account.
Existing creators & instructors engaged on a project can find resources in the 'Code' environment to help them get coding. There will be three ‘visualisations’ to help them: (a) demonstration of template layout, (b) demonstration of template components, (c) playground. There are also links to relevant pages on the Wiki. These coding resources are regular visualisations uploaded with the category 'coding resources'; any visualisations with this category automatically appear here.
The 'MyVis' portal
When a user signs in to the ImpVis website, they will have access to the 'MyVis' dashboard. The dashboard includes:
- The user's favourite visualisations
- The user's favourite Collections
- Visualisations that the user has been asked to reviewed
- Visualisations that the user has reviewed previously
There are links at the top of the dashboard to 'My Visualisations', 'My Collections', 'My projects', and 'Wiki'. The latter links to the main page of this Wiki. Superadmins will also see a link 'Manage', from which they can manage the website.
Creators can upload new visualisations or manage their existing ones on the 'My Visualisations' page; when standard users or instructors try to access this page they will be able to request creator permissions.
Creators and instructors can create new Collections or manage their existing ones on the 'My Collections' page; when standard users try to access this page they will be able to request instructor permissions.
Any user who is part of a project team can manage their project on the 'My Projects' page. Staff users can create new projects here as well.