Judges' summary of the entries
The standard of work was quite high given the short time that they had to develop the concept. Is was important to combine both News and Market data in the solution, even if they were unable to find a strong correlation between the two.
Some candidates chose not to show an animation, but instead focused on TIF files, but since this was an exercise on visualization, the panel felt that the an animated presentation was necessary to be considered as a finalist. The panel certainly like some of the colourful titles for the presentation, e.g. Tunnel of Despair, was an excellent title.
Importantly, the winner and the runner up both combined News and Market Data well. All candidates should be criticized for not making more use of the underlying index, the Dow Jones Index; it would have been useful to indicate some relationships between the rate in change or volatility of individual instruments against that of the index itself.
But overall the results were very impressive.
All entries are available in the eResearch Australasia 2009 collection.
First prize
No Boundaries: Financial Markets in Motion by Peter Phillips, James Cook University and Elizabeth Wu, Reserve Bank of Australia
Judges felt this entry stood out as the only one really trying to get the connection between news stories and stock prices. It has clarity in design and uses a good choice of colours. The text mining and scoring in the radar chart is novel and interesting and provided an edge over other entries. It attempts to accommodate all the data in the test file, and enables analysis via a simple looking (but no doubt complex to create) excel based dashboard. It has potential for applications within the educational domain for analysis of past market events.
Second prize
The Dow Jones Animated Parallel Multiverse by Kevin Pulo, ANU Supercomputing Facility / NCI National Facility
Judges felt this entry was terrific. A really simple rendering of complex datasets, it invites you in to try to change the list of stocks being displayed, and to try to pause and start the time-slide to take a better look at the way things are panning out. Given the efficiency of the display it could easily be blended with another table looking at parallel markets and other attributes, not to mention taking a deeper look at the way external news is impacting the market. It provides a great way of replaying a market event, underlining its utility for educational purposes. It also has great "real time" promise in the way a trader or analyst would monitor a market segment. It uses well defined axes, space and time. This is a platform that has potential to move forward commercially and academically.
Third prize
The Tunnel of Despair by Paul Bourke, WASP / iVEC / University of Western Australia
Judges felt this entry was original, and with an apt and creative title. It is visually rich and allows for simple and quick visual correlation of a large amount of data. It was one of the few entries that correlates the market data with news data, noting the volume of news changing with the market shift, and it has good potential for re-use.
Finalist
MarketFlow: An Innovative Application for Visualisation of Financial Market Behavior using Streamgraphs by Muhammad Zafar, University of Melbourne / Central Queensland University; Steve Melnikoff, University of Melbourne; and Jack Carrick Xiang Cheng, University of Melbourne
Judges found this entry a very appealing and informative visualisation, with obvious consideration put into the visual design of the tool and the poster. The interactivity and the ability to drill down to get more detailed data is excellent. However, the entry does not incorporate the news information.