The 2010 VAST Challenges (text, medical records, death records, genetic sequences)

In order to provide more opportunities for increased participation we again offer an overall Grand Challenge as well as three smaller Mini Challenges. Teams may enter one or more mini Challenges independently of the entering the Grand Challenge. ALL teams submitting an entry to a VAST Challenges will be invited to discuss their work during a challenge workshop.

The datasets and tasks for the 3 mini-challenges are now posted. Don't hesitate to ask any questions (to us directly or via the blog).

The 1st mini-challenge involves text documents; the second mini-challenge uses medical record data and death records; the third mini-challenge deals with genetic sequences.

Please refer to the website of the 2008 and 2009 Challenges for additional information and other examples. The 2010 Challenge is available at

www.cs.umd.edu/hcil/VASTchallenge2010

We will shortly post details about the submission procedure and provide additional guidelines for the preparation of successful submissions.

As last year we will have some travel support for students teams (favoring those who get awards).

Students should remember to apply to be a student volunteer as soon as it is possible if travel support is an issue.

We look forward to your submissions

The VAST Challenge Chairs

• Georges Grinstein, University of Massachusetts Lowell
• Catherine Plaisant, University of Maryland
• Jean Scholtz, Pacific Northwest National Lab
• Mark Whiting, Pacific Northwest National Lab