Conclusions:
The development of a website is a lot of work, even when the goal of the website is merely to present other people's hard work. As Pierce Lewis exhorted us in 1985, Geographers "need to make our geographic work more accessible and attractive to the general public," and using the internet to accomplish this is an idea that is still in development as the limitations and boundaries of what is possible in the digital realm are pushed farther with each passing year.
The course imbued a much deeper appreciation for the first world war in me. I had very little knowledge of this conflict before the class, all I really knew was the combatants and a bit about how it affected the German psyche, esp. regarding the military which I picked up from a class on the Nazis I took some years ago. Otherwise, my knowledge was largely confined to generalizations surrounding the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Empire, and technology that I retain from the early years of High School, now foggy. I was never as fascinated by this fight as I am now.
The incredible mobilizations that had to occur for this war to happen on the scale that it did are striking, and the continued maintenance of awesome memorials such as what I saw on the Somme and at Verdun, some by nations an ocean away, are nothing short of impressive. The mental and emotional strain that this war brought on Europe can still be felt in touring these landscapes today, and having the opportunity to touch, smell and explore them for myself is doubtlessly an experience that I will carry with me and inform my thoughts for the rest of my life.
Project, Difficulties and Shortcomings:
Our website is, for all intents and purposes, complete. Each student's work is displayed prominently, and in a format that I think is accessible to the broader public. The collection of interactive maps, story maps, research, analysis, and media make our experience and knowledge to an audience that we could never have hoped to reach without the incredible technologies developed in the last ten years, taking advantage of the functionality of web 2.0 in distributed GIS.
Finding the right tone of the website (and organizing it to fit that) was a real trick for me, personally. It took a lot of input from the class and Professor Hupy to decide on the route that we took the site. I am satisfied with the direction we took, ultimately a site that was too academic and dry would not provide nearly the experience that we were looking for.
Making the website something that can be found by search engines is still a work in progress, waiting for the web crawlers to pick up the entire site (some pages show up, others do not yet). I recently added some Google Analytics to the site that will inform any further optimization for the site. Certainly it was difficult to figure out some of the finer points of iframes and html 5 for me, not being a software developer. I think I'll take some HTML5 classes this winter to help with that for next semester, hopefully I'm not done bringing geography to the web.
Monday, December 9, 2013
Monday, December 2, 2013
Meat and Bones: The Website Liveth!!!
It Lives
Okay Ladies and Gents, this week we finally have some real meat to the website. What had been accomplished for last week was piddly compared to the collection of hard work that is now hosted on the class web page. Every student now has an entry on the webpage for themselves and the work that they have accomplished, complete with backgrounds, introductions, histories methods discussions and results where applicable. Some students have their web maps embedded on the site. Others, video. Some students have links to their work because that's just how Google earth works and my programming skills, I regret to admit, are too basic to embed Google earth on our site.
All that's left for this pig is the lipstick. Next week's goals: add images. The site is in desperate need of more eye candy, which with the trove of pictures collected from the trip itself and the plethora of free historical imagery available online should be easy to accomplish. Some standardization will need to occur across the student pages for consistency, some Backgrounds will need to be combined with introductions and such so that the basic formatting of each page is solid across the student section of the site.
Okay Ladies and Gents, this week we finally have some real meat to the website. What had been accomplished for last week was piddly compared to the collection of hard work that is now hosted on the class web page. Every student now has an entry on the webpage for themselves and the work that they have accomplished, complete with backgrounds, introductions, histories methods discussions and results where applicable. Some students have their web maps embedded on the site. Others, video. Some students have links to their work because that's just how Google earth works and my programming skills, I regret to admit, are too basic to embed Google earth on our site.
All that's left for this pig is the lipstick. Next week's goals: add images. The site is in desperate need of more eye candy, which with the trove of pictures collected from the trip itself and the plethora of free historical imagery available online should be easy to accomplish. Some standardization will need to occur across the student pages for consistency, some Backgrounds will need to be combined with introductions and such so that the basic formatting of each page is solid across the student section of the site.
 |
| fig 1: Ellen's page |
Monday, November 25, 2013
Hosting Content!
Intro:
The time has finally come to begin piecing together the work that the class has been doing over the course of the rest of this semester. The goal of this week was to begin integrating the research, analysis, and product of the efforts of my colleagues into a web format that is easily digestible to the palate of teh internets. This will require a certain amount of contextualization of the class's projects. Where there is no product to present, I will format the web page in order to begin finalizing the format for the final web page in lieu of work that is still being completed. http://geographyofthewesternfront.weebly.com/
Organizing the Content:
There are a couple of tricks to organizing a fine web page. For example, it needs to flow well, but be comprised of small text. Trying to cram too much into a single web page can cause the audience to have more difficulty navigating the site, and having more than five or six lines of text presented to the intent audience in one paragraph will tend to loose an audience. Keeping web organization in mind, the existing site has been reorganized.
Another trick that I had to figure out was how to embed the web geographic components of the work of some students. A couple have developed interactive maps in ArcGIS Online, and one in the beta Google Tour Builder. Unfrotunately, I have not been able to work out the tour builder embedding, and to teh best of my research, noone else has either. Ultimately, its reliance upon the Google Earth software may preclude me from directly embedding this element to the website. However, I have discovered how to link images to sites in Weebly (a simple process of using the template provided by the site). This will be used to access Zach Orr's work (fig 3).
Goals for next week:
The time has finally come to begin piecing together the work that the class has been doing over the course of the rest of this semester. The goal of this week was to begin integrating the research, analysis, and product of the efforts of my colleagues into a web format that is easily digestible to the palate of teh internets. This will require a certain amount of contextualization of the class's projects. Where there is no product to present, I will format the web page in order to begin finalizing the format for the final web page in lieu of work that is still being completed. http://geographyofthewesternfront.weebly.com/
Organizing the Content:
There are a couple of tricks to organizing a fine web page. For example, it needs to flow well, but be comprised of small text. Trying to cram too much into a single web page can cause the audience to have more difficulty navigating the site, and having more than five or six lines of text presented to the intent audience in one paragraph will tend to loose an audience. Keeping web organization in mind, the existing site has been reorganized.
History:
 |
| figure 1 The original design only called for a single history page to contextualize the work of the class, however as the history section grew it became clear that this would be inadequate. |
Where previously one small section that overviewed the history of the Battles of the Somme and Verdun existed, now there are three pages. After writing the text for the first page (The Somme), I realized that adding Verdun to the page as well would result in a bloated page with two distinguished focuses (fig 1). A wise man once remarked "Better to whole-ass one thing than half-ass two things," and drawing from this philosophy the page has been divided into two parts (fig 2) that discuss the battles in detail. Furthermore, a general "history" splash page has been add, that needs to be added to, which will provide information to the audience about the first half of World War One, leading into the conflicts covered in the more detailed pages.
 |
| figure 2 A more organized web site will provide users with an experience that is more tailored, note the tabbed navigation. |
Another trick that I had to figure out was how to embed the web geographic components of the work of some students. A couple have developed interactive maps in ArcGIS Online, and one in the beta Google Tour Builder. Unfrotunately, I have not been able to work out the tour builder embedding, and to teh best of my research, noone else has either. Ultimately, its reliance upon the Google Earth software may preclude me from directly embedding this element to the website. However, I have discovered how to link images to sites in Weebly (a simple process of using the template provided by the site). This will be used to access Zach Orr's work (fig 3).
 |
| figure 3 This screenshot of the tour is about good enough for end users to think it IS the application anyway. They'll click on it and be redirected right to the site. |
Goals for next week:
The sources page needs to be reorganized, and the sources themselves standardized. It was one thing to reformat all of the text and organize the content, however in order to provide a professionally organized link to sources used in our research the class will need to decide on a format to present the audience for further reading.
Of paramount importance to the project is contextualizing the content, which is best done in an introduction to teh presentation of the relevant material. I am going to have to come up with better introductions to the students' work if this website is going to be of any use to teh public.
Embed some ARC MAPS!! I've done this before, now I just need to get it onto weebly. I am confident that this can be done, unlike the google maps.
Monday, November 18, 2013
Volunteered Geographic Information: Social Mapping
Intro:
Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is considered to be the frontier of modern mapping. VGI describes the process by which individuals generate and upload data to the internet, where it is analyzed and sometimes redistributed. This information crowd-sourcing includes everything from geotagged photographs to cell phone tracking, and its has led to a flurry of development in the past decade (Goodchild and Li, 110). The most popular site exemplifying the use of VGI is OpenStreetMap, which serves a user-created world map complete with layers and notes for sharing.
For the purposes of disseminating information about the Western Front and connecting individuals to this place across time and space, VGI presents opportunities to web developers that would not exist otherwise. For example, a map could be created that allows users to share photographs, videos, and experiences to other users across the globe. The community can thus build its own forum that brings the experience of the front through the computer to end users, allowing some limited by mobility or money from otherwise experiencing the journey for themselves. Data like this can also be used to inform decisions about travel, or inform viewers about distant history. By opening up this outlet to the world as a whole, a far more comprehensive online experience can be created. So, for this week, my task was to develop a web map that enables users to share their experience with the world.
VGI:
The end goal for this aspect of the website is to serve a map that allows users to share location-based media and knowledge. This process consists of three main steps: making a layer of data that will be edited by the end-users, serve that data on the web in a map, and designing map pop-ups that effectively display this information. In the case of this data, a point layer file was developed in ArcMap, then served on the UW-Eau Claire Geography web SQL server. This was embedded into an html map file document using free ESRI templates, and the final result can be seen here.
Issues with VGI:
The largest challenge to VGI in web GIS is QU/QC. Data quality provided by untrained users has limited usability in comparison with more accurate data that can be generated by professionals. Before VGI, geographic data would be checked for accuracy with processes that control for data quality during the recording of the data and again later by documenting methods and references. This will not happen with VGI, and metadata quality will be lacking in the finished product.
Sources:
Goodchild, Michael and Li, Linna. 2012. "Assuring the quality of Volunteered Geographic Information." Spatial Statistics. 1: 110-120.
Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is considered to be the frontier of modern mapping. VGI describes the process by which individuals generate and upload data to the internet, where it is analyzed and sometimes redistributed. This information crowd-sourcing includes everything from geotagged photographs to cell phone tracking, and its has led to a flurry of development in the past decade (Goodchild and Li, 110). The most popular site exemplifying the use of VGI is OpenStreetMap, which serves a user-created world map complete with layers and notes for sharing.
For the purposes of disseminating information about the Western Front and connecting individuals to this place across time and space, VGI presents opportunities to web developers that would not exist otherwise. For example, a map could be created that allows users to share photographs, videos, and experiences to other users across the globe. The community can thus build its own forum that brings the experience of the front through the computer to end users, allowing some limited by mobility or money from otherwise experiencing the journey for themselves. Data like this can also be used to inform decisions about travel, or inform viewers about distant history. By opening up this outlet to the world as a whole, a far more comprehensive online experience can be created. So, for this week, my task was to develop a web map that enables users to share their experience with the world.
VGI:
The end goal for this aspect of the website is to serve a map that allows users to share location-based media and knowledge. This process consists of three main steps: making a layer of data that will be edited by the end-users, serve that data on the web in a map, and designing map pop-ups that effectively display this information. In the case of this data, a point layer file was developed in ArcMap, then served on the UW-Eau Claire Geography web SQL server. This was embedded into an html map file document using free ESRI templates, and the final result can be seen here.
Issues with VGI:
The largest challenge to VGI in web GIS is QU/QC. Data quality provided by untrained users has limited usability in comparison with more accurate data that can be generated by professionals. Before VGI, geographic data would be checked for accuracy with processes that control for data quality during the recording of the data and again later by documenting methods and references. This will not happen with VGI, and metadata quality will be lacking in the finished product.
Other issues which are relevant to
VGI are privacy (not everyone is aware of the data that they volunteer!) and
completeness. Furthermore, a developer
needs to ensure compliance with laws not only relating to privacy but also
decency (not letting users “feed the trolls”) and copywrite infringement. This can be helped by utilization of a "flagging" tool that users can mark undesirable posts while alerting administrators of the offending content.
Sources:
Goodchild, Michael and Li, Linna. 2012. "Assuring the quality of Volunteered Geographic Information." Spatial Statistics. 1: 110-120.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Monday, November 4, 2013
Search Engine Optimization, or, Making my Project do What I Wanted it To!
Intro:
As established in previous posts, my goal for this semester is the distribution of the class's collective work to the masses. Not knowing much about WWI before embarking on this course (and of coarse the trip associated with that), I remember distinctly the feeling of awe as I came to comprehend the tremendous scope of the sheer vastness of World War One. As I have taken webmaster responsibilities for this effort, and much of the work to be distributed is forthcoming, my responsibility for the past week has been structuring the website and optimizing such that it can be found by search engines, the primary tool for those seeking knowledge in this day and age.
Search Engine Land has a quality Youtube video (embedded below) which explains the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and some context explaining how it works and how to make a website find-able by internet webizens at large.
Methods:
SEO is accomplished a number of ways. One way is to create links to your site from other sources. This can be done by hiring out third party sources to link your webpage, thus "'gaming" the search engine's ranking system, however methods like this require fewer scruples than members of this course are interested in dealing with. More scrupulous would be to insert links in relevant locations around the web that might be interested in your content, which can be anything from facebook pages to (in our case) websites that handle geographic data services or world war one history. Also important are quality links out of the site, althought this is less of a factor in SEO.
Another important concept is keyword density. Ensuring that a webpage is roughly 3-5% sometimes even 10% major keywords which relate to the information that relevant researchers should be finding raises the page's rank in search engine results, making that page easier to find. Of course, this is tricky and requires good writing skills that don't overload the audience with blocky text that reads like third grade. Also, large engines such as Google and Yahoo don't particularly care for keyword stuffing, and employing this technique risks being delisting from their search results.
A Final Note:
Search Engine Optimization is a changing field. In an article for Forbes Magazine, Ken Krogue describes a lunch that he had with Adam Torkildson, who is a top SEO consultant. "He said something to me that blew me away. 'Google is in the process of making the SEO industry obsolete, SEO will be dead in 2 years.' I posted his statement on my blog and immediately received a flurry of comments; many from his colleagues in the SEO industry who wanted to: 1) Weigh in on my statement that Adam is great (or crazy) 2)Promote themselves 3)Accuse me of writing a title for “link bait” 4)Declare how absurd Adam’s assertion was 5)Agree and prophecize (sic) their vision for the future." The effects of Social Media and search engine analysis which weakens the ability of web developers to use SEO is changing the way in which marketers are preparing their projects. And researchers like us who want to make their content reachable to the masses will have to adapt too in the quickly changing world of technology.
Sources:
Krogue, Ken. :The Death of SEO." Forbes. August 20, 2012. ret. 11/4/2013. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenkrogue/2012/07/20/the-death-of-seo-the-rise-of-social-pr-and-real-content/
Nunna, Raju. "Weebly SEO Tips" ret 11/2/13. http://weeblyforums.com/seo-tips/
"What is Search Engine Optimization?" Search Engine Land, Sept 12 2011. Ret. 11/1/13 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF515-0Tduk
As established in previous posts, my goal for this semester is the distribution of the class's collective work to the masses. Not knowing much about WWI before embarking on this course (and of coarse the trip associated with that), I remember distinctly the feeling of awe as I came to comprehend the tremendous scope of the sheer vastness of World War One. As I have taken webmaster responsibilities for this effort, and much of the work to be distributed is forthcoming, my responsibility for the past week has been structuring the website and optimizing such that it can be found by search engines, the primary tool for those seeking knowledge in this day and age.
Search Engine Land has a quality Youtube video (embedded below) which explains the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and some context explaining how it works and how to make a website find-able by internet webizens at large.
Methods:
SEO is accomplished a number of ways. One way is to create links to your site from other sources. This can be done by hiring out third party sources to link your webpage, thus "'gaming" the search engine's ranking system, however methods like this require fewer scruples than members of this course are interested in dealing with. More scrupulous would be to insert links in relevant locations around the web that might be interested in your content, which can be anything from facebook pages to (in our case) websites that handle geographic data services or world war one history. Also important are quality links out of the site, althought this is less of a factor in SEO.
Another important concept is keyword density. Ensuring that a webpage is roughly 3-5% sometimes even 10% major keywords which relate to the information that relevant researchers should be finding raises the page's rank in search engine results, making that page easier to find. Of course, this is tricky and requires good writing skills that don't overload the audience with blocky text that reads like third grade. Also, large engines such as Google and Yahoo don't particularly care for keyword stuffing, and employing this technique risks being delisting from their search results.
A Final Note:
Search Engine Optimization is a changing field. In an article for Forbes Magazine, Ken Krogue describes a lunch that he had with Adam Torkildson, who is a top SEO consultant. "He said something to me that blew me away. 'Google is in the process of making the SEO industry obsolete, SEO will be dead in 2 years.' I posted his statement on my blog and immediately received a flurry of comments; many from his colleagues in the SEO industry who wanted to: 1) Weigh in on my statement that Adam is great (or crazy) 2)Promote themselves 3)Accuse me of writing a title for “link bait” 4)Declare how absurd Adam’s assertion was 5)Agree and prophecize (sic) their vision for the future." The effects of Social Media and search engine analysis which weakens the ability of web developers to use SEO is changing the way in which marketers are preparing their projects. And researchers like us who want to make their content reachable to the masses will have to adapt too in the quickly changing world of technology.
Sources:
Krogue, Ken. :The Death of SEO." Forbes. August 20, 2012. ret. 11/4/2013. http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenkrogue/2012/07/20/the-death-of-seo-the-rise-of-social-pr-and-real-content/
Nunna, Raju. "Weebly SEO Tips" ret 11/2/13. http://weeblyforums.com/seo-tips/
"What is Search Engine Optimization?" Search Engine Land, Sept 12 2011. Ret. 11/1/13 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF515-0Tduk
Monday, October 28, 2013
Building a Web Site to Host our Work, Or, how to use Google to pretend that you are a web designer and get away with it.
Introduction:
In keeping with the theme of presenting the class's work to a wide audience, this week's focus has been placed on the development of a website where our work can be effectively hosted and presented to the world at large. Common consensus on Web Design is that there is no better way to gauge the effectiveness of a website than to open it up to the people and let them figure out how it's broken. Short of this, the best thing an aspiring designer can do is build and test, build and test until either they are satisfied with the product or rapture cometh. Information architect Steve Krug says of web usability “The problem is there are no simple “right” answers for most Web design questions (at least not for the important ones). What works is good, integrated design that fills a need—carefully thought out, well executed, and tested.”
Therefore, the time has come to begin developing web pages that can present the information processed in this course, and that has been the focus of this week's work.
Methods:
Bios
Embedding Web Maps
http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php
Sources:
http://webdesign.about.com/od/webdesign/a/aa123002a.htm
Krug, Steven. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. New Riders: 2005.
Rydne, Anna. "How to look good on Paper: 4 Examples of Great Bios." Ret. 10/27/2013
http://communicateskills.com/2012/08/05/look-good-on-paper/
In keeping with the theme of presenting the class's work to a wide audience, this week's focus has been placed on the development of a website where our work can be effectively hosted and presented to the world at large. Common consensus on Web Design is that there is no better way to gauge the effectiveness of a website than to open it up to the people and let them figure out how it's broken. Short of this, the best thing an aspiring designer can do is build and test, build and test until either they are satisfied with the product or rapture cometh. Information architect Steve Krug says of web usability “The problem is there are no simple “right” answers for most Web design questions (at least not for the important ones). What works is good, integrated design that fills a need—carefully thought out, well executed, and tested.”
Therefore, the time has come to begin developing web pages that can present the information processed in this course, and that has been the focus of this week's work.
Methods:
Bios
Embedding Web Maps
http://www.weebly.com/weebly/main.php
Sources:
http://webdesign.about.com/od/webdesign/a/aa123002a.htm
Krug, Steven. Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability. New Riders: 2005.
Rydne, Anna. "How to look good on Paper: 4 Examples of Great Bios." Ret. 10/27/2013
http://communicateskills.com/2012/08/05/look-good-on-paper/
Monday, October 21, 2013
Story Mapping in Google
Introduction:
Methods:
The first step in creating a story map with this process is making sure that the computer being used for this project has the necessary Google tools. Google Earth needs to be installed, as does the "Tour Builder" extension (currently in beta). Both can be downloaded for free from the links given, provided that you have the permissions on your network to do so *ahem*. You will also need a Google account.
From here, the process could not be easier. Unlike in the ESRI software, photos can be uploaded to and hosted on Google within the interface of the Tour Builder, directly from your computer. In order to locate them in the tour, simply search for or otherwise locate the place that you wish to place a tour marker, and place it (fig 2)! After the location is set, Tour Builder then allows users to upload pictures, set dates for the location, and write a description of the piece (fig 3). This is also where developers can upload KML track logs or points as layers to the map, unfortunately the extension does not support shapefiles. Saving is automatic, and upon completion of the project the developer has a link that can be shared.
Results:
Figure 4 is a screenshot of my final interactive story map, which can be found here. In the left window is a the image that was uploaded and an introduction to the tour is displayed. As users click the "next" button, of course they are guided through the tour in much the same way as ESRI's tours worked. There were two major differences experienced through this project with ArcGIS Online.
1) Google was easier. AGO gave a number of classmates difficulty in creating their product, whereas the google platform was a straightforward as could be hoped for. Google was user-friendly, for the developer, and ESRI was simply not. If I was making an application to share in a casual environment, Google wins eight days a week.
2) ESRI provides options. In a perhaps foreseeable trade-off between functionality and ease-of-use, the ArcGIS Online platform allowed me far greater control over the final presentation of my product. Furthermore, I was able to add far more types of geospatial data where the Google Platform was relegated to only KML and GME. I could edit each and every color, box, and location in the template from ESRI but with Google you are more or less stuck with what you've got. However, a final note, the Tour Builder is still in Beta.
Sources:
Geographer Alistair Bonnet believes that "The core concerns of a geographical education have emerged as the core concerns of the global citizens of the twenty-first century."(98). To that end, an effort to refine our story-mapping skills and provide a wider spectrum of tools with which to present our work, this week we have practiced story-mapping with a new Google Earth Extension: Tour Builder. Google reaches over one billion people every month, there is no greater platform for sharing information across the world than with the tools that this company has developed. Fig 1 displays the reach of Google as compared to the next largest web locations in 2011, when the company first passed the one billion threshold.
Some differences exist between the two different methods of story mapping, and the ultimate goal of this week is to decide what will be used for the final project. Furthermore, a final project proposal will be put forward this week to outline the work that I will be doing for the rest of the semester.
 |
| Figure 1: a comparison of web traffic. Source: digital strategy consulting. |
Methods:
The first step in creating a story map with this process is making sure that the computer being used for this project has the necessary Google tools. Google Earth needs to be installed, as does the "Tour Builder" extension (currently in beta). Both can be downloaded for free from the links given, provided that you have the permissions on your network to do so *ahem*. You will also need a Google account.
 |
| figure 2: adding a location |
 |
| figure 3: adding information |
Results:
 |
| figure 4: the final tour |
1) Google was easier. AGO gave a number of classmates difficulty in creating their product, whereas the google platform was a straightforward as could be hoped for. Google was user-friendly, for the developer, and ESRI was simply not. If I was making an application to share in a casual environment, Google wins eight days a week.
2) ESRI provides options. In a perhaps foreseeable trade-off between functionality and ease-of-use, the ArcGIS Online platform allowed me far greater control over the final presentation of my product. Furthermore, I was able to add far more types of geospatial data where the Google Platform was relegated to only KML and GME. I could edit each and every color, box, and location in the template from ESRI but with Google you are more or less stuck with what you've got. However, a final note, the Tour Builder is still in Beta.
Sources:
Bonnet, Alistair. "What is Geography?" Sage, 2008.
"Top 5 global websites: Google breaks record with 1 billion monthly users." Ret. 10/20/13. http://www.digitalstrategyconsulting.com/intelligence/2011/06/top_5_global_websites_google_b.php
"Top 5 global websites: Google breaks record with 1 billion monthly users." Ret. 10/20/13. http://www.digitalstrategyconsulting.com/intelligence/2011/06/top_5_global_websites_google_b.php
Monday, October 14, 2013
An Introduction to Story Mapping
Introduction:
The ArgGIS Online website has several templates that utilize ESRI's ArcGIS for Apache Flex to make the process of building a storymap simple. Photos can be hosted through ESRI's online servers, or on popular image sharing websites such as pinterest, flickr, or facebook. From there, they can be imported directly onto ArcGIS Online and if they don't already have geographic coordinates attached to them, the images can be "drag-and-dropped" right onto their appropriate location in the map viewer application. After creating a map in ArcGIS Online, complete with basemap and tracklogs data, the map is shared through a web application. I used the "Map tour" template provided by ESRI, so with each image uploaded the developer can edit a title, description, and order for the image in the tour as the end user is guided through the information across the map. Figure 2 provides a screenshot of the process. Finally, the settings were manipulated to develop an aesthetically pleasing end product.
Results:
Figures 3 and 4 display a screenshot of my final interactive story map. In the left window is a large resolution image that can grab an audience's attention, and in the right window is the geographical location for that image displayed over a colorful yet clean basemap. Also included in the project is the tracklog from a student's handheld GPS which shows the progression of the trip. As users click the left or right arrows to the side of the displayed images, they move through the tour chronologically as I designed it. Along the bottom is a timeline where users can skip to any individual image in the lineup which they desire, and a caption is displayed for each.
Now, end users can gain a quick overview of the field work done on this trip and learn a bit about the Western Front while they are at it. Here is a link to the map itself, for your viewing pleasure.
Sources:
"Geography, class, and fate: Passengers on the Titanic." ESRI. http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/titanic/ accessed 10/14/13
This past week has been spent by introducing ourselves to storymapping on ArcGIS Online. In the 1985 Address from AAG President Pierce Lewis to the American Association of Geographers, Lewis takes great pains to illustrate the importance of description and story telling to the field of Geography. After establishing that Americans, while geographically challenged, "possess a strong innate curiosity about the world," Lewis extorts the Association "We need to make our geographic work more accessible and attractive to the general public." (472) Storymapping is a new technology that brings new-found accessibility of geographic information to a global audience, and as noted by Lewis in 1985, it plays on the geographer's strongest suit: the almost bizarre love for maps that every geographer innately seems to understand. "...our best works of geographic description, I think, have been cartographic." (470).
To this end, the one prime objective for this class is going to be making our work accessible to the public. Generations after the first World War, in which 9 million men and women died over the course of a mere four years, the one hundredth anniversary of this tremendous and indelible scar on the face of history is one mere year away. And ESRI has worked to make the process of developing a new type of cartographic tool, the Storymap, more accessible than ever. ).
The Story Map is a web application that hybridizes social media with GIS. The developer of this application can stitch photographs, video, tags, and comments into a map which they developed to showcase some geographic data or, of course, tell a geographic story. For example, a good story map may show the origins and destinations of Titanic passengers, the route it traveled, and some ancillary information relevant to its fateful voyage (fig 1). The results of our work this week should provide each student with an introduction to the story mapping platforms provided by ESRI through ArcGIS Online, and yield a web app that allows viewers to cycle through an overview of trip highlights and some of the work – and fun –that was had in France. Mostly the work though. Mostly.
Methods: |
| figure 1: an example story map provided by ESRI |
The ArgGIS Online website has several templates that utilize ESRI's ArcGIS for Apache Flex to make the process of building a storymap simple. Photos can be hosted through ESRI's online servers, or on popular image sharing websites such as pinterest, flickr, or facebook. From there, they can be imported directly onto ArcGIS Online and if they don't already have geographic coordinates attached to them, the images can be "drag-and-dropped" right onto their appropriate location in the map viewer application. After creating a map in ArcGIS Online, complete with basemap and tracklogs data, the map is shared through a web application. I used the "Map tour" template provided by ESRI, so with each image uploaded the developer can edit a title, description, and order for the image in the tour as the end user is guided through the information across the map. Figure 2 provides a screenshot of the process. Finally, the settings were manipulated to develop an aesthetically pleasing end product.
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| figure 2: editing an image's properties |
Figures 3 and 4 display a screenshot of my final interactive story map. In the left window is a large resolution image that can grab an audience's attention, and in the right window is the geographical location for that image displayed over a colorful yet clean basemap. Also included in the project is the tracklog from a student's handheld GPS which shows the progression of the trip. As users click the left or right arrows to the side of the displayed images, they move through the tour chronologically as I designed it. Along the bottom is a timeline where users can skip to any individual image in the lineup which they desire, and a caption is displayed for each.
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| Figure 3: creating a map tour of the Western Front |
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| Figure 4: the final story map |
Sources:
Lewis, Pierce. "Presidential Address: Beyond Description." The Annals of the American Association of Geographers. 1985. 465-478.
"Geography, class, and fate: Passengers on the Titanic." ESRI. http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/titanic/ accessed 10/14/13
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