Search

Recent shifts in web map technology away from proprietary software and toward development on the Open Web Platform have increased the number and complexity of technical skills needed to do cartography on the Web. Web-based cartography curricula likewise must be adapted to prepare geography, cartography, and GIS students with the skills needed to make use of open source technology. This paper describes the design and evaluation of a novel curriculum for the laboratory component of a web mapping course offered by a university geography department. We drew from constructivist educational theory to create a scaffolded and spiralled lab curriculum that builds on prior understanding and progressively increases student independence and confidence. We evaluated the success of the new curriculum through an instructor log, student feedback on assignments, and an exit survey. The evaluation revealed significant growth in student abilities and confidence in the use of Open Web Platform-based mapping tools as a result of the curriculum scaffolding. This research provides a methodology for designing and evaluating curriculum around highly technical skills that are increasingly in demand in research, education, and industry careers.

The STEM fields provide numerous life-changing opportunities for tribal college students. STEM fields also provide students with opportunities to engage research areas that serve tribal interests ranging from natural resource management and protection to renewable energy development to improving human health and safety to the use of technology for cultural and language recovery. Many tribal colleges are already leaders in STEM education, receiving millions of dollars annually from federal funding agencies and private foundations. Nonetheless, recruitment of tribal college students to STEM fields remains a challenge. While the pipeline metaphor has often been cited in relation to STEM education, a formalized pipeline structure involving a series of well-defined stages with strong institutional supports can provide an attractive pathway to STEM fields for underserved students and can reduce pipeline leakage. Such a model is under development in the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) program at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College (FDLTCC). This article discusses the different components of the STEM program at FDLTCC, as well as the results and prospects of the students who have participated in the GIS program at FDLTCC.

I used the 30 Day Map Challenge as a framework to structure my Spring 2023 Cartography and Visualization community college course. Students were tasked with a new mapping assignment following the themes of the Map Challenge to complete during each class meeting throughout the semester, as an alternative to a more traditional project-based lab structure. I sequenced lecture topics to accompany and elucidate the Map Challenge prompts, and used Socratic prompts on Google Jamboard slides to spur collaborative class discussions. As a whole, the ten-student class completed 80% of submissions for 27 required mapping prompts, submitting a total of 218 maps that fulfilled the prompts. Short, thematic mapping activities entailed greater repetition of software workflows as well as more opportunities for independent problem solving. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents step-by-step instructions for making interactive choropleth map using the data-driven documents web mapping library.

The article presents a tutorial on how to make a time series proportional symbol map using jQuery and Leaflet code libraries. Topics include the assembly of time series information, creation of the directory that include folders named css, data and img, and loading the basemap tiles into the webpage using Leaeflet. Other topics include loading the time series dataset into the webpage, adding the proportional symbols to the map, and creating a map legend.

The current pace of technological innovation in web mapping offers new opportunities and creates new challenges for web cartographers. The continual development of new technological solutions produces a fundamental tension: the more flexible and expansive web mapping options become, the more difficult it is to maintain fluency in the teaching and application of these technologies. We addressed this tension by completing a three-stage, empirical process for understanding how best to learn and implement contemporary web mapping technologies. To narrow our investigation, we focused upon education at the university level, rather than a professional production environment, and upon open source client-side web mapping technologies, rather than complementary server-side or cloud-based technologies. The process comprised three studies: (1) a competitive analysis study of contemporary web mapping technologies, (2) a needs assessment survey of web map designers/developers regarding past experiences with these technologies, and (3) a diary study charting the implementation of a subset of potentially viable technologies, as identified through the first two studies. The process successfully achieved the practical goal of identifying a candidate set of web mapping technologies for teaching web mapping, and also revealed broader insights into web map design and education generally as well as ways to cope with evolving web mapping technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]