GIS Education Weekly: Open Data is Winning but not for the Reasons You Think

Resources for Teaching and Learning

Offaly Express: Offaly to feature in events marking the 'Year in Geography' - The Geographical Society of Ireland initiative, The Year of Geography, has begun. Offaly is the first county to be featured. "This initiative also involves geography teachers and other members of the Irish geographical community and aims to better illustrate what modern Geography is all about and to better highlight the work that geographers do." There's more information  on the Society’s webpage. 

Business Insider Australia: 10 'easy' geography questions that middle schoolers can answer, but are hard for adults - "INSIDER has compiled a sample test of 10 questions from topic areas that frequently appear in the Geobee, courtesy of the National Geographic Society’s free quiz – and they’re surprisingly difficult."

GIS Education Weekly: Looking at Data Portals, U.S. Building Footprints and News Deserts

Resources

Open Data Inception puts open data portals on a map.

GIS Lounge: Awesome Public Datasets - A look at the Open Data Inception website.

NY Times: Where We Live: A Map of Every Building in America - Spend some time with maps showing almost every building in the United States. Afterward, see how some cartographers discussed its value.

GIS Education Weekly: A Few Interesting Threads as Summer Wanes

Articles and Resources

UAH: UAH designated Center of Academic Excellence in geospatial sciences - The Department of Atmospheric Science at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) has been named a Center of Academic Excellence (CAE) in geospatial sciences by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Fredericksburg.com: New report from Maryland college expands knowledge of Native Americans on Rappahannock - A team of anthropologists from from St. Mary’s College of Maryland, “Defining the Rappahannock Indigenous Cultural Landscape,” looks at where native Americans lived and why. The study—conducted for the National Park Service - used GIS. 

GCN: The hidden costs of open data - A new report, from a research team led by University of Waterloo professor Peter A. Johnson and McGill University professor Renee Sieber, suggests "there are unforeseen costs when it comes pushing government datasets out of public-facing platforms -- especially when geospatial data is involved."

The State of the U.S. Cartography Business

Map of large underwater features. (1995, NOAA)

When I read the title The next hot job: cartographer and saw a picture of three people from CartoDB, I expected to read an article about the company. Why? Because the article appeared in Crain's New York Business! It's one of two articles about the growth (re-growth?) of geography and cartography as disciplines and  businesses in 2015.

Hot Jobs

The "hot job" article suggests that as the number of geography departments declined and the number of undergraduate geography graduates declined during the 1970s and 1980s, cartographers had to come from other disciplines. Alyssa Wright, now at Mapzen, but well known for her work at Boundless, studied a host of things are not cartography. In the last twenty years 15 colleges have added geography departments. The article notes the demise of geography at Harvard, and its re-birth.

Going One Better on Google's University Mapping Contest

Last week Google announced its latest crowdsourced mapping effort, a contest for teams at U.S. and Canadian colleges to map their schools via Google Map Maker. The contest looks at edits made to Map Maker during the contest time frame, as well as moderation of others' edits. The wining team (up to four people per team) will take home $5000 in prizes each (tablets, t-shirts, stickers, etc.).

It's all good - more students involved in mapping, better data for Google's own maps, etc. Moreover, it's just great Google can fund, promote, and adjudicate such a contest, something for which grassroots efforts may not have the staff or resources.

I've had an idea for some time, one that outdoes Google's efforts on many levels. It hits some of the same goals - student involvement in mapping, better data, etc. It's not even a contest. It's a course. The title, overview and objectives below are just a quick pitch, but I think they get the idea across.

Title: Introduction to Geodata and GIS Using OpenStreetMap


Course Overview: There is no better way to understand the nature of geospatial data than by creating and using them. In this course students will learn and use a variety of tools to enhance OpenStreetMap, a free worldwide map. In doing so, they will begin to understand the complexities of these data and the processes required to collect and maintain them. They'll also explore other open and not so open datasets, data and software licensing, and the idea of geodata being fit for purpose.


Objectives:


At the successful completion of this course, students should be able to:

• Collect, input, and edit geospatial data for the OpenStreetMap database via a variety of tools
• Identify key issues regarding geospatial data quality, appropriateness of use, and workflows to ensure data integrity
• Evaluate the value of OpenStreetMap and other worldwide datasets, APIs, data collection processes and licenses for use in geospatial solutions  

I imagine courses like this at four year and community colleges, even in high schools, worldwide. Such courses could be both an intro for those who might go on in the field and the one course in geo for those who do not. 

Even as students are learning about the nature of data, they'd be continuing to enhance OpenStreetMap, a map the whole world can use (in contrast to Google-owned Google Maps data created in the contest described above). If a residential school runs the course multiple times per year it might cover campus one semester, town the next, look at one feature type the next, do a neighboring town the next, support an emergency response effort on the other side of the world the next. And, imagine the potential coverage if this course is taught online! There's plenty of geography and thematic layers to go around!

ShareMap.Org: CC Mapping for Wikipedia and Beyond

Last week Jakub Kaniewski, co-founder of ShareMap.org contacted me about the site. He described it as a "free Web GIS mapping engine focused mainly on two things - Wikipedia and Education."

I can certainly see a focus on Wikipedia; there is quite a bit of discussion on how to create a map for that site. There's also, I'm pleased to report, quite a bit of attention paid to the licensing of the maps created. The data used is all either public domain (PD) or Creative Commons (CC) and includes OpenStreetMap, World Wind and Natural Earth. There are also background map options from Yahoo and Bing. Check out the gallery for some of the publicly shared maps.


There are map creation and labeling tools, so that you can "draw on" the maps. There are tools to export the vector data to KML or SVG and the like. What's missing, I think, for use in education here in the United States, is the ability to bring in one's own data. That might be in a shapefile, KML or spreadsheet. That, in my mind, is what educators want students at all levels to be able to do. That's why Google Fusion Tables and Esri's ArcGIS Online is so attractive to educators. 


It's interesting to note that the site is hosted in Poland and uses as its base of comparison the U.S. CIA World Factbook maps. From the FAQ:

What kind of map can be made with ShareMap.org?In simple w – in every place where you use CIA fact book and want to customize it consider using ShareMap maps. It has two advantages over CIA maps – SVG format and easy customization.

Jakob is looking for feedback on the app from users and educators. I hope you can help him out.