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Lab exercise 6 is the mid-semester evaluation of your course project as it relates to lecture material and readings for this course. It is your mid-term exam.
In this evaluation you will assess your course project as it relates to the map design process in general, as well as to issues such as map production, the WWW, ArcGIS functionality, map projections, visual hierarchy, data classification, and map symbolization. I provide a series of questions below, corresponding to the development of your course project so far this semester.
You will notice that some of the questions are similar to things I asked you to write in your Lab Blog. In these cases, feel free to copy and edit these Lab Blog entries and include them as part of your evaluation. If you did a good job on your lab blog, you will have less work to do for this mid-term. Please make sure your lab blog is up-to-date for all of the labs to date (through Lab 5).
In three of the sections below (2, 4e, 5b) I ask you to describe and implement changes to your existing project based on this evaluation. Please complete these changes by the due date of this evaluation and indicate in your evaluation that you have done so.
The ultimate goal of this evaluation is for you to better understand what you have done so far this semester, link it to issues from lecture & readings, and to reshape your project to improve it.
Lab 6 Goal: Generate an evaluation of the course project as it relates to the map design process in general and other relevant issues raised in lecture and in the readings.
The Details:
Note: The suggested amount that you write on each of the questions below is assuming typed and space-and-a-half word processor pages.
Please copy and paste the questions from this page into your word processor document, so I know which question you are answering.
1 Paragraph: Begin by summarizing your course project in one paragraph. You will use this as a written introduction to your project on the WWW, and place this paragraph in your WWW pages. This paragraph should contain a clear and brief explanation of the project so that the typical fool coming across your work on the WWW would be able to figure out what the project is about.
We have proceeded through your project in several steps. Please organize your
work in this evaluation in terms of these steps, as detailed below.
1. The Actual Distribution of the Phenomena you are
Mapping
1a. 1 paragraph: Describe the data you are working with in your project. Describe both the original data and the derived data (percent population change).
1b. 1 page: Compare the data you are working with (population totals, and percent change) to the actual phenomena of population (people). Refer to p. 54 in Making Maps about phenomena vs data. Why is it important to consider the phenomena being mapped independently of the data which represents that phenomena?
2. Why are you Making Your Map?
2 Pages: It is important to consider the purpose of your map and its intended audience early in the map design process. Keep in mind that your final project is on the WWW where just about anyone can look at it. Please refine your sense of map purpose and audience at this point in the project. This can be anything: for a middle school social studies class, for historians, for a college human geography course, etc. All of these audiences have particular needs (ex., middle school kids probably need more explanation than college students; certain audiences may need more details about the maps themselves, how they are classified, etc.). Do ponder (and plan to put into action) any adjustments to your project to help clarify its purpose and help its intended users use the maps on the WWW.
3. Collect Appropriate Data
3a. 1 Page: Lab 1 asked you to comment on your experiences searching for population data on the WWW. Refer back to lab blog notes and revise these comments. How easy is it to find the data you need on the WWW? What are some advantages of the WWW as a provider of data? What are some of the disadvantages? How can you assess the quality and accuracy of the data that you find on the WWW? Do you trust your data source? Why? What kind of source might you not trust?
3b. 1 Page: As noted in Lab 3 and Lab 5, cleaned up data in a format you can immediately use is rare. Summarize issues and problems that arose in transforming your data from a text file (from the WWW), through Excel, into ArcGIS. Comment on the role that data processing plays in the mapping and GIS process. Was it worthwhile processing the data, or would it be better if the instructor gave you a cleaned up data set already in ArcGIS?
4. Constructing the Map
4a. 2 Pages: The "technical" part of mapping and GIS involves learning how to use hardware and software. Please comment on your impressions of the tools you are using to create your course project. What was your level of computer skills before this course? What, if anything, have you learned in the process of creating your maps? What are your impressions of HTML? Is it worth your time to learn how to script HTML? Would you prefer to use a software package that allows you to create HTML without knowing any of the HTML tags you are typing by hand? Why? What about the Map Mashup? Worth learning? Can you imagine every creating a Map Mashup for some other course, or even after you are done with college? Briefly discuss the creation of your Lab Blog: again, is it worth learning? What are your impressions of ArcGIS as a mapping and GIS tool? What are some of its strengths? What are some of its weaknesses? What is the most significant thing (positive or negative) you have learned about computers as mapping and GIS tools in this course? Do you think you will ever use such software again?
We have discussed several general issues concerning map design and
production. Please relate these in terms of your project:
4b. 1/2 Page: Refer to section 3 in chapter 2 of Making Maps. What is the final medium of your project? How might the suggestions in this section of the Making Maps book be appropriate for adjustments to the design of your WWW pages and maps?
4c. 1/2 Page: Why is the selection of an appropriate Map Projection vital to your project? What kind of map projection did you choose, and why? Comment on ArcGIS's Map Projection choices as they relate to the general map projection guidelines discussed in lecture. Refer to chapter 5 in Making Maps.
4d. 1 Page: Review chapter 6 on Map Layout in Making Maps. Discuss three things you will apply to your web pages from Map Pieces, Focus, Balance, and/or the Grid.
4e. 1 Page: Review chapter 7 on Intellectual and Visual Hierarchies in Making Maps and the Visual Hierarchy lecture. Please construct a list of all visual elements on your WWW pages (including the background color!) and on your map from most important (high on the intellectual hierarchy) to least important (low on the intellectual hierarchy). How have you graphically symbolized these elements? Does the visual hierarchy in your current WWW pages and map match the intellectual hierarchy? Are some elements higher or lower in the visual hierarchy than they should be? Suggest two significant changes to your web pages and map based on the idea of intellectual and visual hierarchies.
5. Evaluation
5a. 1 Page: Define evaluation in general, Documentation evaluation, and Formative evaluation as discussed in chapter 2 of Making Maps. Do you think that your lab blog documentation is useful? Why or why not? How could you use formative evaluation to evaluate and possibly make your project better? Does this evaluation (Lab 6) help evaluate your project in any way? Help you understand what you are doing? Help you rethink or reshape your project in any way? Is this kind of evaluation better or worse (or just different) than a regular mid-term exam?
5b. 1/2 Page: Describe two more significant changes to your overall project based on the evaluation above (5a). Explain how these will make your project better. Implement the changes and briefly assess if the changes actually make your project better.
E-mail: jbkrygier@owu.edu
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