A complete course in Cartographic Design
In our discussions with faculty, there arise frequent requests for examples of the modern approach to teaching subjects within modern geospatial technology and methods. By “modern”, we refer to GIS as a system which provides a foundation to build upon and a variety of points at which to access. By "subjects" we mean subjects within GIScience such as GIS methods, remote sensing, analytics, mapping (cartography, which I am sharing with this essay), and others, as well as subject areas where GIS can be used as an instructional tool, such as meteorology (which I shared here). The "modern GIS" paradigm includes creating and using crowdsource-able field apps, rigorous consumption and creation of web maps and mapping applications such as story maps, coding and building expressions, performing spatial analysis, and other components of the web infrastructure as enabled by SaaS (Software as a Service) tools and data as services. As part of this ongoing discussion, I would like to share a course that I created in Cartographic Design that serves as a course that embraces these elements.
The entire contents of the course are available here.
The course could serve as one model for a first course in modern GIS in higher education and to foster conversation about approaches, tools, data, and hands-on problem-solving activities. The course contents could also be considered an e-book, as hundreds of pages of readings and hands-on activities are included. A playlist of each of the 21 videos in the course is here. A key advantage of serving this entire course is that you will see the readings, activities, videos, and quizzes as a scaffolded, complete whole, rather than just individual lessons. Each component builds on other components in a sequenced way designed in tandem with vetted learning theory.
My goals in creating and providing this course are so that (1) anyone can take it without the need to access a Learning Management System (LMS) or any other system, as I exported it out of an LMS into a story map collection; (2) instructors can use components of this course for their own instruction (or the entirety of the course) at their own college or university. Feel free to use this course however you see fit under a Creative Commons CC by 4.0 license.
This course is aimed at university or technical, tribal, or community college students who have not had prior experience using GIS. This course is 16 weeks long. Each week, students work through the following components: Readings, videos, and hands-on activities using interactive GIS tools (ArcGIS Online, ArcGIS Pro, web mapping applications, field surveys, and selected other tools such as Axis Maps, WorldMapper cartograms, and ColorBrewer). They take a short quiz, reflect upon their learning in discussions, and share the results of their investigations. I also provide the quiz answers in the story map, although when I teach the course, the answers are not provided.
I have successfully taught this course with real students for 3 years; updating it each term. I migrated the course from a Learning Management System (LMS—in this case, BrightSpace D2L) to the resources you see here so that everyone can view and access. I created a story map for each of the four modules that comprise each week of the course: (1) Readings and discussion, (2) hands-on activities, (3) quizzes, (4) the quiz answers, and (5) the final few weeks lead up to a student-led project in cartography of their own choosing. The plan thus helps students frame their own questions and research agenda, implement it using the tools they have learned in the course, and deliver it via a web mapping application of their choice. I have taught this course at the community college level and most students in it had taken 1 GIS course prior to taking this Cartographic Design course, but not all, so I did include some "key foundations" at the beginning for those students who were new to GIS (but I trust served as an effective reminder for those in their 2nd course in GIS).
I would like to thank my colleague Nicole Ernst for laying the original vision for this course and for giving me the opportunity to teach it at Harrisburg Area Community College. I made use of the UN Mapping for a Sustainable World e-Book for readings and examples about several key principles (I love that book!), as well as things I've learned over the years from some of my favorite cartographers Andy Woodruff and those from Esri, Kenneth Field (author of Esri Press book Cartography), Jim Herries, Charlie Frye, and Aileen Buckley (co-author of Map Use and tons more content).
My key takeaways from this course include: (1) I am very glad to see cartography making a return to core GIS courses, and it'. With Web GIS, everyone is a potential mapmaker, and thus it is more imperative than ever that people learn about how to communicate effectively with maps, apps, infographics, and other geo-visualizations. (2) What worked very well was the combination of ArcGIS Online (which I used beginning Week 1 and throughout the course), and ArcGIS Pro (which I used from the midpoint of the course onward for its advanced cartographic techniques and tools), with the other tools I mention in this essay. (3) As we frequently reassure faculty, there's no shame in using someone else's lesson when it meets your objectives and when it frees your time to focus on other aspects of the course. In my case with this course, I used a Singapore-focused cartography lesson from the Learn ArcGIS library. While it wasn't exactly what I would have done in that section of the course, it met 90-95% of my objectives, and it freed up dozens of development hours that I could now use to focus on developing the readings, videos, quizzes, final project, and rubrics.
I linked and organized all 19 story maps using an ArcGIS Story Maps collection, which was a straightforward way to present the content that I hope you find useful. There is 1 story map for each of the 16 weeks, plus story maps for the quiz answers, the syllabus, the detailed outline, and the introductory materials. ArcGIS Story Maps and the Experience Builder are two ways to present web content and course materials. Consider using Story Maps and Experience Builder for content that you would like to build in the future! The only thing lost with exporting out of a LMS is the interactive discussions, but if you use the story maps elements in your own LMS, you'll be able to recreate these discussions in short order.
To easily navigate within the Story Maps collection, use the grid symbol on the left side, arrowed below, or the navigation arrows circled below.
Course Objectives:
1. Describe the components of a map (map elements).
2. Identify ways in which GIS, maps, and geo-visualizations are providing a common language and framework for communication of issues, events, or themes, and for solving problems.
3. Apply cartographic design principles such as symbology, color, projection, and classification methods to create, modify, and share maps.
4. Select and apply ethical and appropriate data model, map scale, map elements, symbolization, and color to produce maps that effectively communicate quantitative and qualitative geographic data.
5. Critically evaluate maps and visualizations.
6. Design professional quality maps, including map elements such as text, graphs, charts, images, and diagrams, employing cartographic principles.
7. Create maps, 3D scenes, and related content in a variety of formats (hard copy, digital, and web).
8. Identify how society influences mapping, and how mapping influences society, through the representation of data through mapping. Thus, we discuss and work with ethical issues including location privacy, copyright, data quality, and more.
To get a quick sense of the objectives, plus my own philosophy, tips for success in the course, technical requirements, and how to work with the course structure, see the introductory story map, here. Threaded through the course are these themes: (1) maps are not just reference documents, but are analytical tools, and (2) the map is not the end goal, but rather, enhanced understanding of the issue that the maps are tackling--climate, land use, population change, habitat, energy, transportation, and others.
Course Outline:
Week 1: What is a map? Why do maps matter? Definitions, explanations, and examples of maps and GIS. Making maps with web mapping applications and considering how cartographic elements are used in those applications.
Week 2: Representing data. Discussing geospatial data formats and data models. Mapping data and comparing web maps vs. web mapping applications.
Week 3: Space, Place, and Time. Considering core elements of location, including coordinate systems, resolution, map projections, scale, and more. Doing hands-on work with space, place, time, contour lines, and change with maps and imagery.
Week 4: Spatial analysis and spatial statistics. Discussion of topology, spatial analysis, geo-statistics, and examining additional maps. Performing spatial analysis including trace downstream, mean center, standard deviational ellipse, overlay, and more.
Week 5: Map elements: Color, Type, Symbols. Deep dive into color, type, symbols, proportional symbol maps, typography, labeling, and other cartographic elements. Work with ColorBrewer, mapping points and polygons, labeling, and blending.
Week 6: Generalization and Classification. Exploring and comparing methods of generalization and classification, including aggregation and map misrepresentations. Hands-on work with different types of symbols and classification on vector layers, including clustering, classification on raster layers, generalization, and more.
Week 7: Choropleth and proportional symbols maps, labels, charts, and more. Discussion on thematic maps, including choropleth, proportional or graduated symbol maps, bivariate maps, diagrams, and mapping time. Hands-on work with tornado data in ArcGIS Online, and a Singapore mapping project in ArcGIS Pro.
Week 8: Dot density, flow, cartograms, and cartographic design. Deep dive into dot density maps with examples, discussing pros and cons, flow maps past and present, cartograms, and map layouts. Hands-on work with making dot density maps, flow maps, and cartograms, and continued work on the Singapore project with a focus on map layout.
Week 9: Deeper dive into symbols and design. The readings focus on symbolization considerations, including pictorial symbols, design comparisons, communications, design as planning and building, form, type, color, and texture, emotional impact, and putting it all together. The hands-on work focuses on creating and symbolizing a thematic map in ArcGIS Pro: Size, color, basemaps, exporting, and more.
Week 10: Data quality, uncertainty, and ethics. The readings and discussion this week focus on how data quality is measured, why it matters, authoritative content, including examples of some truly 'bad' maps, management of error, legal aspects, and the ethics of mapping. The hands-on activities involve using fitness apps, a gigapixel image, mapping uncertain boundaries, and mapping uncertain line segments in a natural hazards setting and in a population setting.
Week 11: Mapping Imagery. This week's readings and discussion focus on the types of imagery and how they are represented cartographically, including multi-bands, georeferencing, sharing, UAVs, other imagery, and consideration of audience, usability, functional requirements on maps, and utility. The hands-on activities include an examination of the Landsat Lens viewer, the Landsat explorer app, including cartographic considerations and usability reflections.
Week 12: Surfaces and 3D Mapping. Readings and reflections this week include isoline maps, sampling, interpolation, isarithmic maps, 3D maps and visualizations, and space-time cubes. Hands-on work invites the student to map isolines across various themes and scales, work with 3D globes and 3D scenes with a cartographic consideration of each.
Week 13: Mapping field data and communicating with maps. The focus this week is on five key forces in GIS and cartography, five key trends in these fields, multimedia means of communicating meaning in cartography including story maps and dashboards, and an examination of a further set of maps. The hands-on activities include creating a dashboard in ArcGIS Online, and visualizing expansion of public transportation in ArcGIS Pro, including 3D mapping elements.
Week 14: The Future is now: UAVs, Lidar, Big Data, BIM, and More. The focus this week is on new mapping frontiers: Future directions in cartography. Dashboards, UAVs, Lidar, animations, visualizations, big data, interior space mapping, AI, art, new fields, GIS as a platform, and considering the human element. The hands-on work focuses on 3D mapping, Mars scale and visualizations, and work on the final project.
Week 15: Discussion about resources to continue your learning after the course ends. Project work: Hands-on work this week is students working on their final projects.
Week 16: Final words of encouragement as students turn in their final projects and present their work.