"Hire me John's Creek, GA!!!": Equipping students with the skills to configure web applications
"You're hired!!!"
I regularly tell students that if they built out a 'custom' dashboard for the non-profit, local government, or company that they were applying for (internship or job), they would get hired on the spot. I always back this down a little bit (maybe you won’t get hired on the spot… but you’ll be a top candidate!), but I believe strongly in the sentiment. The ability to configure dashboards and other information products is a critical skill set that students taking just 1 GIS course can and should possess.
Even without creating or managing datasets, the wealth of ‘open data’ and public data provides a simple way for students to begin visualizing and presenting information. The fact that many of these municipal datasets are updated in real-time, gives students the ability to create ‘real-time’ dashboards looking at building permits, transportation, crime, mosquito treatments, covid cases, the list goes on and on.
I recently presented this basic outline to a group of students in an introductory planning GIS course. The same concepts and workflow could be applied using any other open data sets in any locale.
Traffic Accidents in John’s Creek GA
The Mayor of John’s Creek, GA just rushed into the transportation planning office because of the bad press she is receiving related to traffic accidents. It was recently reported that accidents have been rising sharply since April. She wants something to show to the public and the press that this is just related to the seasonal spike in accidents and that accidents have been trending down during her tenure. She wants it now.
This took me about 15 min. to configure...
This is obviously a hypothetical story, and a silly one at best, but, it’s also very common. Thinking of our hypothetical Mayor, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t want a map… or a spreadsheet. Maps are great, they can help us tell amazing stories as well as visualize and contextualize massive amounts of data. Yet, for many purposes, the ability to combine a map, along with charts and statistics is the sweet spot.
Before we get started... we need some data.
Data Time!
The first problem is just getting access to data, but there’s a ton of great stuff out there in a ready to use format (it's still a great skill to run over to the US Census website and get data from the source... but it's not the only way). There are so many communities and agencies with open data websites and the real power of these, it just connecting to the services. Rather than downloading a shapefile or geodatabase, we can add the service to a web map.
The Atlantic Regional Commission has a great open data site (that also consolidates regional open data sites, ex. John’s Creek). From this site, you can simply search for data, and then add the layers to a map and get started.
Just add the services to your map!
Adding the Icing
When you save the map, students now have their own ‘copy’ of a map that they can configure, which is connected to the source data set. As new features and records get added… their map will update.
Directly from the Map Viewer, students can launch one of the ‘application builders’, which are configuration frameworks for sharing the map. The one that I focused on here is ArcGIS Dashboard, which I’ll configure with a summary stat, date/time bar chart, and a pie chart to show accidents by ‘lighting condition’.
Get that dashboard configured
Conclusion
I don’t think the Mayor of John’s Creek GA is drafting an offer letter to me right now, but the ability to build an ArcGIS Dashboard or configurable web applications will put graduates resumes at the top of any application pile. The time required to introduce these frameworks in a GIS class is minimal, but I think the potential application and usability of these tools speak for themselves.