APPLICATION OF WEB 2.0 IN CARTOGRAPHIC EDUCATION: IS IT TIME
FOR CARTOGRAPHY 2.0?
L. Zentai
Department of Cartography and Geoinformatics, Eotvos Lorand
University, Budapest, Hungary
zetor@ludens.elte.hu
The term
web 2.0 was first used in 2004 at a conference where the organizers focused on
the new generation web services. Although web is not software and it has not
had versions, everybody understood this term and also understood the real
meaning behind it.
In the last
30 years cartography has considerably changed and we may think to use the
similar term for our science too: cartography 2.0.
Although
web 2.0 is not a clearly and easily definable term, we can list some new
features of the web which has formed this new term. Wiki, blog, RSS, mashup
applications, social networking are the key features (and other less known are
still under development) which are not concrete applications, but rather
philosophies.
Wiki is a
type of website that allows the users to easily edit/change some available
content, sometimes without the need for registration. This ease of interaction
and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for collaborative authoring. Can
we effectively use this new technique in cartography?
Blogs
provide commentary or news on a particular subject, as personal online diaries;
they can be part of a wider network of social media. They are some cartographic
blogs available (operated mostly by younger cartographers) which can give new
chances for collaborative work, so they may help the cartographic education.
The most
prominent mashup applications are the websites which are connected to
GoogleEarth to use their basemaps/satellite images to add their own
geographically located contents. These applications are also used by
non-cartographers to help them to “make maps”.
Are these new features enough to introduce the new term: cartography 2.0?