Investigations into the use of cartographic visualizations in geography fieldwork
ISBN 978-85-88783-11-9
Authors
1Wang, X.; 2Ekpenyong, E.; 3Van Elzakker, C.P.; 4Kraak, M.
1FACULTY OF GEO-INFORMATION SCIENCE AND EARTH OBSERVATION Email: x.wang-5@utwente.nl
2FACULTY OF GEO-INFORMATION SCIENCE AND EARTH OBSERVATION Email: e.e.ekpenyong@student.utwente.nl
3FACULTY OF GEO-INFORMATION SCIENCE AND EARTH OBSERVATION Email: c.vanelzakker@utwente.nl
4FACULTY OF GEO-INFORMATION SCIENCE AND EARTH OBSERVATION Email: m.j.kraak@utwente.nl
Abstract
Geographic understanding of a certain area will be best constructed when also learning in the real world. Geography fieldwork, regarded as an integral part of all levels of geography education, allows individuals to experience the real world and relate that experience to other means applied in gaining understanding. It will be no surprise to cartographers that geography fieldwork leaders and developers have discovered that cartographic visualizations have very much helped to improve geographic learning and learning before, during and after the actual fieldwork. However, our hypothesis is that the current cartographic visualization potentials, brought about by technological, societal (crowdsourcing) and scientific (better methods and techniques of user research) developments, are not optimally applied in current geographic fieldwork in order to help students to acquire new knowledge and understanding. This paper will report on an investigation of the current use of various kinds of cartographic visualization tools in the different stages of undergraduate human geography fieldwork in higher geography education. The research is based on an inventory of secondary sources and a world-wide online survey to establish the present situation of the use of cartography visualizations in geography fieldwork. We have investigated the use of cartographic tools and visualizations like landscape photos, aerial images, videos of reality, traditional 2D topographic and thematic maps or atlases, neogeography maps, 3D maps, virtual reality, interactive visualizations, dynamic graphic visualizations, etc. in undergraduate human geography fieldwork from the perspective of the organizers or instructors. The results of this research will also be used for a practitioners’ requirement analysis on cartographic visualizations for geography fieldwork. Finally, some results will be presented of an investigation of the usability of an urban geography field exercise developed on the basis of an OpenStreetMapping activity. In this case, usability is defined in terms of contributing to an increase in geographic understanding. The results of this research will be used to formulate proposals and requirements for new ways of cartographic visualization to be applied in human geography fieldwork. Of course, the new designs will also be subject to actual user research in the field.
Keywords
cartographic visualizations; geography fieldwork; usability