ECAI Cartographic Guidelines Team Work Session Summary (Sydney, June 2001)
5 Nov. 2001	comments

Mission Statement

To define and promote proper cartographic practices through the ECAI community.

Review of White Paper

• We need to be careful about generating unnecessary standards as many already exist
• We need to identify the mechanism through which we set up and distribute standards or guidelines
• We need to educate people about cartography
• Our "atlas" will not be a set of fixed images that are viewed page by page. Thus our purpose is to determine what tools are needed by the users.

There are two different outputs being considered in ECAI:

Observations:

• Output Models:
  • total interactivity
    • need cartographic tools
  • published product
    • thus the ECAI publications need a cartographer as part of the publishing team
• Our challenge is to provide flexibility but give guidance. TimeMap allows the developer to assign a default symbol set but the client will be able to change this.

Questions:

None

ECAI's Cartographic Model

Observations:

• We need to include functionality for displaying rates, densities, scaled symbols, etc.
• We need some standards to support ECAI's look and feel.
• We still need to decide the level of cartographic functionality the mapping interface needs.

Questions:

• Does TimeMap Java viewer have a limited symbol set which is different from the larger symbology available in the desktop version?

Level of cartographic functionality needed?

Observations:

• The anticipated purpose of TimeMap is to access geographic information, not to perform spatial analysis.
• Advanced spatial analysis is not necessarily needed by/for the current audience.
• Grid functionality is needed to set elevation ranges to improve.
• We need a distance measurement tool.

Question:

• What level of spatial query/analysis is needed?
• Do we need "intersect"?

Education

Observations:

• Scholars need to understand how to reframe questions in the spatial context
• Cartographically challenged users need to have access to educational materials that will enable them to develop cartographic skills.
• Many on-line cartographic resources already exist and should be utilized where possible.
  • http://nk.ggy.uga.edu
  • http://redgeomatica.rediris.es/ecai
• Cartographic design references need to be added to the ECAI Map Design FAQ list
• ECAI Map Design FAQ list must be designed so that it provides answers to specific questions that scholars are likely to ask about map design instead of only providing access to lengthy documents covering a range of topics that scholars are unlikely to read.

Questions:

None

ECAI Best Practices Guide to good maps

Observations:

Need to assemble examples of "good" and "bad" ECAI maps using the ECAI standard within TimeMap as projects which can be imitated and which are annotated with good mapping practices.

Questions:

None

Symbology

Observations:

• We need to identify symbols that are needed and not available.
• Cultural implications of symbols needs to be considered.

Questions:

Is there a way to add time to symbols to make a two-dimensional symbol set (time against theme)?

Color sets

Observations:

aesthetics of color has some cultural implications.

Questions:

None

Cartographic Tech Team

Observations:

A cartographic team does need to exist since proper cartography is fundamental to ECAI's core missions on funding.

Questions:

None

Research Agenda

Observations:

• Need research on issues associated with temporal visualization.
• Need research on the range of symbols needed generally in the Humanities.
  • Requires coordination with the gazetteer and regional and thematic teams regarding the establishment of authority files, thesaurus.

Questions:

None

Tasks

What to do next week

• Make examples of good and bad maps.
• Review cartographic functions of TimeMap and submit feedback to the TimeMap design team (through the ECAI Cartography Forum "TimeMap Review" thread?).

Short Term

• Need to conduct a user needs assessment that identifies cartographic and analysis tools needed by users that will be determined by the types of tasks that they need to accomplish. Items to include in the review include, but are not limited to:
  • Usability vs. functionality
  • Aesthetics
  • Performance
  • Capability of interaction with other systems
  • Multilingual support
• Assign member of cartographic team, with experience in cartographic design, to each regional team.
• Cartographic Education:
  • Identify the key skills that people need to accomplish effective map design.
  • Create a structure for cartographic knowledge in the ECAI Knowledge Base (part of the USS mission). Populate the structure with links to available resources and identify those resources that need to be identified or developed.
• Need a quick link within TimeMap to map design help.

Long Term

• Research into temporal visualization and cultural feature symbolization.
• Development of ECAI cartographic standard based upon feedback from user needs assessment.
• Team members requested to locate good web sites of cartographic knowledge and submit them to the knowledge base. This will be an ongoing initiative.