Wednesday, April 23, 2008
This Lab was great! Unfortunately I have not really finished the map to my liking. I have mapped the terrorist attacks from 1968. The data comes from a website who decided to cease operations on 31 March 2008 before I had completed all the data collection! What is missing is a deeper resolution of the data such as all the American targets and the geographic locations of each attack. It is a large data set spanning from 1968 to 2007. For this map I have mapped all of the attacks for 1968, and I have noted the American targets.
There were many challenges in producing this map—particularly the legend. I decided to map all of the groups responsible for the attacks in 1968. To show the number of groups that thought terrorism was an ok answer that year.
There are a couple of things left undone and a quirk that I need to address. First the quirk: The American target check box is working, however the layer of American targets should not be visible when the map is first opened. They are. After the user clicks the check box off and on however this anomaly goes away. I will trouble shoot this some more later, at this point I am not sure what the problem is.
As for things left undone:
I am going to add pan and zoom to the map so that the user may scroll from side to side while viewing the map.
I am going to add the information about which of the attacks were carried out by Islamic groups.
I am going to change the size of the buttons as they tween up to Europe--they get bigger along with the zoom cam.
I am going to add the check boxes to the controls at the zoom level so that it is possible to see the other data at those levels.
A back button would be useful addition to the map to give the user more control.
A definition of terrorism added to the map would be a good feature to give the user more information about what is being mapped.
The US Department of Defense defines terrorism as follows:
“the unlawful use of -or threatened use of- force or violence against individuals or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives” Inside Terrorism by Bruce Hoffman; Columbia Univesity Press, New York, 1998, p 38.
There were many challenges in producing this map—particularly the legend. I decided to map all of the groups responsible for the attacks in 1968. To show the number of groups that thought terrorism was an ok answer that year.
There are a couple of things left undone and a quirk that I need to address. First the quirk: The American target check box is working, however the layer of American targets should not be visible when the map is first opened. They are. After the user clicks the check box off and on however this anomaly goes away. I will trouble shoot this some more later, at this point I am not sure what the problem is.
As for things left undone:
I am going to add pan and zoom to the map so that the user may scroll from side to side while viewing the map.
I am going to add the information about which of the attacks were carried out by Islamic groups.
I am going to change the size of the buttons as they tween up to Europe--they get bigger along with the zoom cam.
I am going to add the check boxes to the controls at the zoom level so that it is possible to see the other data at those levels.
A back button would be useful addition to the map to give the user more control.
A definition of terrorism added to the map would be a good feature to give the user more information about what is being mapped.
The US Department of Defense defines terrorism as follows:
“the unlawful use of -or threatened use of- force or violence against individuals or property to coerce or intimidate governments or societies, often to achieve political, religious, or ideological objectives” Inside Terrorism by Bruce Hoffman; Columbia Univesity Press, New York, 1998, p 38.
// posted by Elizabeth Hull @ 9:01 AM 
