Hello, and welcome to a short, workshop-style course on web mapping. See the Syllabus for more information.
My name is Rich Donohue, and I'm a Visiting Scholar at CU's Department of Geography. I have a Ph.D. in Geography from UW-Madison and have researched and taught web mapping for 5+ years now. My approach emphasizes using open source, web-based tools to create dynamic and interactive thematic maps. You can see more about my work in a program I've helped develop and currently teach for at the University of Kentucky called New Maps Plus.
Please arrive at the Ken Erickson Spatial Data Analysis Lab (Guggenheim Rm 6) on Friday, October 28th by 3 pm. We have a lot to learn in 2 hours, but we'll have a lot of fun doing it!
You'll notice that I'm hosting the material for this course on a website called GitHub. I encourage you to sign up for your own (free) GitHub account if you haven't already. It's a useful resource for coders and non-coders, and GitHub offers fantastic upgrades for students. You can read more about how I use GitHub in Setting up a Modern Mapping Enviornment and Workflow in my teaching for U of Kentucky.
Feel free to plan on using one of the lab computers. However, I strongly encourage you to bring and work on your own laptop computer. If you do bring your own computer, download and install the following software before arriving:
- Either the Chrome or Firefox web browser (I will be instructing using Chrome)
- A text editor such as (Brackets, Sublime, or Atom)
If you don't install Brackets and use a Windows machine, it would be very helpful if you had Python installed on your computer. The Mac OS comes with Python installed.
In the meanwhile, consider reading the following:
If you have no background in web design or development, some people find the free Codeacademy courses on HTML and CSS or JavaScript helpful.
Feel free to email me with questions at [email protected].
The course comprises four weekly modules encompassing 2 hours of guided instruction each, Friday afternoons from 3 - 5 pm.
- October 28th -- Drawing Data with Web Maps
- November 4th -- Thematic Web Mapping: Point Symbology
- November 11th -- Thematic Web Mapping: Choropleth
- November 18th -- Extending Web Maps with Plugins and Web Hosting
The course will meet in the Ken Erickson Spatial Data Analysis Lab (Guggenheim Rm 6), on the CU-Boulder campus.