Great Lakes Mapping Mashups:
How to Develop Your Own Great Lakes Web Mapping Applications

With a little training to provide knowledge about software tools and access to map and data services, we believe it is possible to extend the use of innovative web mapping applications to multiple Great Lakes constituencies, providing them with the resources and knowledge to better utilize these new tools for sustainable management of the Great Lakes. The result will be an increase in both the use of existing decision support tools and the development of new innovative web mapping applications providing information about the Great Lakes.

GLOS Mapping Workshop were held on each of the Great Lakes to discuss needs for Great Lakes decision support tools, promote data-driven decision-making for the Great Lakes, discuss how social networking can allow people to share discovery of interesting tools, and provide hands-on training on how to develop their own web mapping application. A total of 60 people attended the six sessions held in Kingston, ON; Chicago, IL; Duluth, MN; Alpena, MI; Traverse City, MI; and Buffalo, NY and 24 teachers attended separate evening sessions in Alpena, Traverse City, and Buffalo. In addition, 24 people participated in a webinar series for local conservation authorities coordinated by Conservation Ontario and 8 teachers enrolled in a week-long course on virtual globes and environmental education at Ohio State University's Stone Lab.

The pre- and post-workshop evaluations for the mapping workshops show the training has an impact. When asked if the workshop met expectations, attendees at the Traverse City workshop answered with an average rating of 4.3 out of 5. Significant advancements were made in understanding the concepts behind interactive web mapping sites, virtual globes, and on-line Great Lakes data and resources, as well as developing web mapping sites and mapping mashups from the beginning to the end of the workshop. A summary report of the evaluations for all of the workshops will be prepared and follow-up interviews will be conducted with workshop attendees to see if they have made use of the knowledge gained during the workshops.

Conservation Ontario Webinars
Webinar #1: January 10, 2011 - 10:00 to 11:30am EST
Attendance: 22 attendees
Webinar #2: January 21, 2011 - 2:00 to 3:30pm EST
Attendance: 17 attendees
Instructors: David Hart and Cindy Hagley
Coordinator: Chris Wilkinson, Conservation Ontario
Agenda/Resources: http://greatlakesmashups.net/ontario/

Teaching with Google Earth and Google Ocean
Location: Put-in-Bay, OH
Facility: Stone Lab, Ohio State University
Date: August 15-21, 2010
Instructors: Rosanne Fortner and David Hart
Attendance: 8 teachers
Resources: http://greatlakesmashups.net/stonelab2010/

Lake Erie
Location: Buffalo, New York
Facility: University at Buffalo
Date: April 8, 2010
Instructors: David Hart, Cindy Hagley, and AJ Wortley
Local Coordinator: Helen Domske, New York Sea Grant
Attendance: 14 + 14 teachers
Agenda: http://glosworkshops.wordpress.com/2010/03/15/buffalo/
Resources: http://greatlakesmashups.net/buffaloworkshop/

Lake Michigan (east)
Location: Traverse City, Michigan
Facility: Northwestern Michigan College
Date: November 11, 2009
Instructors: David Hart and Cindy Hagley
Local Coordinator: Mark Breederland, Michigan Sea Grant
Attendance: 11 + 8 teachers
Agenda: http://glosworkshops.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/glos-mapping-workshop-traverse-city/
Resources: http://greatlakesmashups.net/tcworkshop/

Lake Huron
Location: Alpena, Michigan
Facility: Thunder Bay National Marine Sanctuary
Date: November 9, 2009
Instructors: David Hart and Cindy Hagley
Local Coordinator: Brandon Schroeder, Michigan Sea Grant
Attendance: 7 + 2 teachers
Agenda: http://glosworkshops.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/glos-mapping-workshop-alpena/
Resources: http://greatlakesmashups.net/alpenaworkshop/

Lake Superior
Location: Duluth, Minnesota
Venue: Minnesota GIS/LIS Conference
Date: October 21, 2009
Instructors: AJ Wortley and David Hart
Attendance: 15
Resources: http://greatlakesmashups.net/duluthworkshop/

Lake Michigan (west)
Location: Chicago, Illinois
Facility: Environmental Protection Agency, Region 5
Date: October 7, 2009
Instructors: David Hart and AJ Wortley
Local Coordinator: Elizabeth Hinchey Malloy, Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant
Attendance: 10
Agenda: http://glosworkshops.wordpress.com/2009/10/01/chicago-workshop/

Lake Ontario
Location: Kingston, Ontario
Facility: Queen’s University, Department of Geography
Date: June 18, 2009
Instructors: David Hart and Cindy Hagley
Local Coordinator: Gerry Barber, Queen’s University, Department of Geography
Attendance: 3
Agenda: http://glosworkshops.wordpress.com/2009/06/10/glos-mapping-workshop-queens-university-june-18/

Several handouts were developed to support the Great Lakes Mapping workshops. They include development resources for mapping mashups/data integration; an inventory of distributed Great Lakes data sources; training exercises utilizing web mapping technologies; and teacher resources for Google Earth.

Data Integration Technologies

• Mapping Mashup/Data Integration Development Resources, (pdf file, 20 KB)
  Descriptions of virtual globes, mapping services and Application Programming Interfaces, open source and commercial desktop GIS clients, and misc. web resources to help learn more about mapping mashups.
• Google Earth Development Resources, (pdf file, 18 KB)
  Descriptions of the variety of tools to create Google Earth KML files and convert data from different formats (ESRI shapefiles, Excel, etc.) into KML files.
• Teacher Resources for Google Earth, (pdf file, 14 KB)
  Pointers to innovative educational lessons using Google Earth, along with resources to assist creating new educational lessons using virtual globes.

• Google Earth KML Files for the Great Lakes and Beyond, (pdf file, 2.4 MB)
  A list of Google Earth KML files at the Great Lakes regional scale, as well as at national, state, and provincial agencies and academic institutions.

• Using Google Earth to Plan a Great Lakes Fishing Trip
  Includes a guide for importing and viewing map layers in Google Earth to help plan a Lake Erie fishing trip, a Google Earth KML file with the necessary layers already loaded, and a screencast decribing the process of using Google Earth to help plan a Lake Superior fishing trip.
• Scribble Maps Overview, (pdf file, 735 KB)
  This document utilizes a Great Lakes setting to demonstrate the use of the tools and menu choices of Scribble Maps, an intuitive web mapping interface that allows quick creation of custom Google Maps applications.

The term Web 2.0 is commonly associated with web applications that facilitate interoperability and user-centered design. Examples of Web 2.0 technologies include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups, and folksonomies.

Information Dashboards. Stephen Few, author of "Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Design" defines an information dashboard as a "single screen display of the most important information people need to do a job, presented in a way that allows them to monitor what's going on in an instant." Personal web page creators such as Protopage and Netvibes allow quick creation of dashboard interfaces. These examples provide a gallery of Great Lakes decision support tools organized by geograrphy or topic.

• Great Lakes Resources Dashboard -- Protopage (http://www.protopage.com)
• Great Lakes Decision Support Dashboard -- Netvibes (http://www.netvibes.com)

• Great Lakes Data and Tools Social Bookmarking -- Delicious (http://delicious.com)
• Great Lakes Bookmarks -- Diigo (http://www.diigo.com)

• GLOS Mapping Workshops Blog, -- WordPress (http://www.wordpress.com/)

• Great Lakes Observing System Group -- Facebook (http://www.facebook.com)

• Great Lakes Observing System
• International Coastal Atlas Network
• Great Lakes Coastal Forecasting System, Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab
• CoastWatch, Michigan Sea Grant
• Great Lakes Echo, Michigan State University (search for the Monday Mashup)
• Putting Maps and Geographic Data on the Web, Center for Land Use Education & Research, University of Connecticut
• Great Lakes KML Tour, Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab