In this course, you will focus on developing a GIS system and designing a project proposal, as well as, investigating some existing and new technologies. The nature of this course allows you to explore a project of your own interest such as a work project, personal interest, hobby, etc. You will develop your term project throughout the semester following published design methodologies that will culminate in a final proposal consisting of 8 stages (Figure 1, below). The course will culminate in a peer reviewed presentation and final paper.

The Design process followed in this course, beginning with the problem statement and ending with the Unified Modelling Language.

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Course Objectives:

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

• Design a GISystem that solves a spatial problem using the main stages of GIS Design
• Write a proposal describing a GISystem Design
• Justify the development, implementation, and evaluation of the GIS design
• Complete and discuss a variety of geospatial technology lessons
• Apply and discuss the different stages of GIS design.

Throughout the semester you will be exploring some existing and new technologies, including proprietary (ESRI) technology as well as open-source technology and data sources. The technology covered in the first 5 modules of the course will include WebGIS proprietary and open-source software, architecture, and data. Then, the last 5 technologies will focus on new technology trends including cloud computing, deep learning, 3D mapping, and GeoAI.

Figure 2: The technology lessons covered in this course. The first five lessons are focused on Design Software including WebGIS, software, data, and enterprise design, and are seen in the leftmost column. The right column shows the last five lessons, which focus on new geospatial technology such as deep learning and GeoAI.

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

This course is built around a term project that each of you will complete to integrate and apply your understanding of GISystem design in the context of an application scenario you choose. You will select ONE project option from the list below and complete a system design proposal. To a large degree, you will have the freedom to shape the specifics of your term project around a GISystem context that you desire. I hope that this allows you to either focus on a topic related to your day-to-day work or choose an area that sparks your curiosity.

As you will see below, all project options focus on a “design” and/or “plan” for something (a revised, extended, or completely new system for a specific application domain). Thus, your term project for this course will not be a finished product (i.e., you will not implement a new GISystem or carry out a full assessment or usability study of some existing system), instead you will produce a formal plan for such a product. A good way to conceptualize the term project that you will submit at the end of the term (following an iterative process of preliminary steps and feedback on each) is as a proposal appropriate for submission to a decision maker or funding agency, who would evaluate and decide whether or not to support/fund the idea.

A critical component of any successful proposal is to ground the planned work in relevant existing knowledge/guidelines. Thus, we will work through a series of steps in weekly lessons designed to provide you with (or reinforce existing) knowledge related to multiple aspects of geospatial system analysis and design, along with strategies for leveraging literature and other resources from academia, government, and industry that can help you fill in knowledge gaps specific to your chosen design/plan target. The set of activities in the lessons, along with feedback on your in-progress work, will enable you to end up with a well-organized, well-grounded design/plan that would be convincing to decision-makers judging whether or not to support doing what you propose.

Each week, you will notice at least one page of the lesson dedicated to a goal or assignment associated with your term project. Each week, you will also have one graded deliverable related to your final project. I've developed a project schedule that is designed to make sure you make steady progress on the term project and that also ensures that we have one full round of draft editing to refine your work.

Term Project Options

Here are five options you have for your term project. You should choose one of these options. If you have another project idea in mind that you think would work well, send me a note so we can talk about it. Your idea may be an excellent alternative to these pre-canned options,

• OPTION 1: A GISystem design proposal that incorporates the use of mobile devices to access and update geospatial data from the field in real-time.
• OPTION 2: A design proposal to audit a GISystem with the goal of proposing changes that will improve system functionality.
• OPTION 3: A design proposal for a GISystem application that serves the needs of a professional niche (e.g., forest management, city planning, etc…).
• OPTION 4: A design proposal that incorporates the use of a web portal to access and update geospatial data
• OPTION 5: A design proposal to apply Artificial Intelligence/ Deep Learning to established geospatial products and services.

Term Project Outline

1. Executive Summary:
   The Executive Summary (abstract) should motivate readers to study the full report. The executive summary is a short, powerful synopsis of the report, highlighting important needs, presenting key features of the proposed solution, and listing the significant benefits of the solution. It should be less than one page in length, address issues of greatest interest to decision makers, including pivotal technical and business merits of the conceptual design, and it should recommend desired responses to the proposal.
2. Table of Contents:
   The table of contents is a list, usually before the start of a written work, of the section titles with their commencing page numbers.
3. Background:
   This background section provides a background of the problem, explains the current situation, identifies the proposed solution to the problem, and provides of the overall objectives of the design and proposal. You will write this like a literature review and have sources/citations (around 10).
4. Needs Assessment:
   The Needs Assessment section discusses the different users of the system and how each of the users will be involved in the design project. This section also describes the different needs assessment options, which one you chose and why, and how you will implement the needs assessment in your proposal.
5. Concepts Considered:
   The Concepts Considered section describes the options explored by the design team in its search for a solution to the above problem. It should address both original ideas and those derived from other sources, summarize the scope of ideas considered, and highlight the most creative and relevant concepts for the overall solution and for its component parts.
6. Concept Selection:
   The Concept Selection section describes the processes and rationale used for selecting the “best” concepts for the overall product and for the component parts of the design product. It may include summary tables comparing concepts against design criteria or summary evaluations of specific concepts.
7. Wireframe design:
   The wireframe design section includes multiple designs to show the user interface screens, arrow/explanations for each feature and screens of the interface, an explanation of the steps the user will take to navigate the interface, and a justification for the design.
8. System Architecture:
   The system architecture section describes the overall architecture and components of the design including the GIS workstations, software, hardware, network resources, database design, and requirements. You will also discuss the enterprise GIS requirements including performance considerations, maintenance considerations, and security considerations.
9. Data Storage:
   The Data Storage section describes in the detail the software you will use to house the design and the data you will use to populate the map.
10. Evaluation:
    The evaluation section will identify and explain the method(s) you will use to evaluate the effectiveness of your design, justify the final evaluation method you choose, and explain how you will implement the evaluation method.
11. UML Design:
    The UML Diagram will illustrate the system, actors, use cases, and relationships in your GISystem design. You will also include a short explanation of the diagram.
12. Cost/Benefit Analysis:
    The cost/benefit analysis section should explain AND justify the specific costs of the design.
13. Future Work:
    The Future Work section sets forth clear recommendations and rationale for project continuation. It summarizes the principal features of the product that satisfy users’ needs and provides an anticipated work schedule with milestones for the next phase of the project. Any unresolved issues should be highlighted at this time. Specific approvals for project continuation are requested here.

For a fortunate few of us, writing isn’t too difficult. For most of us, though, writing is challenging. Writing is about communicating your thoughts clearly and unambiguously, and this is often a challenging task. How you present your thoughts through the written word is important, especially when communicating about a specialized discipline like GISystem design. You have to understand the discipline in which you are working, and you also have to communicate that knowledge to the reader.

The goal of the writing assignments in this course is simple: demonstrate to the instructor that you understand the specific design process for each lesson and how that process is implemented. You likely spent many hours learning the material, refining the design, developing the wire-frame, and performing prototyping. You probably feel pretty good about reaching this stage of the process. But don’t stop yet! The hard part is to communicate what you did and what you discovered during the design process so that your readers will understand it, too.

Remember that though you have a form of intimacy with the system design process, your reader – not even your instructor – does not. When you write these assignments, you should keep in mind that you are not writing to someone with your level of intimacy. Rather, you need to explain everything, justify why you did what you did, how you did it, and do so using clear and concise language.

As part of your grade with every written assignment, I will assess the clarity, organization, and formatting of your work. What follows is an overview of some commonsense approaches to clear and concise writing for GISystem analysis and design.

Online Resources

The EMS Writer-in-Residence and several colleagues here at Penn State recently compiled a comprehensive guide to Science Communication in Earth and Mineral Sciences. You will find a range of useful suggestions and guidance there that will help with your term project and other writing for the course. The Guide includes some Discipline-Specific material as well; check out the "Geography" link there.

There are quite a few online guides available on how to write about, design, and include figures and tables in your paper. These are some of the most approachable.

• Penn State offers a rather comprehensive outline of topics related to writing in general.
• Common Errors in Student Research Papers by Rice University. This site has many spot-on examples of common errors and ways to prevent them from creeping into your paper. A short site, but worth the read.
• Here is a special section on including figures and tables.
• Purdue Online Writing Lab.
• Examples of how to cite figures in your paper (i.e., using a figure that you did not create).

In this course, you will focus on developing a GIS system and designing a project proposal, as well as, investigating some existing and new technologies. The nature of this course allows you to explore a project of your own interest such as a work project, personal interest, hobby, etc. You will develop your term project throughout the semester following published design methodologies that will culminate in a final proposal consisting of 8 stages (Figure 1, below). The course will culminate in a peer reviewed presentation and final paper.

Additionally, throughout the semester you will be exploring some existing and new technologies, including proprietary (ESRI) technology as well as open-source technology and data sources. The technology covered in the first 5 modules of the course will include WebGIS proprietary and open-source software, architecture, and data. Then, the last 5 technologies will focus on new technology trends including deep learning and GeoAI.

The Design process followed in this course, beginning with the problem statement and ending with the Unified Modelling Language.

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

In this module, you will begin considering the term project topic you will pursue throughout the semester, which can include any project based on a work project, a hobby, interest, and/or anything else you want to explore – the options are endless and should be interesting and valuable to you.

In this module, you will exploring several different themes to introduce you to basic geospatial design including different geospatial design methodologies, User Experience and Interface (UX/UI) design; Agile, Lean, and Waterfall Design methodologies, and Web GIS applications. Additionally, the technology you will be exploring this module is the ESRI Survey123, which is a frequently implemented software for mobile and webGIS due to its flexibility and interoperability. You will complete the ESRI Survey123 training course, which will culminate in an ESRI certificate, therefore advancing your professional development and/or GISP (if applicable).

The assignment will require you to discuss your term project topic idea in 1 paragraph, conduct a short literature search and bibliography, and justify the use of one or more geospatial design methodologies.

Assignments

Questions?

Please use the Discussion Forum to ask your classmates for additional suggestions as you are drafting your research questions. You can feel free to email me and I will strive to respond within 48 hours. I am also available for a phone call or Zoom meeting upon request.

Geospatial design incorporates the basic planning, structure, and features associated with different systems. The geospatial design will change depending on the type of project, application of the project, size of the project, and management. Several different geospatial system designs exist – as outlined below (see also Ananda et al. (2016) for more information).

Design 1:
Rebecca Sommer, 2001: quick guide to GIS implementation and management.

This is a general introduction to GIS design and includes various aspects of GIS. It is intended to provide a framework for approaches to GIS implementation and management. Therefore, the workflow or a subset of the workflow may have multidisciplinary applications (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The GIS design by Rebecca Sommer that outlines the GIS design process in two stages: GIS implementation and GIS management.

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. See also Somers, R. (2001) and Ananda et al., 2001.

Design 2:
Harmon, 2003. The design and implementation of geographic information systems. (Harmon & Anderson, 2003).

This GIS Design provides a more detailed methodology, and includes some business related steps and more specific geospatial design steps.

Figure 2: The Harmon (2003) GIS Design, which includes Needs Assessment, GIS Database, Implementation, Organization, and managing, as well as, specific details related to IT requirements such software, hardware, networks and business requirement such as staffing and user roles.

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. See also Harmon, 2003 and Ananda 2016. Note* Book not available through PSU library, however, book contents are publicly available.

Design 3:
Tomlinson, R. F. (2007). Thinking about GIS: geographic information system planning for managers (Vol. 1). ESRI, Inc.

This design incorporates detailed processes and relationships, as well as management and business steps and solutions.

Figure 3: The Tomlinson, 2007 GIS Desing approach, which includes a business and management approach.

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. See also Tomlinson, 2007 as well as Anada et al, 2006

Figure 4: The design followed in this course, which includes several components of each of the design illustrated in Figure 1-3.

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

When Design Goes Awry

So now that we've covered a few basics on good design, here are a few situations that can cause designs to fail:

Little/No Design Effort

This is probably the most common issue with respect to geospatial system design. Sometimes, there just isn't any money in the budget to really spend time thinking out and evaluating what should be implemented. Some customers don't see the immediate value in spending money on what may be perceived as an intellectual effort, when, in fact, it is essential for success to have spent some serious attention on design issues.

Design After The Fact

 Another common problem is the "Tool In Search Of An Application" that I'm sure all of you have encountered from time to time. Someone starts with a simple idea (e.g., a web mapping tool to disseminate emergency management information); a consulting group takes on the task and delivers what they think will work well. Eventually, a real person uses the tools, and it becomes clear that the tools do something new and exciting, but not something terribly useful. This leads to two related issues, first "I know what they need" and second "Build it and they will come." Both of these can lead to a lack of adoption, user resentment, and poor management acceptance and investment.

Scope Creep

Taking some time to design a new system can reveal all sorts of opportunities for new tools, data sources, output formats, etc... A common problem is managing all of the possibilities adequately so that the scope of the project does not continuously increase over time. The design focus may start with a relatively small problem area, and as momentum on the project builds, decision-makers and stakeholders all chime in, until eventually, you are responsible for designing One System To Rule Them All that is all things to all people.

UI: User Interface

UI is the user interface and refers to the way a person interacts with a web, app, or other design. UI is particularly important to geospatial design, since users need to efficiently move through the app and easily read the map to gather insightful information. UI focuses on the specific design features such as the buttons, dropdown menus, navigation, and layout design, which consists at a minimum of usability, accessibility, and aesthetics.

Usability refers to the user’s ability to easily navigate the app, gain immediate feedback on their actions, and intuitively understand the functions. For example, the ability to go forward/backward in an app needs to be clearly shown and intuitive. Dropdown menus, buttons, “hamburger icons”, settings, and other app features should have consistency, so the user knows what to expect.

Accessibility focuses on including all users in the design, including color blindness, sight impairment, hearing impairment, languages, and any other user barriers. The geospatial design needs to consider the color usage (for example, green and red aren’t accessible for color blindness), needs to be available on different size machines (phones, tablets, computers), needs to have text size features to accommodate people with sight impairments, and should be available with screen readers or other assistive technologies, among others.

Aesthetics is important for “marketing” to your preferred audience and includes the size, location, spacing of different features, color schemes, fonts and texts, and alignment. A geospatial design that is designed to appeal to an expert GIS analyst will be different than a design designed for novices. The aesthetics is the true “design” of a geospatial web app.

Figure 1: The different components of user interface requirements including usability, accessibility, and aesthetics. The center of the overlapping triangle represents the most effective designs.

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

UX: User Experience

UI is closely tied with User Experience (UX), and is often referred to as UI/UX, which defines the guidelines for “good” UI design. One of the most important features for UI/UX is emotional design, which aims to make an intrinsic connection with the users. Emotional Design has 3 basic considerations: Goals, Standards, and Attitudes (Ortony, 2022).

Goals refer to what a user wants to see happen and get done on an app. A designer must consider the “usability” of the app, so that users can easily access the app, complete their goal/mission, and continue to return to it because the app is easy and efficient.

Standards are our beliefs, norms or conventions of how we think the design should behave (Desmet, 2007). Standards drive the values that people have, moral expectations, social norms and expectations, and an expectation for how a product should work.

Attitudes represent a user’s immediate judgement for a design including their immediate dispositional likes/dislikes. To appeal to a user’s attitude, a designer must consider the aesthetic appeal of the app including the color, design, visual hierarchy, font/text, etc.

The overall goal of a good UI/UX design is to elicit a “wow” factor in your users.

Figure 2: The different components of User Experience (UX). Each circle represents one component, and the overlapping circles represents the most efficient design requirements

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

References:

Agile Design

There are many different design methodologies, but the most common methodologies in GIS and WebGIS designs are Agile, Lean, and Waterfall.

Agile design is a flexible and iterative approach to design, and one of the most recently implemented. It incorporates collaboration, feedback, and adaptability. This design methodology will iteratively update different parts of a design throughout the process, instead of completing one step and moving onto another step. This can be visualized as a cycle instead of a linear process.

Figure 1: The agile design process, in which design is an iterative approach with frequent feedback and revisions

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. See also Ananda et al, 2016.

Waterfall Design

Waterfall design is a linear and sequential process in which step 1 must be completed before moving onto step 2 and beyond. It is one of the earliest design methodologies. It focuses on development, system design, deployment, and then maintenance, but does not incorporate user feedback or iteration into the initial design process. 

Figure 2: The linear Waterfall design process, in which step 1 must be completed before step 2, and no iterative feedback is incorporated into the process.

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. See also Anana et al, 2016.

Lean Design;

Lean design emphasizes saving time and maximizing value in the design process, but also incorporates user feedback, user needs, and efficiency. Lean design focuses on eliminating wasteful resources in the design process by eliminating unnecessary steps. It focuses largely on user feedback and continuous improvement.

Agile and Lean Design often go together and are sometimes referred synonymously as Agile/Lean Design, since both focus on users' feedback and iterative design.

Figure 3: The lean design process, which focuses on iteratively incorporating user feedback at each step in the process

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. See also Anana et al, 2016.

Survey123 for ArcGIS is a simple and intuitive form centric field data gathering solution that makes creating, sharing, and analyzing surveys possible in three simple steps: ask questions, get answers, and make better decisions (ESRI definition).

Survey123 uses forms to collect information from people (or provide information to people) and can automatically detect their geographical location, so forms submitted are connected with spatial information.  Data gathered from Survey123 can automatically communicate with the ArcGIS platform of technology (Experience builder, ArcGIS pro, ArcGIS Online).  Survey123 can provide very powerful and detailed geospatial information from users and can be used to answer an endless amount of questions in numerous disciplines.

It has been used in a variety of disciplines including emergency response and environmental applications.

The example in Figure 1 is showing a Survey 123 used to investigate Emergency management in Oregon (Covey, 2024) – see the Public Home Damages Collection Survey below to see the application of Survey123 for emergency management.

Figure 1: An example Survey 123 survey used to investigate emergency management in Oregon.

Source: Covey (2024): Page 77 Figure 4: Public Home Damages Collection Survey

Survey123 has also been used for a variety of environmental applications, including tracking invasive species (Randall, 2022). The Survey123 form in Figure 2 below shows a user form for submitting information about the invasive species “Burning Bush” found in Valley Forge National Historic Park.

Figure 2: An example Survey123 showing a user form for submitting information about the invasive species “Burning Bush”.

Source: Randall et al (2002) page 6 Figure 3. “Survey123 entry for burning bush (EUAL). The page shows the name and image of the species and a dropdown option for species coverage at a specific point. The image was captured from a mobile phone Survey123 application”

References:

In the first set of readings, we will focus on setting the stage for understanding geospatial design methodologies and Agile/Lean design applications. You will also optionally choose to read one (or two) articles on the use of Survey123 in multiple disciplines. You will use the content found in these readings, as well as content, found throughout the module to answer the first technology lesson discussion post and complete the Term Project Topic Assignment.

This course is built around a term project that each of you will complete to integrate and apply your understanding of GISystem design in the context of an application scenario you choose. You will select ONE project option from the list below and complete a system design proposal. To a large degree, you will have the freedom to shape the specifics of your term project around a GISystem context that you desire. I hope that this allows you to either focus on a topic related to your day-to-day work or choose an area that sparks your curiosity.

As you will see below, all project options focus on a “design” and/or “plan” for something (a revised, extended, or completely new system for a specific application domain). Thus, your term project for this course will not be a finished product (i.e., you will not implement a new GISystem or carry out a full assessment or usability study of some existing system), instead you will produce a formal plan for such a product. A good way to conceptualize the term project that you will submit at the end of the term (following an iterative process of preliminary steps and feedback on each) is as a proposal appropriate for submission to a decision maker or funding agency, who would evaluate and decide whether or not to support/fund the idea.

A critical component of any successful proposal is to ground the planned work in relevant existing knowledge/guidelines. Thus, we will work through a series of steps in weekly lessons designed to provide you with (or reinforce existing) knowledge related to multiple aspects of geospatial system analysis and design, along with strategies for leveraging literature and other resources from academia, government, and industry that can help you fill in knowledge gaps specific to your chosen design/plan target. The set of activities in the lessons, along with feedback on your in-progress work, will enable you to end up with a well-organized, well-grounded design/plan that would be convincing to decision-makers judging whether or not to support doing what you propose.

Each week, you will notice at least one page of the lesson dedicated to a goal or assignment associated with your term project. Each week, you will also have one graded deliverable related to your final project. I've developed a project schedule that is designed to make sure you make steady progress on the term project and that also ensures that we have one full round of draft editing to refine your work.

Term Project Options

Here are five options you have for your term project. You should choose one of these options. If you have another project idea in mind that you think would work well, send me a note so we can talk about it. Your idea may be an excellent alternative to these pre-canned options,

• OPTION 1: A GISystem design proposal that incorporates the use of mobile devices to access and update geospatial data from the field in real-time.
• OPTION 2: A design proposal to audit a GISystem with the goal of proposing changes that will improve system functionality.
• OPTION 3: A design proposal for a GISystem application that serves the needs of a professional niche (e.g., forest management, city planning, etc…).
• OPTION 4: A design proposal that incorporates the use of a web portal to access and update geospatial data
• OPTION 5: A design proposal to apply Artificial Intelligence/ Deep Learning to established geospatial products and services.

Term Project Outline

1. Executive Summary: The Executive Summary (abstract) should motivate readers to study the full report. The executive summary is a short, powerful synopsis of the report, highlighting important needs, presenting key features of the proposed solution, and listing the significant benefits of the solution. It should be less than one page in length, address issues of greatest interest to decision makers, including pivotal technical and business merits of the conceptual design, and it should recommend desired responses to the proposal.
2. Table of Contents: The table of contents is a list, usually before the start of a written work, of the section titles with their commencing page numbers.
3. Background: This background section provides a background of the problem, explains the current situation, identifies the proposed solution to the problem, and provides of the overall objectives of the design and proposal. You will write this like a literature review and have sources/citations (around 10).
4. Needs Assessment: The Needs Assessment section discusses the different users of the system and how each of the users will be involved in the design project. This section also describes the different needs assessment options, which one you chose and why, and how you will implement the needs assessment in your proposal.
5. Concepts Considered: The Concepts Considered section describes the options explored by the design team in its search for a solution to the above problem. It should address both original ideas and those derived from other sources, summarize the scope of ideas considered and highlight the most creative and relevant concepts for the overall solution and for its component parts.
6. Concept Selection: The Concept Selection section describes the processes and rationale used for selecting the “best” concepts for the overall product and for the component parts of the design product. It may include summary tables comparing concepts against design criteria or summary evaluations of specific concepts.
7. Wireframe design: The wireframe design section includes multiple designs to show the user interface screens, arrow/explanations for each feature and screens of the interface, an explanation of the steps the user will take to navigate the interface, and a justification for the design.
8. System Architecture: The system architecture section describes the overall architecture and components of the design including the GIS workstations, software, hardware, network resources, database design, and requirements. You will also discuss the enterprise GIS requirements including performance considerations, maintenance considerations, and security considerations.
9. Data Storage: The Data Storage section describes in the detail the software you will use to house the design and the data you will use to populate the map.
10. Evaluation: The evaluation section will identify and explain the method(s) you will use to evaluate the effectiveness of your design, justify the final evaluation method you choose, and explain how you will implement the evaluation method.
11. UML Design: The UML Diagram will illustrate the system, actors, use cases, and relationships in your GISystem design. You will also include a short explanation of the diagram.
12. Cost/Benefit Analysis: The cost/benefit analysis section should explain AND justify the specific costs of the design.
13. Future Work: The Future Work section sets forth clear recommendations and rationale for project continuation. It summarizes the principal features of the product that satisfy users’ needs and provides an anticipated work schedule with milestones for the next phase of the project. Any unresolved issues should be highlighted at this time. Specific approvals for project continuation are requested here.

In this module, you will be writing the problem statement and background for your term project proposal, examining the needs assessment, and developing user interface evaluation methods. The needs assessment will allow you to examine and consider your users as well as the different features and designs they expect and require. The evaluation methods will ask you to consider the different needs assessment methods such as focus groups, surveys, and discussions to solicit feedback from your users.

You will also be exploring the Experience Builder from ESRI in an ESRI academy training course, which will culminate in a an ESRI certificate, therefore advancing your professional development and/or GISP (where applicable).

Overall, you will be writing the first three sections of your term project proposal: The background and problem statement, the user analysis section, and the needs assessment methodology section, which should clearly lay the foundation for the readers of your proposal to understand your project background and the users of the geospatial design.

Assignments

Questions?

Please use the Discussion Forum to ask you classmates for additional suggestions as you are drafting your research questions. You can feel free to email me and I will strive to respond within 48 hours. I am also available for a phone call or zoom meeting upon request.

When starting a design, it is important to consider your users through a user centered approach. Two ways to accomplish this is through a scenario based design (Rosson, 2002) and a persona based design.

The user centered approach of a user analysis can help prevent some of the issues that arise with a “solutions first approach”, which focuses on the needs of the design, and not the needs of the users. A solutions first approach can be quicker, simplify the problem, and rely on the expert knowledge of the designers, however, it can lead to inefficient design, frequent iterative fixes, and lost time . Overall, the scenario based design provides an emphasis on the user, user experience, efficient user designs, and saves time overall.

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework of Mobile Cartography (Own illustration, based on Reichenbacher 2001).

Credit: © B. Gaertner. Used with permission.

Figure 1 above is showing the conceptual framework of mobile cartography outlined in Schultz et al. (2021). The red box is outlining the user analysis and needs assessment stage, that provides the necessary user input for effective design. As the conceptual framework illustrates, the user provides demands based on their expectations of UI/UX requirements, then provide demands/feedback, the designer iteratively implements. The important component of this type of framework is how to solicit user input and feedback on the efficiency of a geospatial design. We will discuss this in the next few pages.

References:

Scenario Based Design and Persona Mapping

A scenario based design and persona mapping are stories outlining the background of the user, the setting in which the user will interact with the design, the personal motivations, knowledge, and capabilities necessary for the user, and a detailed explanation of how the design will improve the situation for the user. See Rosson and Carroll, 2007.

Below is a brief overview of how to write and conceptualize a scenario based design.

1. Start with the background of the user. Consider the following questions:
   • Is the user a advanced Geospatial analyst, a novice analyst, or a citizen with no experience with GIS?
   • What is the job title of the user?
2. Explain the situation in which the user is interreacting with the design.
   • When will the users be interreacting with the app?
   • How often will they be using the design?
3. Define the problem
   • How is the user interreacting with the current design?
   • What are some current issues, confusions, or difficulties with the design?
4. Provide the specific situation in which the user is interreacting the new design:
   • How will the user interact with the new design?
   • How will the new design provide a solution to some of the confusions/concerns in the previous designs?
   • What are some specific features that are provided in the new design that is not present in the old design?

References:

The users outlined in the user analysis should have the opportunity to provide their specific needs on a design, through a variety of exercises including surveys, discussions, and focus groups. Each provides an opportunity for the users to provide feedback on their needs and expectations for the design.

Discussions and Focus Groups

Roundtable discussion and focus groups can involve a variety of users from the user analysis including community members, everyday citizens, geospatial analysts, and company employees, among other. The goal of the discussion and focus groups is to ask open ended questions to your users and allow them to provide open ended answers about the needs and usability requirements of your design. Overall, it can be useful for gathering detailed feedback on proposed features and functionality to ensure the UI/UX is efficient and user friendly.

Surveys:

Consider 5-10 questions in which your users can answer to provide feedback on your design. Consider general questions regarding basemaps, cartography, UI/UX features, mobile cartography and usability, user tasks, functionality for target audiences (see Schulz, 2021). It is important to understand and evaluate the usability questions before the design, to ensure that you are reaching the user goals and needs. *Note that the Schulz, 2021 articles discusses usability evaluation, but your survey should consider the user needs before the design.

• User background: Have you interacted with a geospatial design historically?
• User future: How do you think you can use this geospatial design in the future?
• Basemap Quality: What type of basemap is most accessible and preferrable for design?
• Cartography: What type of map design is most easy for interpretation?
• Target Audience: What specific features should be included for your users (consider the non-geospatial users, novice users, and expert users).
• UX/UI: What user interface needs are required for the users?
• Mobile Cartography (where applicable): Should the design be easily scalable to a mobile application? If so, what features must be considered for conversion?
• Location Based Services (where applicable): Should the app include location-based services? If so, how should they be included in the design?
• User Tasks and usability: What are some specific user tasks and usability issues and concerns that should be asked of the users?

For example, a survey of a geospatial design proposing a trail maintenance webApp could have the following survey questions, where 1 is least agree and 5 is most agree (Note* you can’t use these exact questions in your user analysis).

• Have you interacted with a geospatial design historically? Yes no
• Would you use a trail map geospatial design in the future? Yes no&
• How many times a week would you use a trail maintenance app? 1-2, 3-5, etc.
• A satellite base map is the preferred for a trail maintenance app? 1 2 3 4 5
• A dark contrast design is preferred for map cartography: 1 2 3 4 5
• Location-based services are necessary for a trail maintenance app 1 2 3 4 5

Experience builder is a low/no code configurable web app showcasing geospatial data from ESRI technologies. It provides the capability to choose form different templates, web maps, apps, pages, widgets, 2D/3D data and a drag/drop interface. Further customization is available to build custom widgets, themes, and actions with low-code development.

Experience builder webapps have been developed for a wide variety of government, private, and business solutions for environmental concerns, and emergency response, among others.

Example 1:

The National Centers for Environmental Information developed the Marine Microplastic Concentrations map (below) that visualized the microplastics in the global oceans. The experience builder provides Map Viewer and Data Viewer features, as well as filtering options for visualizing the different types of microplastics. The design of the experience builder is customizable.

Marine Microplastic concentration map with symbols. Click on image for more detail.

Credit: NOAA

More Examples:

Here is gallery of experience builder examples, which showcase hundreds of experience builder web apps, ranging from local research and survey initiatives, environmental response, local data repositories, among others. Experience builder topics range from climate change, forest fires, voter information, demography, emergency response, local and state park information, and many others.

ArcGIS Experience Builder Gallery

References

Reading Assignment

In the first set of readings, you will be introduced to a detailed explanation of scenario-based design and persona mapping, which are both necessary for understanding your user designs. You will use the content found in these readings to construct the user analysis section of your design proposal. The third article outlines the context necessary for developing needs assessment questions to solicit user feedback before developing the design, either through surveys, discussion posts, both, or another feedback method. The final article is optional if you would like to explore the National Centers for Environmental Information Experience Builder.

A needs assessment is a systematic evaluation of the "gap" between the current and desired capabilities. Quite simply, the “gap” defines the needs. By clearly identifying the needs, resources can be directed towards a solution. Any needs assessment is only effective when it is ends-focused and yields concrete evidence that can be used to determine the most effective and efficient means for achieving the desired results.

User analysis focuses, as the name implies, on improving the user’s experience. The outcomes help to understand how users engage with the system and identify user profiles. User analysis involves collecting and evaluating data about how the user interacts with the system. A deep understanding of your users’ needs and goals allows the designer to address user wants, needs, and goals. This understanding also helps to inform decision-making.

This week you will be working on the background section and the needs assessment/user analysis. The background section sets the stage for your GISystem Design and appeals to the stakeholder who needs to fund the development and implementation. You need to weave an appealing narrative about the current problem, the solution to that problem, and the importance of investing significant time and money in developing and implementing the solution. The background section should appeal to your readers to engage their interests and persuade them to read the rest of the proposal, and hopefully, fund your project.

The needs assessment and user analysis section will outline and describe the different individuals that will use your system from the development to the front-end users of the system. This is the stage of design work where you take stock of what already exists, what your users need, and in what context your system will operate. You will want to explore the different options for considering the requirements of your users and "putting yourself in their shoes". Many GISystem Designers are experts in the field, so considering the needs and requirements of a novice GIS user is a difficult task. You will use the scenario or persona-based user analysis method to identify the needs requirements of your users.

In this module, you will begin considering open source software and additional methods to explore geospatial data visualization and access. In the previous 2 modules, you’ve explored ESRI web app options, which rely on low/no code options for partially customizable geospatial web applications. In this module, you will explore open source geospatial web app options as a complement (or competitor) to ESRI options.

Additionally, this module will provide options for creating a geospatial data sharing web app, which is an effective option for the GEOG 583 term project. Providing access to data, either publicly or within an enterprise system, is an important component of geospatial analysis and design, since it’s a relevant and useful component of web app features.

The assignment for this module will require you to find and explain three different software solutions (e.g., web/mobile/desktop) that could be developed and implemented for your project. The software options should describe the relevant features of the potential software options, how the software options answer the problem outlined in Module 2, the benefits of the software options, and the disadvantages of the software options.

Then, you will describe the software selected, which will highlight the software option you selected and describe the solution and benefits of this software in more detail, especially as it relates to your project and in comparison to the other potential software options.

Assignments

Questions?

Please use the Discussion Forum to ask your classmates for additional suggestions as you are drafting your research questions. You can feel free to email me, and I will strive to respond within 48 hours. I am also available for a phone call or Zoom meeting upon request.

Although ESRI technology is the leading industry standard for geospatial data mapping technologies, many free and open-source software (FOSS) technologies have been developed as direct competitors to ESRI GIS software, including GRASS GIS, QGIS, open source web APIs, plus many more. All have their advantages and disadvantages. In this module, you will choose three geospatial mapping technologies as potential solutions to your proposed geospatial design problem and describe the details, benefits, and disadvantages of all three, described as “concepts considered”. Then, you will choose one concept, and outline the specific features, details, and benefits that justify it as the final selected concept.

Figure 1: Open-source software available for mapping including for remote sensing, desktop GIS, mobile GIS, database management, web maps, web servers, and development.

Credit: Steiniger, Stefan & Hunter, Andrew. (2013). The 2012 Free and Open-Source GIS Software Map – A Guide to facilitate Research, Development, and Adoption. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems. 39. 10.1016/j.compenvurbsys.2012.10.003. 

Figure 1 above shows the open-source software available for mapping including for remote sensing, desktop GIS features, mobile GIS features, database management system, web maps, web servers, and development tools. Read the attached scholarly articles and do your own exploratory on these FOSS options to determine which one is most applicable to your project.

Note* You can include any combination of FOSS software, proprietary software, or a combination of both for your own concepts considered. Additionally, you may explore multiple ESRI software options, multiple FOSS options, or any combination. This assignment offers a chance for you to research and explore different mapping software.

References:

Server options are great for housing geospatial data and making it available either in an enterprise system or for public availability. Several FOSS options are available, as outlined in Steiniger (2012), including GeoServer, MapServer, FeatureServer, QGIS Server.

ESRI also has a server/data hub option called ArcGIS Data Hub, which has been used in a variety of disciplines for storing data and making it publicly available. The ArcGIS Hub portal is also integrated with ExperienceBuilder and Survey123. ArcGIS Hub allows the public to have open access to data, facilitates sharing open data, and makes data accessible for download.

The Gulf of Mexico Alliance has produced a ArcGIS Hub for sharing water quality data of the Gulf of Mexico oceans.

Figure 1: An example of the homepage of the Gulf of Mexico Alliance ArcGIS Data Hub for sharing water quality data.

Credit: Brandi Gaertner.  “Current GOMOD Theme Map Inventory”. Accessed November 27, 2024. Digital Screenshot. 

Similarly, the Nationalmap.gov data portal uses the ArcGIS Hub online software powered by ESRI for providing free and publicly available national data.

Figure 2: The National Map Viewer Data Hub, which provides data access to a variety of FOSS government data including Elevation, boundaries, hydrography, etc

Credit: Credit: Brandi Gaertner. “USGS topoBuilder”. Accessed November 27, 2024. Digital Screenshot. Found at USGS.

References:

In the first reading, you will focus on the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) options for your GIS design. The article discusses the different “groups” of FOSS including for remote sensing, databases, Web Servers, Web Maps, Desktop GIS, and others.

Software implementation and consideration is carried out early in all system designs with the purpose of collecting and prioritizing needs, developing alternative software options to meet the needs, and selecting a preferred one as the basis for development and implementation.

Here a software option is an underlying idea important to the end-product, such as creating a neighborhood watch system that relies on the implementation of a software for collecting crowd-sourced data. An effective software solution serves as the foundation upon which the product is built. A software solutions helps the designers stay on track throughout the development process by ensuring a product of value to the target audience. These software considerations can be illustrated with sketches, images, or text. Choosing the correct software solution demands a clear understanding of the problem to be solved, the target audience, and the requirements. The number of software options that should be considered depends largely on how much time is available. However, the consideration of multiple software solutions prior to completing the design is a sign of analytic rigor and helps us avoid the bias of mindsets.

In our Design Proposal, the Software Considered and Selected section describes the software options you explored in search of a solution. The section addresses both existing approaches and any unique software options that were considered as you worked through the design process. The section summarizes the scope of ideas considered and highlights the most creative and relevant software for the solution.

Once you have explored the software considered and software selection sections, you can move on to the Lesson 3 Term Project: Software Selection Assignment.

In this module, you will be developing a wireframe prototype design using the balsamiq software to visualize your project. Prototypes are draft designs that are an important prerequisite to beginning the complete design.

In this module, you will be creating wireframe prototypes of your design for each included and extended page of the design, as well as user steps or tasks to describe to the user how to navigate the system. You will need to explain each design option including drop down menu, settings menus, and other “hidden” options that the user can access.

This module will culminate with multiple wireframe designs as well as a detailed step by step explanation for the user to navigate your system.

Assignments

Questions?

Please use the Discussion Forum to ask you classmates for additional suggestions as you are drafting your research questions. You can feel free to email me and I will strive to respond within 48 hours. I am also available for a phone call or zoom meeting upon request.

Prototypes are important for UI/UX development and to elicit user feedback and develop user-centric designs. A Wireframe prototype is a digital mockup of your design, developed prior to creating the final design, in order to gather user feedback. Prototyping provides the opportunity for design flexibility and iteration, in order to respond to user needs.

A useful tool for developing digital prototypes is the Balsamiq software, which is a web tool that lets a designer create a mockup by simply dragging and dropping common interface elements into a layout. Additionally, it lets you provide as much detail as is necessary for your users to visualize your design prototype.

Digital prototypes and mockups have been implemented in a variety of disciplines including environmental education, emergency response, and others.

For example, the geospatial prototype design below outlines an environmental education app, which provides an excerpt of information that will be available in the final design. Notice the prototype shows each of the included and extended pages that the user will potentially be exposed to when interacting with the design.

First, the design begins with the user interview (which you developed and designed in module 2), and then includes the user registration page (figure a), the user login page (figure b), the list of environmental topics (figure c), and the extended environmental page (figure d). Notice that the design incorporates UI/UX features into the prototype to make it aesthetically appealing for the user.

Figure 1: An environmental education design prototype that shows an effective prototype design for gathering user feedback. Screen capture acquired by Brandi Gaertner.

Source: Andrade-Arenas et al 2024 Figure 3 “Mobile APP (a) environmental topics and (b) definition of environment."

References:

Simply incorporating the prototypes is not enough, you also need to explain to your user how to navigate the system. You can do this one of two ways:

1. Cognitive Walkthrough: You can provide a set of tasks for your user(s) to complete, including different tasks for each persona/scenario. The user needs to have enough detail to efficiently navigate the system, and “tasks” to conduct once they’ve navigated the design to the proposed tasks.
2. User Steps: You can provide specific step by step explanations for your users to navigate the prototype, providing specific details for included an extended prototypes.

A cognitive walkthrough places a user from each persona in a simulated environment where they need to navigate the design through a human-computer interaction (HCI) process. The ability of the users to effectively navigate the system and complete “tasks” provides valuable feedback on system usability and navigability.

Cognitive Walkthrough example: In the design below describing the process for creating a Canadian Open Government Data Web App, a prototype and a user task system was developed to evaluate the usability of the system.

Figure 2: The prototype design for the Canadian Open Government Data Web App. Screen capture acquired by Brandi Gaertner.

Source: Mitchel and Stobert Figure 9: “The redesigned parent page of open.canada.ca. Banner image by Ottawa Tourism."

Figure 3: The prototype design for the Canadian Open Government Data Web App. Screen capture acquired by Brandi Gaertner.

Source: Mitchel and Stobert Figure 11 “The redesigned narrowed search result page, with organized content cards for additional linked content.”

References:

The reading assignments this week provide an exemplar examples of how to develop design prototypes and a cognitive walkthroughs. Read the attached articles and develop your own design prototypes and cognitive walkthroughs of your design.

Relevant to your project work, a wireframe diagram can be used to communicate, explain, and prototype the basic functionality and requirements, as well as the layout of your product. At the core, wireframes are stories about the future that help to define the functional requirements. User interface wireframes used as prototypes can be coupled with some descriptions to form the body of functional requirements. Functional requirements describe what software does, whereas non-functional requirements capture the quality and constraints of the software, such as performance or security. Functional requirements are gathered through interviews with users and can be written in documents that are difficult to review. Wireframes are an alternate approach to documenting and prototyping functional requirements.

In this module, you will be writing the system requirements for your design including a detailed explanation of the GIS hardware, GIS software, network resources, and Database Design requirements.

Additionally, you will write the enterprise limitations for your design, including the interoperability of the design within an enterprise and cloud system. You will research the enterprise performance considerations, maintenance considerations, and security considerations for your users, to ensure that the users are aware of the limitations of the design.

This module will culminate with a table outlining the hardware and software requirements, an example relational (or simple) database, and an explanation of the enterprise limitations and requirements.

Assignments

Questions?

Please use the Discussion Forum to ask you classmates for additional suggestions as you are drafting your research questions. You can feel free to email me and I will strive to respond within 48 hours. I am also available for a phone call or zoom meeting upon request.

In this module, you will be identifying the necessary hardware to run your design; even web designs must use a computer or mobile device to view the geospatial platform, therefore, requiring the minimum hardware requirements. Therefore, the readings and content information in this module will provide the basic understanding necessary to research the system infrastructure necessary for your design.

RAM: Random Access Memory

This type of memory is “volatile” meaning it can only retain memory while its powered. RAM sizes can range from 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB. The larger ram will increase performance on large software.

For example, a Google Chromebook, which has minimum computer system architecture – just enough to access the internet and performance basic functions, has as little as 2-4 GB.

However, ArcGIS Pro Desktop requires a minimum of 8GB RAM but recommends 32GB, with 64GB or higher increasing performance even more.

CPU: Central Processing Unit

The CPU carries out the instruction in the software and can directly access main memory. It is usually on a processor circuit. A processing circuit is a closed loop that connect multiple processing cores. A core is a smaller CPU that can execute instructions, but a processor circuit connects multiple cores to increase performance.

For example, a common PC processor circuit is the Intel Core i7 processor (4 cores). However, Mac processors uses a System on a Chip (SoC) architecture, which combines multiple components into a single chip. As of the writing of this module content, apple has the M1 Chip, which has 8 cores – 4 high performance cores and 4 high efficiency cores. Apple can also use an intel based processor system, but research shows the M1 chip uses less energy, is faster, and has greater performance.

More cores increases performance, since it provides more functionality for the computer to implement the “instructions” from the RAM.

For example, a google chromebook has an Intel Core i3 processor (usually 2 cores). ArcGIS Pro can function on a minimum of 2 cores, however, it is recommended to have a 4-10 core processor for better performance.

Secondary Storage: Hard Drive and Solid-State Drive

Hard drives store data using magnetism on a spinning platter, whereas solid state hard drives store data using electrical charges in nonvolatile memory cells. SSDs are faster, quieter, and more resistant to mechanical failure, since they don’t have moving parts. 

When a computer and/or program is powered on, the computer loads data from secondary storage to the RAM. Additionally, any time a user downloads data, documents, etc, all the information is held on the secondary storage (unless its downloaded to a server).

Higher secondary storage simply means you can download more information, but it shouldn’t effect performance. Most basic computers (chromebook and/or mobile devices) have 64 GB of space. ArcGIS requires 32GB or more to download the software, however, more would be needed to download accessible data.

References:

Operating systems provide an interface between hardware and other software. Operating systems allows a computer to run multiple programs in parallels, ensuring that each program can share time of the processor and share system resources. An operating system can be thought of as a layer of code between hardware and applications (see “How Computers Really Work”).

Figure 1: A visual representation of how an operating system can be thought of as a layer of code between hardware and software. Screenshot acquired by Brandi Gaertner.

Source: Justice (2020) Chapter 10 Figure 10-2 “An operating system acts as a layer between hardware and applications”

There are currently 2 types of operating systems: Unix like operating systems (MacOS, iOS, Unix, and Android) and windows. ArcGIS Pro is Windows specific, and is not MacOS compatible. Due to the Windows specificity, ArcGIS Pro also requires Microsoft .NET Desktop Runtime, which allows a workstation to run existing windows desktop applications.

Obviously, most ArcGIS Online, as well as open source WebApps and Mobile apps can be accessed from any recent Mac or Windows operating systems.

Read up on ArcGIS System Requirements.

References:

You will be developing a prototype of the database for your design, which includes at a minimum, several of the tables your design will use including the fields and records/rows of the data the design is visualizing. Much of the information below may be familiar from GEOG 484.

A database is a collection of related tables stored and organized in a system that allows for additional analyses, querying, and filtering, etc. Each table contains fields, which are the columns of the database, and contain information about a subject. Each field consists of multiple records (e.g. specific data points).

In a relational database, tables are organized by subjects. In order to relate tables in a relational database, the tables need to have common fields between the tables, in order to “match” the tables. The similar fields are called key fields.

In the example below, notice how the key fields contain uniquely identifying information regarding employee number, which can be used to relate the two tables (Timoshenko).

Figure 2: A relational database, which contains two tables with "key" fields that can be used to connect the tables. Screen Capture by Brandi Gaertner

Click for a text description.

The image consists of two tables related by Employee Number data:

Table 1: Employee Information

This table lists employee details:

Last Name	First Name	Employee Number	Address	Job Title	Wage
Evans	Mark	04-234	21 Elm St.	Researcher	$10.00
van Druemel	Terry	07-456	45 Jalan Merdeka	Supervisor	$12.00
Nagase	Yoshi	01-637	87 Jalan Sempur	Secretary	$7.00
Cooper	Charlotte	04-734	29 Spagnum St.	Researcher	$10.00
Evans	Michelle	03-346	21 Elm St.	Accountant	$9.00

Table 2: Work Hours Information

This table lists details of employee hours:

Record Number	Employee Number	Week	Hours
1	04-234	02/02/98	35
2	07-456	02/02/98	35
3	01-637	02/02/98	42
4	04-734	02/02/98	28
5	03-346	02/02/98	35
6	04-234	09/02/98	35
7	07-456	09/02/98	35
8	01-637	09/02/98	42
9	04-734	09/02/98	28
10	03-346	09/02/98	35

Key and Relationship Between Tables

The data in the two tables are related by Employee Number:

In Table 1: The Employee Number column serves as a unique identifier for each employee.

In Table 2: The Employee Number column links to the Employee Number column in Table 1, and establishes which employee's hours are recorded in each row for this table.

An arrow in the image visually represents this link between the two tables.

Credit: Timoshenko page 23.

References:

Enterprise system define how software, data, technology and people use workflows within a design context. Enterprise systems can be a set of technologies that communicate across a cloud/server or a set of technologies/designs in which multiple people in a team work together to import, extract, and analyze data.

Figure 1 below shows the interconnected system in which the technology, software, data, and others communicate in a well-functioning enterprise system. You will also see this image in the “The Systems Approach to ArcGIS: An Introduction” technology lesson.

Enterprise systems can function in a variety of ways including local or federal government, mobile application solutions, and data hubs. Local and federal government projects rely on enterprise systems to allow multiple technologies and people are communicating. Similarly, single mobile apps (for example Survey 123) communicates with the ESRI ArcGIS Online enterprise systems to store, transfer, and analyze data. Finally, data hubs require cloud servers, which are themselves usually an interconnected system that allows for the upload, download, and storage of data.

Figure 1: Shows the interconnected system in which the technology, software, data, and others communicate in a well-functioning enterprise system. Screen Captured generated by Brandi Gaertner.

Credit: n.a. The Systems Approach to ArcGIS: An Introduction. Esri Academy.

The readings this week will cover basic computer hardware, software, and database structures in order for you to develop your own system requirements.

At this point in the course project, the project’s goal has been expressed, turned into a preferred design concept as the basis for development, and transformed into a set of requirements. The next step is to develop an architecture (or an update to an existing architecture for fielded systems) to guide design and development. This architecture is the fundamental organization of the system. In a sense, the system architecture describes the potential to meet user expectations and how the major components satisfy important design requirements. It is also an opportunity to highlight novel features to show their potential to outperform competing products. 

A system architecture concerns itself with the GIS software, the hardware, network resources, databases, and the people who build, maintain, and use these systems. An Enterprise GIS is the implementation of GIS infrastructure, processes and tools at scale within the context of an organization. This week, you will be describing the basic components of the system architecture and enterprise GIS framework of your GISystem Design, including the following:

Once you are ready, move onto the Lesson 5 Term Project: System Architecture.

In this module, you be learning about some of the different types of geospatial data including open data (as opposed to proprietary data), geospatial big data, real-time data, and volunteered geographic information/citizen science/crowdsourced data. Although all of these concepts will be introduced to you, all the data sources may not apply to your specific geospatial design.

In this assignment, you will be describing the data sources included on your geospatial design, including the source of the data, spatial information, collection methods, and citations/links. You will also discuss the data as it relates to open/proprietary, big data, real-time data, and/or VGI/crowdsourced data.

Assignments

Open Data Types

Open data are any data that are free and accessible to the user, without restrictions on access or rights of use. The open data standards are set by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC), which was founded in 1994 in response to government and industry demand to solve the issue of spatial data sharing and interoperability.

Open Data relies on the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) principles, which aims to make data reusable and accessible.

Some of the key OGC standards are briefly outlined here:

• Simple Feature - this is one of the OGC's earliest standards. It defines what a geographic feature is (at a minimum a point, line or polygon) and then sets out a common format for text and binary representations of geographic features. The "simple" refers to the lack of topology in the data structure, often called spaghetti data. This standard promotes interoperability as, if one program exports its data in either Well-Known Text (WKT) or Well-Known Binary (WKB), then it is easy for another program to read in the same data and know what it meansGeographic Markup Language (GML) is an extension of XML schema (or grammar) for the expression of geographical features. It is used as an interoperability format for features that are too complex to express using the Simple feature standard. It is used particularly by Web Feature Service (WFS).
• KML - was developed as a competitor to the OGC's GML, but it is now one of the more well known of the OGC's standards. It was originally developed by Keyhole (that's the K) and then popularized by Google's Google Earth application. It was donated to the OGC in 2007 to be developed as an open standard for 2 and 3D map annotation.
• UML- This is an open and standardized way of representing programming and modeling entities, their properties and their relationships, and formulating their parameters and actions. It can be used to diagram out a programming task and some types of the software can write part of the code. It is related to Esri Model Builder and to their Model Diagrams, e.g. Esri Biodiversity Conservation.
• Web Mapping Service (WMS) - WMS was one of the first OGC standards and set the basis for all web mapping for many years.
• Web Feature Service (WFS) - this is the standard that a service has to conform to if you want to serve geographic features over the web.
• Web Coverage Service (WCS) - the WCS standard defines an interface and operations to access geographic coverages (rasters) over the web.

Three different types of Open Data will be described here: Data contributed by volunteers, data published by public administrators, and open scientific geospatial data (Coetzee, 2020).

References:

Volunteered Data can be classified (according to the reading below) into four categories based on framework (collected by the government), non-framework (collected by citizens), collected actively (campaigns that call for participation), or collected passively (geotagged information is provided willingly through apps and social media).

A four-quadrant diagram categorizing data types by collection method and framework

Click for a text description.

Four quadrants, created by two intersecting axes. The horizontal axis represents Framework Data on the left and Non-framework Data on the right. The vertical axis represents Passive Data Collection at the bottom and Active Data Collection at the top. 

Top-Left Quadrant: Framework Data + Active Data Collection

This quadrant lists data sources that are actively collected and part of a framework:

• Feature mapping: Includes addresses, buildings, elevation, points of interest, protected areas, rivers and canals, and road and rail networks.
• Hiking and biking trails: Routes and trails for outdoor activities.
• Gazetteer: Geographic dictionaries or indexes.
• Cadastral parcels and other land administrative data: Information related to land ownership and boundaries.
• Land cover/Land use: Descriptions of how land is used and its surface characteristics.

Top-Right Quadrant: Non-framework Data + Active Data Collection

This quadrant focuses on non-framework data that is actively collected:

• Weather: Includes data from amateur weather stations, snowfall, and avalanche reports.
• Environmental monitoring: Covers air and water quality, fracking, waste, and noise levels.
• Biodiversity: Features species identification and geo-tagged wildlife images.
• Disaster events: Information about natural and manmade disasters.
• Crime/Public safety: Data related to criminal activities and public safety measures.

Bottom-Left Quadrant: Framework Data + Passive Data Collection

This quadrant includes framework data that is collected passively:

• Transport: Data from road networks, satellite navigation systems, traffic data from services like TomTom, and Google traffic.
• Feature mapping by Google via their game Ingress: A gamified way to gather geographic and feature data.

Bottom-Right Quadrant: Non-framework Data + Passive Data Collection

This quadrant lists non-framework data collected passively:

• Google search data: Information derived from users’ search behavior.
• Transport: Live feeds from buses, trains, and metro systems.
• Mobile data/behavior: Information from store purchases, customer survey data, and mobile phone usage patterns.
• Location-based social media: Data from platforms like Foursquare, Twitter, and Facebook.
• Places of interest/travel: Includes geo-tagged photos, videos, stories, and travel advice.

Overall Structure

The quadrants illustrate how data collection methods and types vary depending on their alignment with a framework and the level of activity or passivity involved in their collection. The top quadrants represent active collection methods, while the bottom quadrants represent passive ones. Similarly, the left quadrants are more structured and formalized (framework), while the right quadrants are less structured (non-framework).

Credit: Needs credit

Volunteered Geographic Information can, at its most basic, be defined as geotagged data contributed by citizens, whether map-based or where location is simply an attribute in a much larger dataset. A very well-known VGI dataset, as mentioned previously, is OpenStreetMap. However, many other datasets exist, including:

1. WAZE: a geospatial map, where users can place warnings for other users including police cars, traffic, potholes, and other road features
2. Yelp, TripAdvsior, and other review-based apps: Leaving reviews of georeferenced stores/restaurants provides volunteered geographic data
3. Survey123 is a great resource for volunteered geographic information and can include a variety of data sources including trail maintenance, lost dog and/or lost person tracking, wait lines, and many other.

Citizen science, as mentioned, is data that is collected by citizens that can be used by professional scientists for analysis. Many citizen science projects exist include:

1. The Audubon Christmas Bird Count
2. iNaturalist – an app where people can take pictures, identify, and geolocate animals and plants, which are then confirmed by a professional (in some cases). The confirmed cases can be used for scientific purposes
3. EDDMapS (Early Detection and Distribution Mapping System) is a citizen science initiative to track invasive species
4. Bumble Bee Watch: allows users to track and conserve bumble bees by uploading images and sharing information
5. eBird: Users can take pictures of bird species, which allows scientists to track populations

See the reading below for more specific examples of VGI, crowd sourced, and citizen science initiatives.

References:

Geospatial Big Data are becoming more prevalent as data collection methods can collect data on the sub time frames such as seconds, minutes, days, and weeks, over a long time, now nearing 30+ years, since the start of the internet era and before for some datasets. However, there are additional hurdles to understanding big data including where to find it and how to display it effectively for users.

Raster Data

Big raster datasets are becoming more prevalent through data collection methods such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones), satellites, VGI images collected through apps and social media.

Points, lines, polygons

Points, lines, polygons, and other vector data are becoming more prevalent as artificial intelligence and machine learning is automating the process of converting raster images to vector images. AI/ML has the ability to automatically identify street sign, road ways, rivers, buildings, among others and automatically digitize them; a process that historically would have taken 10s-100s of hours.

Additionally, smart phone data collection can submit points such as locations of transportation issues, field surveys, trail maintenance, buildings, and many more, all over the world, leading to hundreds and thousands of potential vector points every day.

Although many more examples of big vector data exist, a last example is geotagged social media posts, which can be extracted using AI/ML to provide innumerable amounts of data including collective emotional responses, human migration, updates on wartime and locational events, among others.

The Internet of Things (IoT) describes items that are connected to each other with the internet, such as objects, devices, sensors, and everyday items. An example is a smartwatch and an app, which can communicate using Bluetooth or the Internet. 

The internet of things has transformed the way that data is collected, making data collected in near real time now, leading to massive data collection and “geospatial big data” analysis. The Internet of Things that we are most familiar with are internet-enabled appliances, home automation components, internet-based security systems, among others. However, the Internet of Things has been implemented in other disciplines too, including networked vehicles, intelligent traffic systems, and others.

The IoT has allowed for the real-time collection for a variety of scientific disciplines including humanities (as mentioned above), hydrologic monitoring, emergency response and disaster management, traffic flow monitoring, education, sustainability, and many more.

Note the places in this table from Rose, 2015 that shows where IoT can (or has already) started automating life.

References:

In the first set of readings, you will be introduced to a detailed explanation of scenario-based design and persona mapping, which are both necessary for understanding your user designs. You will use the content found in these readings to construct the user analysis section of your design proposal. The third article outlines the context necessary for developing needs assessment questions to solicit user feedback before developing the design, either through surveys, discussion posts, both, or another feedback method. The final article is optional if you would like to explore the National Centers for Environmental Information Experience Builder.

There are many different types of data sources  a designer can implement in a GISystem including licensed, open-source, and/or open core options. Additionally, a designer can choose volunteered data, scientific data, and/or big data. It is the decision of the designer what data and software to use to house and populate the map. Indeed, we often say that people are the most important part of a GISystem – there is no dispute about this. However, we also often minimize the data requirements with the assumption that it will be available. It goes without saying that GISystems require correctly collected and appropriate data for the application, or the system will produce faulty output. This assignment is an opportunity to consider the data you use in your design and address its issues such as consistency, redundancy, efficiency, and accuracy.

In this module, you be developing methods to evaluate your GIS system through heuristic examinations, focus groups, card sorting, and tabletop exercises. Additionally, you will develop specific heuristic examination methodology based on methods that best suits your geospatial design.

You will also be developing a cost-benefit analysis that outlines the specific monetary costs of developing, implementing, and maintaining your geospatial system. This will require researching the costs of your system as well as understanding the monetary benefits that your proposed geospatial design will provide over the current system in use.

Finally, you will develop a Gantt chart to visualize the timeline for development, implementation, evaluation, and maintenance. Usually, a GIS design will require a minimum of 6 months, but depending on the complexity of your system, it may take much more.

Overall, evaluation, cost/benefit, and maintenance are very important components of your project since the stakeholders will be most interested in knowing how much they are requested to fund as well as how long it will take for the final project to be beta tested.

A project design incorporates evaluation frequently, leading to iterative updates and changes to the design. Throughout the process, you have implemented the needs assessment and the cognitive walkthrough for evaluation. This week, you are incorporating the last type of evaluation: usability testing and heuristic evaluations. Therefore, you can see that evaluation is iterative and continues throughout the entire design process.

Figure 1: Sequence of steps for designing and evaluating a geospatial design.

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

What is Evaluation?

Evaluation is typically categorized into two broad areas: formative evaluation and summative evaluation. Formative evaluations focus on developing and refining designs. Summative evaluations compare an implemented system to an alternative system with the goal of measuring differences in performance or user satisfaction between the two systems. Quite often, formative evaluations happen in the early/middle stages of a design exercise and summative evaluations take place toward the end when a system has been implemented.

Common methods used in both types of evaluation include:

• Heuristic examinations - measure user responses to the system based on a set of common system design criteria
• Surveys - use open or closed-ended questions to identify system needs or areas for improvement
• Focus groups - involve group discussion of design options, user experiences, or other topics to inform or critique a design
• Interviews - make use of one-on-one questioning with users or customers to explore design options or gather feedback on tools
• Card-sorting - is an activity in which users organize system tools/functions using paper cards to suggest interface organization
• Expert evaluation - has system design and usability experts critique designs, prototypes, or final systems
• Field & Tabletop Exercises - put the system through a "test run" using realistic data, scenarios, and tasks
• Cost-Benefit Analysis - uses metrics to measure the costs of developing/using a system versus the benefits associated with its products

Formal vs. Informal Evaluation

A distinction used quite often is to characterize evaluation efforts as formal or informal depending on the degree to which the evaluation activity makes use of rigorous methods to ensure unbiased participants, sound methodology, and careful analysis of results. An informal evaluation might make use of a few of your coworkers to look over a prototype design, while a formal evaluation could involve a dozen real end-users who complete a realistic exercise using the new GISystem and complete a post-activity interview and survey to gather structured and unstructured feedback.

Usability testing evaluates the users' ability to learn and operate the geospatial design, limit user error, appeal to user aesthetics, and adhere to accessibility requirements. The Ansyah, 2023 article outlines several usability testing methods, which I will briefly describe below. However, you will also be required to read the article to develop a more detailed background on how to implement the different usability testing methods.

Evaluation Criteria

When considering the criteria to include in a usability study, you may want to consider the different elements of a geospatial design (see Schulz, 2021 from module 2):

1. Basemap Quality
2. Cartography
3. UX/UI
4. Mobile Design Conventions
5. Usability
6. Location Based Services
7. User Tasks
8. Functionality
9. Navigability
10. Accessibility

GOMS (Goals, Operators, Methods, and Selection rules)

A population approach for evaluating human-computer interaction (HCI), and evaluating the ability of a user to complete a task is the GOMS usability testing method. This is very similar to a cognitive walkthrough, but with the finalized version of a design instead of the prototype. The results of the GOMS testing will provide information on the completion rate of each task and/or the time to completion for each task, therefore providing valuable information on the navigability and usability of the design.

The example below is extracted from Ansyah, 2023 and shows a GOMS usability testing sheet, with the “Goals” and “methods”, which describes the tasks the users will complete as well as the steps the user needs to take to complete that task.

The GOMS usability testing approach.

Click for a text description.

GOMS Task Scenario

No	Goals	Action	Methods
Task 1. Find a cafe
1.1	Search for a location	Tap	Tap search column
1.2	Search for a location	Typing	Type keyword
1.3	Search for a location	Tap	Tap search button
1.4	Read search results	Scroll	Scroll screen to view search results
1.5	Confirm the specified location	Tap	Tap the specified location
Task 2. Share a location of Gubeng Station with a friend
2.1	Confirm the specified location	Tap	Tap the specified location
2.2	Share to the specified app	Tap	Tap share button
2.3	Share to the specified app	Swipe	Swipe to find the app to share the location
2.4	Confirm the app to share the location	Tap	Tap the app button
Task 3. Add Stop to the current route
3.1	Find the Add Stop menu	Tap	Tap additional options menu button
3.2	Find the Add Stop menu	Tap	Tap menu add stop
3.3	Find the Add Stop menu	Tap	Tap the searched location in the search results
3.4	Search the specified location	Tap	Tap search column
3.5	Search the specified location	Typing	Type keyword
3.6	Search the specified location	Tap	Tap search button

Credit: Ansyah, A. S. S., Masruri, M. Z., & Rochimah, S. (2023, October). Usability Testing of User Experience and User Interface Design on Mobile Map Applications: A Comparative Study of User Perception and Interaction. In 2023 14th International Conference on IEEE

System Usability Study

This type of usability testing focuses on “effectiveness and efficiency” and relies on a Likert scale (answers ranging from 1 to 5, with 1 indicating strongly disagree and 5 indicating strongly agree). The total sum of scores from the Likert scale answers can indicate if users thought the geospatial design was effective and efficient.

You can design a system usability test that includes 10 more questions regarding the specific details of your design including the navigability, aesthetics, accessibility, user error, and/or additional elements that would help with understanding your users' evaluation.

A/B Testing

A/B testing is a “split testing” method that is useful in comparing two different systems, and requires deploying two different versions of the system to your users and gathering feedback about the usability of both systems, to determine which is most efficient. 

One method for A/B usability testing is to provide two images (one for each of the versions) and asking the users specific questions about the aesthetic appeal, navigability, accessibility, and operability of both versions.

A/B usability testing can also be on a likert scale from 1 to 5, with 1 as strongly disagree and 5 as strongly agree

References:

A cost benefit analysis should show the total monetary costs of each component of the design, as well as the monetary benefits the design would provide over either not having the design and/or in comparison to another design that currently exists.

The goal of your geospatial project proposal is to “pitch” it to a stakeholder to request approval to move forward on it development and, hopefully, request and gain funding for the project. The stakeholders will be very interested to know how much the design will cost them. By providing specific details and explanation on the costs of the system, you’re also proving your understanding and knowledge of the system, therefore “proving” to the stakeholder that you are capability of managing the project and the design.

Therefore, the cost benefit analysis is a very important component of your project. Read Babinski, 2012 for an example on how to construct a cost benefit table.

References:

Gantt charts are an easy method to visualize to your users and stakeholders the timeline for development, implementation, maintenance, and evaluation of your system. An effective Gantt chart should include all of the different steps of creating your design through beta testing the finalized result.

An effective Gantt chart should show all the different steps for designing the geospatial design. The project proposal you’ve outlined in this term project is the “planning” stage of your GIS design. The next stage(s) are developing the design and evaluating the final version (which is an iterative process). Consider steps that a GIS analyst would implement including setting up the workstation, buying the appropriate licenses/computer hardware (if necessary), accessing and analyzing the data, conducting a needs assessment/cognitive walkthrough, developing the geospatial software (whether that includes from a low/no code option or from an open source may require more time/steps), performing the usability testing, beta testing, and maintenance. You may have many more steps for your project, considering the entire life cycle of developing a Geospatial Design.

There are several different methods for developing a Gantt chart.

Gantt Chart in Excel

From the website above (click “Gantt Chart in Excel”) for creating a Gantt chart in Excel, you can expect to create a Gantt chart as displayed below. However, your Gantt chart should have more specific details (e.g. instead of four tasks, you should have at least 10 – depending on the complexity of your project). You may also consider incorporating specific “quarters” for your development.

A very brief example Gantt chart for visualizing the four stages of geospatial design.

Credit: Brandi Gaertner © Penn State is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Gantt Chart in R programming Language

Using the detailed step-by-step explanation above, you can produce a much more customizable Gantt chart with the same data in the R programming language using ggplot and tidyverse. (Link Above: click “Gantt chart in R Programming Language”).

Below is an example of the Gantt chart you can create, which has different “stages” of design, specific dates, different tasks, and an additional detail of completed versus not yet done.

A detailed example of a Gantt chart that can be created in R programming language that offers customization for dates, tasks, and completion.

Credit: Community Contribution Gantt Chart by Joyce Robbins is licensed under GNU General Public License. Accessed Dec. 2, 2024.

Charts in Python

Depending on your fluency with python, you can create a Gantt chart using MatPlotLib (link above: Click “Gantt Charts in Python”), which offers similar customization as R including dates, project tasks, and additional details of completed/Not Yet Completed.

The example below shows different tasks broken down by “team”; however, you can easily break it down by “Completed” and “Not Yet Completed”. You can add additional details if you are comfortable with Python and/or interested in providing detail on your chart.

A detailed example of a Gantt chart produced using MatPlotLib in Python. Screen capture by Brandi Gaertner

Credit: Kosourova Elena “How to Make a Gantt Chart in Python with Matplotlib.” datacamp. November 16, 2022.

The lesson 7 readings focus on usability testing and the cost benefit analysis. Both are very important components of your analysis, since they provide information on the usability of design, as well as valuable information to stakeholders on the costs of the system.

Once you have created a GISystem, it is time to evaluate the effectiveness of the system and how well it meets user needs. You have several evaluation methods depending on your GISystem Design, your users, and the needs requirements. It is important to frequently evaluate your system as an iterative approach to GISystem maintenance. 

A critical decision point occurs after a conceptual design has been created, and before detailed design is initiated. Here, supervisor or client approval are required for a commitment in money, staff, effort, and potential business disruption. All organizations will make such commitments when expecting payoff to justify the effort. Such justification begins with assigning a value to the benefits and the costs of acquiring the capability. This often leads to what has become known as a benefit–cost analysis or economic analysis.

The Future Work section summarizes principal technical and non-technical features of the product. Unresolved issues should be highlighted at this time. Future work is outlined in an anticipated work schedule with milestones for the next phase of the project. Here is where you ask for approvals or authorizations for project continuation.

This week, and the remaining modules, will focus on geospatial technology “trends” or current new and developing technologies. One of the most discussed current geospatial field is GeoAI, which of course encompasses many different tools, methods, models, datasets, and more. However, one well known GeoAI method is Deep Learning, which at the most basic, uses 1000s of images to “train” a model to automate the detection of an object. Deep learning has been used in a variety of disciplines and continues to be implemented in new and innovative ways.

Deep learning has been used to detect graffiti on building facades using street view images, extracted from OpenStreetMap, which can then be used to automatically classify and identify buildings in need of repair. For example, in the screenshot extracted from Novack et al, 2020 below, graffiti has automatically been converted to a ranked discrete shapefile.

Example of deep learning used for automating detecting of graffiti (Figure 7).

Novack, T., Vorbeck, L., Lorei, H., & Zipf, A. (2020). Towards detecting building facades with graffiti artwork based on street view images. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 9(2), 98.

Although many examples exist, deep learning has also been used to automate detection of solar panel installations, which are automatically digitized and converted to discrete file systems for sharing and analysis. 

Figure of deep learning used to automate detection of solar voltaic installations.

Kausika, B. B., Nijmeijer, D., Reimerink, I., Brouwer, P., & Liem, V. (2021). GeoAI for detection of solar photovoltaic installations in the Netherlands. Energy and AI, 6, 100111.

References:

This module you will be building the Unified Modelling Language use case diagram for your geospatial design proposal. The use case diagram visually displays the relationship between the system, actors, use cases, and relationships between all the individuals contributing to your design. It is a great way to communicate complex ideas in an easy-to-understand visualization.

Assignments

UML is a set of rules developed in the field of software engineering to help standardize the way systems are visualized. In this way, UML is similar to drawing techniques an architect or engineer might use to design building blueprints, except UML works for systems design and software architecture. Among the many system architecture diagrams, UML includes guidelines for developing Use Case Diagrams. Both of these diagram types can help you articulate the design of a GISystem in your geospatial design.

Use case diagrams help to visualize the relationship and connection between actors (people, organizations, and other systems), and the processes that occur in the geospatial system.

System: the geospatial design you are proposing: a WebApp, App, Field App, Business process, Software tool, etc. and it is represented by a large rectangle.

Actor: Someone or something that uses the system to achieve a goal (user, person, other system, customer, etc.). You’ll want to make sure the actors here are the same users you outlined in the needs assessment. The actors are placed outside the large system rectangle.

1. Primary Actor: Initiates the use of the system. This user goes to the left of the large rectangle.
2. Secondary Actor: Responds to the user (another user such as a manager, system administrator, automated system, etc.). This user goes on the right side of the system.

Use Case: An action that accomplishes some task within the system (such as logging in, uploading images, interacting with the system, etc.). These are represented by ovals within the large triangle. All the actors (primary and secondary) must connect to each use case – you can’t have a “dangling” use case because it is not clear where the use case goes/how the user interacts with it. Add these in logical order, in the order that your actors interact with the geospatial design.

Association relationship: An arrow that is showing which/how the users interact with each use case. All actors have to interact with the use cases and there needs to be connections that visualize how the primary actors communicate with the secondary user, through the use cases. For example, if you have a geospatial app, both the primary and the secondary user needs to log in, so they will both have an association relationship with the “login” use case.

1. Include: A relationship that shows the “dependency” between a use case and an included use case. It occurs anytime a use case is executed and the included use case is immediate/automatically executed as well. For example, as the video shows, when a user enters their login information, the password is automatically “verified”, which is the included use case (it happens automatically when the actor clicks “login”).
2. Extend: A relationship between a use case and a use case that sometimes happens, but not every time a use case is executed. For example, if the user enters their login information, sometimes, but not all the time, the design will say “wrong password”. Additionally, if a user clicks on one “page” or screen, and another screen populates that allows the user to navigate to a second screen, the second screen is an “extend” relationship (because the user will sometimes, but not always navigate to that screen when using the design).

See Also the references below for some published literature showing other Use Case Diagrams. In Nepomuceno et al, 2022 see Figure 8: UML Use case diagram of remote inspection app.

In Abayon et al, 2023 see Figure 6: Use Case Diagram for visualizing the rental management system with GPS vehicle tracking.

References:

You will be working on a UML (Unified Modeling Language) Use Case Diagram to illustrate the system, actors, use cases, and relationships between all the individuals contributing/using your Geospatial design. A UML is similar to the model builder you can develop in ArcPro to show the steps in an analysis. It is also an excellent way to explain and show the design to someone that is not familiar with your project, since it provides a "blueprint" of the collaborators.

You will also be collaborating with your peers this week through a presentation of your project. The peer review is a way for you to assess the soundness, quality, and originality of your project. It also allows you to clarify your ideas as they are explained to classmates and learn from other’s work. It is an opportunity to provide evaluative and constructive feedback. You will experience active learning that involves actively engaging with other students and the course material through discussion.

This week, you will be working on two components of your project.

1. You will create a UML design illustrating the system, actors, use cases, and relationships between all the individuals contributing to your design. Then you will write a short explanation of the design.
2. You will meet with 2 peers in a Zoom meeting. You will provide a 10-minute presentation to your peers, and you will watch your peer's presentations. You will also provide kudos, suggestions, and comments to help your peers excel in their project. Be sure to use this time to develop a cohesive presentation and practice it so that you have a foundation for the mini-conference in modules 9 and 10.

When you are ready, move on to the Module 8 Term Project: UML Design and Lesson 8 Term Project: Peer Review Discussion.

In this module, you will be creating a 10-minute presentation to “pitch” your project proposal to a potential stakeholder. A stakeholder may be a hypothetical (or real) potential funder for your project and/or a boss/manager for requesting approval to begin the project. Either way, a stakeholder will be interested in understanding every component of your project, therefore, you should follow the organization outlined in your proposal.

You will also be completing an ESRI GeoAI training of your choice to understand how you can use ESRI machine learning models. Machine learning models can be used with a variety of data including population data, climate change, demographics, crime, and many other datasets. Therefore, it has applications to virtually any geospatial discipline.

Assignments

Creating PowerPoint (or other presentation software) slides is an art and it is important to make your presentation slides "catching" so your viewers stay engaged throughout the whole presentation. As you design slides, consider these factors (also see Style for Students).

• Use Images, Not Text: Keep your slide simple by using graphics, videos, figures, and maps instead of text. This also allows you to create an engaging narrative instead of relying on slide text. You can use images when presenting data, demonstrating trends, simplifying complex issues, and visualizing concepts/ideas.
• Simple: Keep your slides as simple as possible. If you have complex slides, use transitions and animations to direct your viewer's eye to focus on the point being emphasized
• Titles: Generally, it is recommended to avoid using titles, since the large font size directs the user's eyes from the primary content of the slide. However, there are several ways to guide your research through the sections of your slides with titles.
  1. Don't use titles, but explain each slide appropriately.
  2. Create a "work plan" at the bottom and highlight each section as you move through each slide (e.g. Background > METHODS Results).
• Rule of 4s: If you are using text, only include bullet points. The rule of 4 says to include no more than 4 works per line and no more than 4 lines per slide.
  • Bullets: If you use bullet points, consider adding animation/transitions so each point appears as you discuss it, to keep your audience engaged
• Color: Make sure the colors are readable, particularly based on the background color you choose (light background, use dark text and/or dark borders around images if necessary)
• Proofread: Make sure you don't have any spelling errors!

References:

ESRI offers several machine learning models that can be implemented to evaluate patterns, predictions, and hotspot analysis. Several different machine learning models can be used, including regression analysis, clustering, hot spot analysis, classification, temporal trends, and prediction.

Time series analysis has applications for many different geospatial disciplines. Machine learning has been applied to emergency response and disaster management by analyzing wildfires, flooding events, earthquakes, pandemics, and other human impacts including infrastructure, economy, and the environment. It has been applied to geospatial intelligence and crime modelling to track criminal activity, human trafficking, terrorist activities, location prediction of criminal activities, and many more. Additionally, it has been applied to track environmental phenomenon including wildfire prediction, flooding/stream flow prediction, climate change, invasive species modelling, endangered and vulnerable species population prediction, and many more.

A review of the machine learning models that can be applied to emergency management disciplines. Disaster events have common characteristics, such as spatiotemporal evolution and cascading effects. For example, fires, earthquakes, and floods can all impact road accessibility and power outage, while dynamics used in modelling fires could be adapted to also model disease spread during pandemics [10]. Machine learning can play a key part in the development of novel tools to identify useful characteristics of disasters in due time, provide means for situational awareness, facilitate modelling of various phenomena, and alert for potential cascading effects.

Source Kyrkou et al, 2015.

In short, machine learning models have an innumerable amount of applications and research continues to apply the models in new, innovative ways. Therefore, it is valuable for you to understand how it works and how to apply it to projects of interest to you. ESRI offers low/no code options that make machine learning and GeoAI accessible to new and novice AI users.

References:

The proposal presentation is a short description of your body of work that explains the effort in a way such that any listener can understand it in a short period of time.

To create an appealing presentation, be sure to include a lot of images and avoid (at all costs) long paragraphs of text. You may use some bullet points to guide your presentation, but don't use them to read your slides. Be sure to practice your presentation beforehand several times before you begin recording. You want to create a cohesive narrative that sounds like an organic conversation. The more you practice, the more you will sounds like an expert on your topic (which you are!).

Project Presentation

1. This week you will prepare a PowerPoint presentation with a voiceover that includes all the elements of your project proposal including:
   • The background
   • needs assessment
   • user analysis
   • concept selection
   • prototype and cognitive walkthrough
   • system requirements
   • data
   • heuristic evaluation
   • cost benefit analysis
   • Gantt chart
   • UML design.

You will upload your presentation to the discussion post and to the “My Media” mini conference in Canvas (see the assignment for more details).

Once you are ready, move on to the  Lesson 10 Mini-Conference Presentation Assignment for assignment description and submission instructions.

In this module, you will be viewing and commenting on three of your classmates presentations in a “mini conference”. Like any conference, you will want to provide useful and helpful advice and suggestions for enhancing your peers projects, presentations, and any other elements (e.g. data, software, evaluations, cost analysis, etc.)

Assignments

This is the wrap-up of the course project. Like attending a conference, it’s an opportunity to expand your knowledge and present your ideas. You will also be watching three of your peer's presentations. Watch them from the perspective of the customer they are trying to 'sell' their proposal to and provide questions and comments about their presentation and their proposal. Just like any other conference, you will want to ask questions that allow the presenter to show off their knowledge of the subject. Also, just like at conferences, you can provide comments and suggestions for how to improve the design or presentation effort. This course project is a proposal of the design, so any suggestions/comments you provide can only help your peers create a more efficient system. Also, consider that some of your peers may be using this as the foundation for a capstone project or a career project, so the better it is now, the less work they have to do later!

This week, you will be combining all the sections of your paper and adding some additional elements into a final proposal document. Make sure you have addressed the issues I pointed out in my review of your draft sections. If you have questions about your changes that you'd like me to answer, ask soon so I have time to get back to you before the due date. Once you have made it through the edits I suggested, consider the following ideas for enhancing your final project:

• Remember that you are the expert on this project idea. Your reader is not the expert. Your task is to explain to the reader in simple enough terms to make them understand the scope and purpose of your project.
• Include images, links to multimedia, and other content that would help a decision-maker understand the context of your report. Don't forget to cite media sources properly!
• Make sure that the formatting of your report is consistent and elegant - make it look professional.
• Ask a classmate, colleague at work, or someone else who would be reasonably familiar with the content to read your report and provide feedback.
• Make sure you include each section of the suggested outline

Term Project Outline

1. Cover Page:
   The cover page identifies the report and its authors. The cover should include the name of the project, its purpose, names of key team members and/or their group/firm, audience, and date of preparation. Graphics add interest and may communicate other values important to the project.
2. Executive Summary (~250 words):
   The Executive Summary (abstract) should motivate readers to study the full report. The executive summary is a short, powerful synopsis of the report, highlighting important needs, presenting key features of the proposed solution, and listing the significant benefits of the solution. It should be less than one page in length, address issues of greatest interest to decision makers, including pivotal technical and business merits of the conceptual design, and it should recommend desired responses to the proposal.
3. Table of Contents:
   The table of contents is a list, usually before the start of a written work, of the section titles with their commencing page numbers.
4. Background:
   This background section provides a background of the problem, explains the current situation, identifies the proposed solution to the problem, and provides of the overall objectives of the design and proposal. You will write this like a literature review and have sources/citations (around 10).
5. Needs Assessment:
   The Needs Assessment section discusses the different users of the system and how each of the users will be involved in the design project. This section also describes the different needs assessment options, which one you chose and why, and how you will implement the needs assessment in your proposal.
6. Concepts Considered:
   The Concepts Considered section describes the options explored by the design team in its search for a solution to the above problem. It should address both original ideas and those derived from other sources, summarize the scope of ideas considered and highlight the most creative and relevant concepts for the overall solution and for its component parts.
7. Concept Selection:
   The Concept Selection section describes the processes and rationale used for selecting the “best” concepts for the overall product and for the component parts of the design product. It may include summary tables comparing concepts against design criteria or summary evaluations of specific concepts.
8. Wireframe design:
   The wireframe design section includes multiple designs to show the user interface screens, arrow/explanations for each feature and screens of the interface, an explanation of the steps the user will take to navigate the interface, and a justification for the design.
9. System Architecture:
   The system architecture section describes the overall architecture and components of the design including the GIS workstations, software, hardware, network resources, database design, and requirements. You will also discuss the enterprise GIS requirements including performance considerations, maintenance considerations, and security considerations.
10. Data Storage:
    The Data Storage section describes in the detail the software you will use to house the design and the data you will use to populate the map.
11. UML Design:
    The UML Diagram will illustrate the system, actors, use cases, and relationships in your GISystem design. You will also include a short explanation of the diagram.
12. Evaluation:
    The evaluation section will identify and explain the method(s) you will use to evaluate the effectiveness of your design, justify the final evaluation method you choose, and explain how you will implement the evaluation method.
13. Cost/Benefit Analysis:
    The cost/benefit analysis section should explain AND justify the specific costs of the design.
14. Future Work:
    The Future Work section sets forth clear recommendations and rationale for project continuation. It summarizes the principal features of the product that satisfy users’ needs and provides an anticipated work schedule with milestones for the next phase of the project. Any unresolved issues should be highlighted at this time. Specific approvals for project continuation are requested here.