Learning Objectives

At the successful completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

• read current research articles that discuss the uniqueness of geovisual analytics
• differentiate dinstinguishing characteristics between geovisual analytics and other spatial tools and methods like GIS and cartography
• describe how geovisual analytics could be applied to a variety of data sets

Lesson Roadmap

Please refer to Canvas for lesson deliverables, including specific timeframes and due dates.

Questions?

If you have any questions about course mechanics, where to do something, or how to do something, feel free to send us a message in Canvas at any time. 

For this course, you will be drafting a response to a request for proposal (RFP) from a non-profit called Healing the Health of Humanity International H³I who is interested in assisting allocation of funds for COVID-19 relief. You will be divided into teams, where each team creates a fictional organization that will respond to the RFP. Before you create the organization's business profile and draft the response to the RFP by H³I, the team will need to assign the following roles:

(1) Project Manager

Responsibilities include (but are not limited to):

• organizing workflow;
• assigning tasks;
• liaisoning with other team leaders;
• reporting results; and
• interfacing with the project management software.

(2) Coder/Developer

Responsibilities include (but are not limited to):

• handling the research, development, and implementation of software (or software concept) for the COVID-19 data.

(3) Designer-Researcher

Responsibilities include (but are not limited to):

• assist in designing the interface;
• consider appropriate usability studies;
• compiling information from the project management software and formalizing it into a report for distribution; and
• disseminating updates to social media.

(4) Financial Officer

Responsibilities include (but are not limited to):

• consult with other members to determine work-hour needs;
• plan for software and other technology project costs;
• develop a budget for expenditure of H³I funds.

The focus of our course is the use of geovisual analytics to analyze patterns in COVID-19 data. It is important, however, to remember that behind all of those numbers lie millions and millions of human stories. For the past several years (and still ongoing), millions and millions of people across the world faced an uncertain, and often dangerous, future.

We encourage you to regularly take some time to connect with some of these stories. We will highlight, over the next couple of weeks, some stories about some of the real people behind the data.

Learning Objectives

At the successful completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

• discuss alternative approaches to a solution to the problem with TU Wein students
• share and reflect upon how different cultures approach a solution to the problem
• deliver mini-presentation on proposed solution
• provide peer feedback on proposed solution

Lesson Roadmap

Please refer to Canvas for lesson deliverables, including specific timeframes and due dates.

Questions?

If you have any questions about course mechanics, where to do something, or how to do something, feel free to send us a message in Canvas at any time (or  - this week - talk to us in person!). Yea!

Please note: the following schedule is subject to change.

Saturday, May 6

Morning - Evening:

• Students and faculty depart from their homes on flights to Vienna, Austria

Sunday, May 7

Morning - Afternoon:

• Students and faculty arrive in Vienna, Austria and travel to the hotel (Hotel Henri Vienna)
• Welcome dinner 

Monday, May 8

Morning - Afternoon:

• Kick off meeting
• Meet TU Wein students and faculty for a day-long workshop
• Discuss the scope of and plan for the week’s activities
• TU faculty research presentations
• PSU faculty research presentations

Evening:

• Group dinner hosted by TU Wien

Tuesday, May 9

Morning:

• Question/Answer session
• Assign tasks and deadlines for each group member in project management software
• Group work

Afternoon:

• Begin group work on project
• Outline tasks to be accomplished this week
• Post an update on social media (Facebook) on group work progress
• File a report to the instructor on what each group’s goals are for the week
• Visit the Globe Museum

Evening: 

• Free time to work on group project

Wednesday, May 10

Morning:

• Continue group work
• Visit research labs at TU Wien

Afternoon:

• Continue group work
• Assess task completeness on each group member in project management software

Evening: 

• Free time to work on group project

Thursday, May 11

Morning: 

• Continue group work

Afternoon: 

• Group presentations on project progress
• Peer-review of presentations
• Assess task completeness on each group member in project management software

Evening: 

• Free time 

Friday, May 12

Morning:

• Travel by coach to Ljubljana, Slovenia

Afternoon: 

• Walk around Ljubljana

Evening:

• Free time

Part of this class requires you to select data related to some aspect of COVID-19. This data can include cases, deaths, vaccine status, etc. The specific data set of choice is compltely up to you and the organization from which you download the data is of your choosing. However, the goal of this project is to think about how to leverage geovisual analytics to visualize some spatial aspect of COVID-19. The results of that investigation will be used to make a formal response to Healing the Health of Humanity International (H³I). H³I is a gloablly-based non-profit, non-denominational, apolitical, and non-governmental organization whose mission is to heal humanity. This formal response will present geovisual solutions on how H³I can best allocate funds to help direct COVID-19 relief measures. 

While you are free to find COVID-19 data on your own we have compiled the list below of data resources that you may find helpful for this course. As mentioned on this web page, this is not an exahustive listing of COVID-19 data sources but should be enough to get you started on finding useful data. Once you have identified appropriate data, download it and begin examining its contents.

This is a listing of various organizations that include download portals for COVID-19 data. No attempt has been made in curating this list in terms of an agency's authority, accuracy, or timeliness in collecting, updated, or releasing any of the COVID-19 data. An agency's inclusion in this list does not warrant endorsement of any kind with respect to this class or its assignments. Get to know the data before using it. There are dozens of other data download portals that were not included in this list.

The data sources are presented geographically.

1. United States of America 

Centers for Disease Prevention and Control COVID-19 Resources
COVID-19 Data Tracker
General COVID-19 Web Site
COVID-19 Public Data Sets
Case Surveillance Public Use Data

HealthData.gov
Health Data Covid-19 dashboard 

U.S. Veterans Administration Covid-19 National Summary
VA COVID-19 Dashboard 

2. Other Countries 
Many countries have their own Covid-19 dashboard and download sites.

Canada
Canada's COVID-19 Web Site

EU Countries
Other EU Countries Dashboards

3. Regional 

European CDC (Eurostat)
Europa COVID-19 Data 
Europa COVID-19 Database 

4. Global 

Data World
Data World COVID-19 Resources 

Google COVID-19 Open Data
Google COVID-19 Dashboard

Humanitarian Data Exchange
HDX COVID-19 Dashboard

Johns Hopkins
COVID-19 Dashboard

NY Times
NY Times COVID-19 Dashboard

Our World in Data
Our World in Data COVID-19 Dashboard

World Health Organization
COVID-19 Data Download
General COVID-19 Landing Page
COVID-19 Dashboard

5. Miscellaneous 

Other COVID-19 Data Sources
Tableau's COVID-19 Resources 

Learning Objectives

At the successful completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

• locate an example of an online geovisual analytics software that relates to health focused data
• discuss ways to evaluate the user experience of interacting with a geovisual analytic software
• describe a national mapping agency's solutions to their country’s national mapping needs

Lesson Roadmap

Please refer to Canvas for lesson deliverables, including specific timeframes and due dates.

Questions?

If you have any questions about course mechanics, where to do something, or how to do something, feel free to send us a message in Canvas at any time (or  - this week - talk to us in person!).

Please note: the following schedule is subject to change.

Saturday, May 13

Morning:

• Free time on your own

Afternoon:

• Travel by coach from Ljubljana, Slovenia to Salzburg, Austria

Evening:

• Free time on your own

Sunday, May 14

Morning:

• Planned events and free time

Afternoon:

• Planned events and free time

Evening:

• Free time

Monday, May 15

Morning:

• Travel by coach from Salzburg, Austria to Munich, Germany

Afternoon:

• Planned events and free time

Evening:

• Free time

Tuesday, May 16

Morning:

• Travel by coach from Munich, Germany to Prague, Czech Republic

Afternoon:

• Planned events and free time

Evening: 

• Free time

Wednesday, May 17

Morning:

• Visit the State Administration of Surveying and Cadastre in Prague

Afternoon:

• Free time

Evening: 

• Free time

Thursday, May 18

Morning:

• Free time

Afternoon:

• Free time

Evening:

• Free time

Friday, May 19

Morning:

• Free time

Afternoon:

• Travel from Prague, Czech Republic to Vienna, Austria

Evening:

• Farewell dinner (provided)

Saturday, May 20

Morning - Evening:

• Students and faculty depart Vienna, Austria for their respective destinations

The design of a geovisual analytic application requires many considerations. Chief among those considerations is what functions will the application provide and ultimately operate on the data. To that end, the end user must be able to interact with those functions through an intuitive and meaningful interface. Part of any system usability, then, is the overall design. That design in an ongoing process involving the end user. There has been much written about the development cycle related to software applications and their interface design. 

Since part of this class involves the conceptual development of an application there should be some consideration of the interface design, what functions would be available through your application, and how that design would facilitate accessing those functions. This deliverable is designed to get you thinking about designing the interface and how user testing could benefit during the development cycle.

In preparation for this delivarable, please read these articles.

This week, please share your evaluation of a geovisual analytics software. In your post, please respond to the following questions. 

1. Use the internet and locate a health-related organization or agency that uses geovisual analytics in the presentation and visualization of health-related data. Examine their web site and examine how geovisual analytics has been applied to health-related data. This geovisual analytic software could be a website, an app, or downloadable software. For this task, the geovisual analytic software should be free for use. Once you have located the software, explore its interface and functionality. After you feel comfortable with it, write a concise summary that describes its overall utility and functionality. Include at least two (2) screen captures showing the interface and perhaps a symbolization method. Explain some of the available tools the software contains that help visualize data. Make sure to provide a link or some reference to where you found the software.
2. Using one or more of the approaches presented in the article discuss how would you evaluate the suitability of this geovisual analytics as a means of visualizing the COVID-19 data set or your own choosing. In your summary, make sure to comment on the strengths and weakness of the proposed evaluation method with regard to your geovisual analytic software used by the organization of your choosing.
3. Given what you have learned thus far in the course and any thoughts from your summary here, what kinds of additional tools or functionalities would you recommend be included in the geovisual analytics software of your choosing?

Learning Objectives

At the successful completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

• identify the general nature of what problem is to be solved
• describe how geoanalytics could be applied to the present problem
• explore the database for this situation
• identify which data attributes are most significant to reach a solution

Lesson Roadmap

Please refer to Canvas for lesson deliverables, including specific timeframes and due dates.

Questions?

If you have any questions about course mechanics, where to do something, or how to do something, feel free to send us a message in Canvas at any time.

A non-profit humanitarian based organization called Healing the Health of Humanity International (H³I) has recently been awarded a very large grant. The dictates of the grant state that the funds must be allocated to serving the interests of individuals around the world who have experienced COVID-19. In order to meet the requirements of the grant on how best to meet the needs of those who have experienced COVID-19, H³I realizes that a considerable amount of data collection, processing, and analysis will be required. H³I also recognizes that this project will involve a considerable amount of geospatial data. Various methods (e.g., geospatial analytics) will be required to help visualize patterns, trends, and relationships in COVID-19 geospatial data. H³I also acknowledges that they do not employ staff that have expertise in geovisual analytics. That’s where your business plays a role.

Scope of the Problem

For this week you will be engaged in two tasks.

First, develop a business that focuses on geospatial solutions to COVId-19 data sets. This business plan will include the business name, logo, and staff. In addition, the plan will also include statements regarding expertise and previous completed projects. The specifics of developing this business are listed below.

Second, begin to draft a proposal that responds to H³I’s request. Note that a complete proposal will not be delivered until the end of the course. Over the next several weeks, you are tasked with developing and refining parts of the proposal. For now, this week will introduce you to the proposal idea from H³I and get you started on thinking how your group will respond to the request. The challenge is based on a COVID-19 data set of your choosing. Your group is one of several “clients” that are developing a proposal that presents a geographic visualization solution to a COVID-19 data set. As mentioned, H³I was recently awarded a grant that is directed to the betterment of individuals who have experienced COIVD-19, a topic of which is at its core mission. The challenge is to extract meaningful information from the COVID-19 data set of your choosing and make recommendations to H³I on how best to allocate its grant monies.

Specifically, for this project, H³I is interested in understanding some of the following characteristics about the COVID-19 data:

• Identifying who are the most disadvantaged groups?
• What are the anomalies in the COVID-19 data set?
• Who are the people in most need of the basics?
• What COVID-19 individuals have been displaced?
• Some basic demographics include age profiles of the refugees (youngest, oldest), country of origin, GDP of most strickened countries).
• Are there other mitigating factors contributing to the situation (consider civil-strife, political, ethnic, and religious tensions)?
• Which countries have the greatest number of cases, deaths, vaccine hesitancy, etc.?
• How would resource allocation (medicine, health care access, vaccine delivery, etc.) better COVID-19 situation?

The following is an example of the type of proposal that you will be developing:

Request for Proposal (RFP)
RFP#: 1024

This RFP has four (4) sections. In order to be considered for this project each submitting agency must complete all parts. Instructions on how to complete each section is provided under each section’s header.

FORWARD

This forward must be completed and presented on a separate page.

1. Project title: “Challenges to Geospatial Data”
2. Number of staff involved with this project (include management):
3. Amount requested from H³I (USD$):

The Project Proposal Application for Funding Form has four sections:

1. Executive Summary
2. Statement/Scope of Work and Management Plan
3. Preliminary Project Schedule and Project Budget
4. Project Monitoring and Evaluation

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

I.A. This section should provide a brief introduction to the current H³I’s RFP. The summary should also describe: (~ one page)

1. The problem or critical issue which this proposal seeks to resolve
2. How this proposal relates to other relevant characterizations, recommended relief strategies, and policies on COVID-19

I.B. This section should identify the specific work to be performed: (~ one page)

1. Describe the relevant experience and capabilities of the enterprise submitting this proposal.
2. Identify the type and level of resources (personnel expertise and software/hardware) that the implementing enterprise submitting the proposal will provide for project planning, implementation management and follow up.

II. STATEMENT/SCOPE OF WORK and MANAGEMENT PLAN

II.A. Expected Project Results/Deliverables: (~ two pages)

This section should describe the overall results that the project is expected to accomplish.

1. Discuss the specific data sets and variables that could be used to provide a solution to H³I’s RFP. You should feel free to include data sets and variables that are not present in the COVID-19 data set that you downloaded. But, if you do, please identify specifically how these external data will be used in your solution to the problem.
2. Present a survey of existing geovisualization/geovisual analytics solutions. This survey should describe key characteristics of existing geovisualizations/geovisual analytics solutions that could be applied to help address H³I’s RFP. Note, these existing geovisualization/geovisual analytics do not necessarily need to examine your COVID-19 data.

The discussion should indicate in quantitative terms, to the extent possible, what the project will produce through its planned activities.

II.B. Detailed Project Activities and Work Plan: (~ two pages)

This section should describe how each immediate project objective will be carried out in terms of planned activities.

1. Identify which geovisualization/geovisual analytics tools will be most useful in answering H³I’s RFP.
2. Describe the technical specifications of the proposed solution. This description can include, but is not limited to, the selected programming language, the operating system, the platform, etc.

III. PRELIMINARY PROJECT DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE AND BUDGET (~ two pages)

1. Detail the development timeline of the project. The details could include, but are not limited to, significant milestones that you consider to be achievable within the proposed timeline.
2. The budget for this proposal should be prepared in U.S. dollars. The budget should include, but is not limited to, a description of each budget line item. The budget should include, but it not limited to, development time, software/hardware, training, consulting, contracting services, and usability studies.

IV. PROJECT MONITORING AND EVALUATION (~ two pages)

This section should discuss proposed mechanisms and procedures for monitoring of project operations to ensure that activities occur as planned, that they remain directed towards stated objectives, and that appropriate corrective action is taken if required.

Specifically, the discussion should indicate who will be responsible for preparing periodic project progress and final technical reports and for the accounting of expenditures.

Introduction

For this week, you will continue working on different parts of H³I’s RFP.

Learning Objectives

At the successful completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

• specifically define the problem
• identify the exact variables necessary to help solve the problem
• link the functional aspects of geoanalytics with your data set
• develop a specific solution to the identified problem

Lesson Roadmap

Welcome back! This week, you will resume working on different parts of your group project proposal. We would like you to work with your group to apply what you learned while in Europe to revising and refining your project. Please refer to Canvas for lesson deliverables, including specific timeframes and due dates.

Questions?

If you have any questions about course mechanics, where to do something, or how to do something, feel free to send us a message in Canvas at any time.

Learning Objectives

At the successful completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

• deliver a mini-presentation on proposed solutions
• provide critical feedback to peers on their proposed solution

Lesson Roadmap

Please refer to Canvas for lesson deliverables, including specific timeframes and due dates.

Questions?

If you have any questions about course mechanics, where to do something, or how to do something, feel free to send us a message in Canvas at any time.

It is now time for you to present your first draft of the group project proposal that you have been working on over the last several weeks. 

Please see Canvas for complete assignment instructions and due dates.

Learning Objectives

At the successful completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

• incorporate readings in geovisual analytics

Lesson Roadmap

Please refer to Canvas for lesson deliverables, including specific timeframes and due dates.

Questions?

If you have any questions about course mechanics, where to do something, or how to do something, feel free to send us a message in Canvas at any time.

Learning Objectives

At the successful completion of this lesson, you should be able to:

• Deliver formal presentation of project to peers

Lesson Roadmap

Please refer to Canvas for lesson deliverables, including specific timeframes and due dates.

Questions?

If you have any questions about course mechanics, where to do something, or how to do something, feel free to send us a message in Canvas at any time.

It is now time for you to present your final draft of the group project proposal that you have been working on.