SPECIAL SECTION: LINKING GEOMATICS AND THE COMMUNITY IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

EDITORIAL: THE INFORMATION AGE, CAPACITY BUILDING, AND THE USE OF SPATIAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Brent Hall

GIS CAPACITY BUILDING IN THE PACIFIC ISLAND COUNTRIES: FACING THE REALITIES OF TECHNOLOGY, RESOURCES, GEOGRAPHY AND CULTURAL DIFFERENCE
James M.R. Britton

LINKING GEOMATICS AND PARTICIPATORY SOCIAL ANALYSIS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL MONITORING: CASE STUDIES FROM MALAWI
Nicholas Haan, Davison Gumbo, J. Ronald Eastman, James Toledano, and Mathilde Snel

ARTICLES

FOCUS GROUPS AS A MEANS OF QUALITATIVELY ASSESSING THE U-BOAT NARRATIVE
Fritz Kessler

Figure 2. The detailed discussion within Narrative I. Text explaining bulleted information in greater detail appears in a text box. In this case, the text discusses the first U-boat offensive in greater detail. (See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/kessler2.html.)

Figure 3. Narrative II outlines events during World War II, using text, maps, and archival photographs. Within Narrative II, the U-boat conflict is divided into eight phases, which the user can quickly move between using the menu in the lower right-hand corner. This event in Narrative II explains the situation in the North Atlantic between July and September 1941. The bullets along the left-hand side highlight important topics during the time frame, the map shows the U-boat operational areas and important convoy battles, and the photo illustrates a depth charge attack against a U-boat during a convoy battle. The Discussion button provides further information. Photo courtesy United States National Archives II, 80G-11029. (See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/kessler3.html.)

Figure 4. Narrative III presents the different U-boat types. Here, a photo of U-2513, a Type XXI U-boat, is shown. The caption provides a brief overview of the type and some specifics on U-2513. The Technical Summary button provides more details on the specifics of the different U-boat types. Photo courtesy United States National Archives II, 80G-11029. (See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/kessler4.html.)

Figure 5. The Technical Summary provides extensive details of different U-boat types. Three text boxes providing Discussion, Technical Information, and Production Numbers accompany the illustration of the U-boat. The menu at the left offers users the ability to view other U-boat types, while the Back button returns users to the form containing the photos of each type (Figure 4). (See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/kessler5.html.)

Figure 6. A screen capture from UBN's Animation Module displaying vessels sunk (red dots) by U-boat attacks during April 1942 in the North Atlantic theatre. The Animation Display Controls are prominently displayed on the left; the current animation time period is indicated on the Date form, and the Explanation form defines the map symbols. (See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/kessler6.html.)

Figure 7. The individual attributes are available by clicking on an individual ship's dot. This example shows all the ships sunk or damaged in the Indian Ocean during 1943. The light-blue dot represents the ship selected. The attribute information is divided into three sections: Attacking U-boat Information, Ship Attacked Information, and Attack Location Information. An explanatory note provides additional details of the U-boat attack. (See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/kessler7.html.)

Figure 8. The elements that make up the Attribute Module. The world map shows the location of sunk vessels credited to Günter Prien, commander of U-47, in 1939. The U-boat Commanders on Patrol form lists the number of ships Prien sank and damaged, the total number of successful attacks, and the total tons he successfully attacked. For each entry, the table provides a comparison between the U-boat commander's war records and the contemporary reassessment. The user can also learn of the fate of the U-boat commander by selecting the Commander's Fate button. For example, the location where U-47 sank would be shown on the world map and then the U-boat Commander's Fate form would be visible, detailing Prien's fate. (See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/kessler8.html.)

Figure 9. This graph compares the monthly number of U-boats available for patrol to the number of Allied vessels sunk by U-boats. Starting in 1942, the number of U-boats at sea (red line) increases, resulting in an increase in the number of Allied sips sunk (green line). By late 1942, the number of vessels sunk begins to decline. The user wanting a more detailed explanation can also learn that this point in time can be considered as the beginning of Allied technological ascendancy, which neutralized the U-boat threat, by selecting the More Information button. (See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/kessler9.html.)

Figure 10. A series of bar graphs comparing the total number of tons sunk by the various U-boat types that participated in wartime operations. (See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/kessler10.html.)

Figure 11. The time Period Control form. A user must enter a specific date in one or more of the text boxes in order to create an animation. For example, to specify a monthly animation for the period from July 1940 through October 1944, the user would enter "7" as the start date and "10" as the end date in the Month textboxes. The user would then enter "1940" as the start date and "1944" as the end date in the Year text boxes. (See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/kessler11.html.)

Figure 12. The results of the individual exploration sessions, showing participants' selections for the least appealing graphs in the Graphical Summaries Module.

Figure 13. The results of the individual exploration sessions, showing participants' prior knowledge of the U-boat conflict. The results shows that none of them viewed themselves as experts; only novices and historians indicated some familiarity, and all three groups had participants with minimal knowledge, while both cartographer and novice groups included participants who had no existing knowledge with regard to the U-boat war.

Figure 14. An interactive legend design for UBN's Animation Module. The legend indicates that the user has selected the North Atlantic Theatre for the time period from 1 January to 30 June 1942. There are three scroll bars. The top shows each year of the war, the middle shows the months of a given year, and the lower displays the days of a given month. In this case, the current year, month, and day are 1942, May, and the 25, respectively. Since the time period runs daily from January to June 1942, the years and months not within this range are inactive. The position of the scroll bars indicates that the Allied ship data for 25 May are highlighted on the map (the North Atlantic Theatre). Also included in this interactive legend are a graphic display of the current date and a tally of the ships sunk or damaged on that date. (See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/kessler14.html.)

THE IMPACT OF BIVARIATE SYMBOL DESIGN ON TASK PERFORMANCE IN A MAP SETTING
Elisabeth S. Nelson

Figure 2. Examples of cartographically useful symbol sets and reported dimensional interactions from cartographic and psychological studies conducted in abstract settings. Based on studies by Garner and Felfoldy (1970), Handel and Imai (1972), Felfoldy (1974), Gottwald and Garner (1975), Garner (1977), Monahan and Lockhead (1977), Dykes and Cooper (1978), Dykes (1979), Kemler and Smith (1979), Smith and Kilroy (1979), Schumann and Wang (1980), Smith (1980), Carswell and Wickens (1990), and Nelson (1999, 2000). (From a colour original; hue differences are not apparent in the printed black-and-white version. See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/nelson2.html.)

Figure 3. Legends for the 15 symbol sets tested in the experiment, divided by test group. (From a colour original; hue differences are not apparent in the printed black-and-white version. See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/nelson3.html.)

Figure 4. Examples of test maps from each of the four test groups. (From a colour original; hue differences are not apparent in the printed black-and-white version. See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/nelson4.html.)

Figure 5. Examples of test maps paired with map tasks. (From a colour original; hue differences are not apparent in the printed black-and-white version. See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/nelson5.html.)

Figure 6. Speeded-classification tasks and related map tasks.

Figure 7. Example of test screens used in the experiment: (a) initial screen for studying the legend, (b) legend and test question together, and (c) timed screen with map. The initial screen was seen only once for each symbol set. Once testing began, the program looped from (b) (untimed screen) to (c) for each question. (From a colour original; hue differences are not apparent in the printed black-and-white version. See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/nelson7.html.)

Figure 8. Example test screen for a more complicated task that requires filtering irrelevant size information to correctly answer the question. (From a colour original; hue differences are not apparent in the printed black-and-white version. See colour figure at www.utpjournals.com/carto/nelson8.html.)

Figure 9. Plots of mean map task RTs for symbol sets meeting all the criteria for (a) separable, (b) integral, and (c) configural dimensions.

REVIEWS OF BOOKS AND ATLASES

Tithe Surveys for Historians
Jeremy Black

Tours et contours de la terre : itinéraires d'une femme au cœur de la cartographie
Louis Cardinal

Maps and Mapmakers of the Civil War
Tim Cook

A Good and Wise Measure: The Search for the Canadian-American Boundary, 1783-1842
J.P.D. Dunbabin

Urban Images of the Hispanic World, 1493-1793
Barbara E. Mundy

Qing Colonial Enterprise: Ethnography and Cartography in Early Modern China
Monika K. Rieger

ADVICE TO CONTRIBUTORS

THE CANADIAN CARTOGRAPHIC ASSOCIATION

THE INTERNATIONAL CARTOGRAPHIC ASSOCIATION
L'ASSOCIATION CARTOGRAPHIQUE INTERNATIONALE

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