Grant recipients:
Geoffrey Hayes, Department of History
Heather Moran, Faculty of Environment
Eva Dodsworth, Geospatial Centre, Library
Trevor Ford, Wilfrid Laurier University
(Project timeline: October 2014-September 2015)
Project Summary
Our deep mapping project shows remarkable promise as a teaching and collaborative research tool. A history MA worked closely with a co-op student at the Geo-spatial Centre through the fall and winter of 2014/2015 to configure Neatline software, an open source digital mapping tool. They created a deep map of the Second Battle of Ypres, which began on 22 April 1915.
The work has taken us in two very promising directions for undergraduate teaching and graduate instruction. First, we have introduced deep mapping into the undergraduate classroom with considerable success. Second, our graduate student’s original work has become a template through which we are collaborating with other Canadian universities to ‘deep map’ the First World War.
Question Investigated
Can deep mapping lead to deep learning?
Findings/Insights
The fall of 2016 marked the third term I have assigned students a series of exercises using open source software created at Northwestern University. MapStory JS and Timeline JS are now regular features in my teaching toolbox. We ask students to contribute events to a simple timeline. The assignment implicitly stresses two important historical concepts: the importance of context, and the importance of creating one’s own historical narrative. In other words, history is not something imposed upon them. Our most recent timeline features ongoing student contributions.
The MapStory JS assignment further reinforces these concepts by asking students to create a visual narrative of a soldier’s life, and death, within the wider context of the war. This assignment further stresses the importance of working in both primary and secondary sources. It also forces them to consider how we can only understand this individual’s experience by referring to different kinds of ‘history.’ A study of battles is not enough: we need to incorporate ideas of class, culture and gender to appreciate an individual soldier’s experience.
The results are encouraging. Students generally found the software simple to use, with impressive results that some volunteered to present to the class. (In my experience no one has ever volunteered to present a conventional essay in class). Some students noted in last winter’s course evaluations for History 226 that the mapping exercises were “fun” “great” and “exciting to research and write.” That kind of reaction seldom comes from a more conventional assignment. Indeed, creating a virtual space for their research seems to have given some students an incentive to create better work. One possible explanation is that they are finding and interpreting visual as well as written sources. Students also have to consider how an issue ‘looks’ different when it is translated onto a map rather than on a page.
In the future, we could create a split course in future that would allow us to compare results from students who created a map, and others who wrote a more conventional essay. That choice could allow us to consider if map assignments contribute to better learning outcomes.
Dissemination and Impact
I have benefited from discussions with colleagues, especially Dr. Ian Milligan, a nationally recognized scholar in the area of digital history. In the fall of 2014, I was invited to Northeastern University to attend a very fruitful two-day workshop on Mapping Military History, sponsored by the Society for Military History.
Since then the project has been outlined in several fora. One of the students involved in the project briefly introduced it at GIS Day in 2014, and again in 2015. The map was also highlighted on the Library website on 21 April 1915 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Battle itself. It was also featured on the Canadian Military History website.
Trevor Ford has also presented on our mapping projects, most recently at this year’s meeting of the Canadian Map Libraries and Archives conference. He has also published on the subject: “New Tools for Military Historians: How GIS Can Help Understand Canada’s North-West Europe Campaign,” Association of Canadian Map Libraries and Archives Bulletin, 152: Winter 2016: 4-13.
Impact of the Project
- Our second research direction draws together graduate students and digital librarians on a series of collaborative projects. Our MA student who benefited from the CTE grant has re-oriented his graduate research to explore the relationship between mapping and learning. His thesis, to be completed by the spring of 2017, will examine the wider implications of using mapping software in the history classroom. We plan on working closely in a third-year First World War course in the winter of 2017 to teach the class how to create exhibits on the First World War using Neatline software.
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Involvement in other activities or projects: We are now collaborating with students and staff from five Canadian universities: UW, WLU, McMaster, Carleton and Memorial. Our goal is to deep map the First World War, and create a series of best practices to manage large data sets.
The Geo-Spatial centre continues to host our site and provide key support. Eva Dodsworth, the director of the Centre, generously hosted our graduate student who was paid by the CTE grant. Eva and Markus Wieland continue to be patient, professional and knowledgeable colleagues.
We have worked closely with the Laurier Centre for Military, Strategic, and Disarmament Studies (LCMSDS) whose director is Mark Humphries. Eva has agreed to help scan and geo-reference a substantial part of the centre’s collections of wartime maps and aerial photographs. Trevor Ford, a very able doctoral candidate at WLU, has been a key figure in this digitization process.
Since last summer we have worked with library staff at McMaster University, which holds a substantial collection of First World War maps. With the help of Gord Beck and Jay Brodeur, we have created a deep map of the Somme battles that took place from July to November 1916. Those results reflect a growing confidence in the software, reinforced by a detailed technical document that is easily shareable.
Two other university libraries are committing resources to deep mapping the First World War. Kathryn Rose, once a doctoral student of mine, is now a liaison librarian at Memorial University. Kathryn has received SSHRC funding to develop a map site that chronicles the Newfoundland experience of the Great War. We are also working with Rebecca Bartlett of Carleton University library. She is using Google Earth to create a deep map of the Battle of Vimy, fought in April 1917.
Such collaboration not only promises new insights into an important element of Canada’s experience. It will also offer important new ways to manage and share large data sets.
References
Project reference list (PDF)