Abstract:

Everybody has heard that data is the new oil or gold of today's economy from many sources. Therefore, data processing and presentation should be critical for today's students at all school levels. In the case of spatial data or geo-data (i.e. data that can be located in space), the form of presentation is relatively simple. For more than 20,000 years, the map has been the most important means of visualizing and sharing spatial data. The map itself has changed over the ages. Humanity has progressed from engravings on natural materials to maps distributed by printing methods to today's digital maps shared on the Internet.

In education, web maps are widely used. Students can use digitized (scanned) maps, simple web applications (such as World Bank data visualizations), publicly available map portals (such as Bing Maps or Google Maps), various map libraries, or full-featured geographic information systems (such as ArcMap or QGIS). Each of the above methods has advantages and disadvantages.

This paper summarizes and evaluates the above approaches for publishing and sharing spatial data. In particular, the focus is on the possibility of collaborative map production, usability in the educational process, and VGI (Volunteered Geographic Information), for example, data collected directly by students. Furthermore, the authors present solutions to bridge the gap between the two extreme application cases. On the one hand are user-friendly applications that are often very expensive or have only limited functionality. The other extreme is represented by applications that are often freely available and require programming knowledge and skills.

The presented geo-based Content Management System (CMS) is based on the CodeRed CMS tool. The application allows sharing spatial data and map compositions straightforwardly (in most cases, only publishing the URL of the source). This approach is very efficient and suitable even for users who consider themselves less tech-savvy. The use of the CMS tool is illustrated in the new version of the Atlas of the Liberec Region. The web atlas is an application that has been used in education for many years and has been presented at many international conferences in recent years (e.g. INSPIRE Conference 2018). Such a solution can be beneficial for many types of schools and subjects, including multidisciplinary cooperation in schools.

Keywords:

Web map, map, spatial data, geo-data.