Preliminary Programme

Wed 12 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Thu 13 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Fri 14 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00
    16.30 - 18.30

Sat 15 April
    08.30 - 10.30
    11.00 - 13.00
    14.00 - 16.00

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Thursday 13 April 2023 14.00 - 16.00
W-7 SPA04 Linked Data
Västra Hamngatan 25 AK2 135
Network: Spatial and Digital History Chair: Michal Gochna
Organizers: - Discussant: Rick Mourits
Isabel María Gómez-Trigueros : The GIS-GIT as Technological Resources for the Teaching and Learning of History
The presence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in classrooms is a daily, real and irreversible circumstance (Gómez-Trigueros, 2020). The current Information Society (CIS) (UNESCO, 2017; OECD, 2018) in which we find ourselves immersed demands new skills and real modifications in the training of citizens of the global world for ... (Show more)
The presence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in classrooms is a daily, real and irreversible circumstance (Gómez-Trigueros, 2020). The current Information Society (CIS) (UNESCO, 2017; OECD, 2018) in which we find ourselves immersed demands new skills and real modifications in the training of citizens of the global world for training throughout life (Gómez-Trigueros et al., 2021). Such changes travel inexorably hand in hand with technologies and, consequently, call for an adaptation of the methodologies and tools used in the classrooms of the 21st century. In the same way, this perspective of training changes the roles that until now were played by the actors in the educational process. Specifically, when working on History, new challenges arise. One of these challenges is the inclusion of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Geographic Information Technologies (GIT) in the knowledge of historical processes. In this communication we present the use of the free and open tool Google Earth ProTM for the study and spatial analysis of the Second World War. Specifically, it analyzes how the GIT-GIS tool allows geolocating historical processes for a better understanding of them by citizens. The experience has been developed over three school years (2012-2013, 2013-2014, 2014-2015) in a Secondary School in Spain. 147 students between 15 and 17 years old participated in this intervention, as well as two teachers of the subject of History. The choice of the theme World War II responds to the importance of this event in contemporary history, since it allows: a) The understanding of the current world; b) The current leading role of certain countries in the global economy; c) The struggle of nations against discrimination based on race, sex, etc. The research methodology has been mixed: on the one hand, specific activities have been used with the Google Earth ProTM tool to teach historical content related to the Second World War. These contents have focused on the geolocation of key points such as the concentration camps and their organization; On the other hand, a small five-point Likert scale questionnaire (1-Strongly disagree; 5-Totally agree) has been distributed to analyze the achievement of the historical content taught. The results obtained through the classroom activities developed by the participants and the questionnaires carried out have shown positive values on the strengths of the GIT tool used to achieve the objectives of the History curriculum (RD 1105/2014, of 26 of December), as well as the potential provided by the use of GIT-GIS resources for training in digital skills and for knowledge of the contents of History. Consequently, the convenience of implementing the use of technologies for the teaching of curricular contents of History can be affirmed. (Show less)

Don Lafreniere, Scarlett, Sarah & Trepal, Dan & Williams, Ryan & Juip, James & Pastel, Robert & Kitalong, Karla : Deep Mapping meets Public Participatory HGIS: the Next Generation of the Keweenaw Time Traveler
In this paper, we report on our relaunch of the Keweenaw Time Traveler (KeTT) project. KeTT was founded in 2015, and since its inception has employed a public-participatory historical GIS (PP-HGIS) approach to create a historical spatial data infrastructure (or deep map) to empower a post-industrial community in heritage ... (Show more)
In this paper, we report on our relaunch of the Keweenaw Time Traveler (KeTT) project. KeTT was founded in 2015, and since its inception has employed a public-participatory historical GIS (PP-HGIS) approach to create a historical spatial data infrastructure (or deep map) to empower a post-industrial community in heritage preservation efforts, reconstructing family histories, geoheritage, environmental history, and a host of spatial humanities research projects. For the past several years, volunteer community groups and individuals interested in the history of the region have been transcribing historical maps, classifying map features, geocoding locations, and contributing place-based memories and photographs. Meanwhile, an interdisciplinary team at Michigan Tech University has been geocoding and record-linking IPUMS complete count census data, school records, employee records, and city directories. The almost 20 million variables covering 1880-1950, created by both researchers and the public, are linked together and accessible via a new online deep map that launched in spring 2022. The new online deep map was designed through a public design charrette process over a two year period (2020-2022). Our paper will outline the implementation of the new online deep map, the challenges and opportunities that PP-HGIS and design charrettes brings to the spatial humanities, and we will discuss the issues of sustainability of big-data and public facing projects. (Show less)

Rombert Stapel, Ivo Zandhuis : The Crumb Trail from Aggregate to Observations. Linked Data to Replicate Calculations of Population Sizes in the Low Countries
Estimates of population sizes in the Low Countries (roughly equal to present-day Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and north of France) are, prior to the advent of modern censuses, typically based upon wildly varying fiscal or clerical sources, like house or hearth counts, or lists of communicants. From these primary sources, population ... (Show more)
Estimates of population sizes in the Low Countries (roughly equal to present-day Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and north of France) are, prior to the advent of modern censuses, typically based upon wildly varying fiscal or clerical sources, like house or hearth counts, or lists of communicants. From these primary sources, population estimates are calculated with several presumptions and arguments for aggregating the census observations: determining a mean household size, accounting for missing clergy or nobility, establishing the mean age at which communion occurred, etcetera.

The ‘(Re)counting the Uncounted’ project replicates four commonly-used publications that previously produced such calculations. This is done by digitizing the original, unaggregated censuses, carefully outlining the way the population size is derived from the census, and linking the census observations to historical GIS maps. Halfway through the project, it is already clear that this leads to remarkable new outcomes.

The censuses, their observations, spatial definition, their attributes, and rules to calculate aggregations and disaggregations are interrelated in a sophisticated way. We argue that Linked Data is the logical technique to model this and to create a tool to play around with rules and factors which determine how one may proceed from primary source (census) to a scholarly product (population estimate). The range of options to make such ‘research protocols’ (or methodological choices) explicit are, in our view, limited in current scholarly practice, whether presented in the text itself, in footnotes, or in tables. Linked Data, however, allows us to store the way a population size is calculated unambiguously and can be reproduced and discussed. Every scholarly choice can be made explicit, which improves the reproducibility, comparability, and thus the overall quality of the research.

Let us elaborate the role of Linked Data further. First, it helps to relate the original source, source publications on paper, and digital datasets. This results in a crumb trail from the calculated population size to all individual observations in the sources from which this outcome is derived. The observation could even be linked to a scan published somewhere on the internet by the archive holding the original. Secondly, in this crumb trail, decisions on how to come from observation to an interpretation are stored and can be reused in an automatic way. This is possible thanks to the semantically unambiguous defined relations in the network of data. The result adds to the ‘I’ of Interoperability in the FAIR data paradigm that has become the de facto standard for creating scientific data. A third reason for choosing Linked Data is that the created network can be easily extended with new censuses, corrections on observations, spatial definitions in GIS, and interpretations without having to change the network already existing. One could stand on the shoulders of giants who created datasets before.

Our paper discusses:
• which existing vocabulary we use to model a census and its observations in Linked Data
• how choices in relations between geographical units affect outcomes
• a way of representing the rules of calculation. (Show less)



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