FOSS-for-WebGIS

Course Information

Course: CUNY Graduate Center - Special Topics in Computational Fundamentals: Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for Web Maps (Summer 2023)

Instructor: Will Field

Description: Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) for creating web maps has become ubiquitous and offers numerous advantages over proprietary software. This class will look at open source tools for creating custom web maps with html, css, and javascript. In particular we will focus on MaplibreGLJS, OpenLayers, and Leafletjs. Students will gain a working knowledge of web mapping foundations and survey the current state of the FOSS ecosystem. The final project will be an interactive web map.

Course Work

| Class                                   | Classwork Code                                   | Homework Code                                   | Homework Live Link           | | —— | —— | —– | —— | | Class 1 | 6-7 | - | - | | Class 2 | 6-14 | Homework 1 Code | Homework 1 Link | | Class 3 | 6-21 | Homework 2 Code | Homework 2 Link | | Class 4 | 7-12 | Homework 3 Code | Homework 3 Link |

Final Project

| Topic                                                                   | Code                                                                 | Live link                                                                    | —— | —— | —– | Final Project | Code | Live link |

This web-mapping project calls attention to the complicated and often unjust historic and modern landscape related to housing. In “Cartographies of Catastrophe: Mapping World War II Destruction in Germany and Poland,” (2021) Jerzy Elżanowski and Carmen M. Enss note that qualitative analyses of post-catastrophic-damage cartography constitute “a serious research gap in the field of urban history.” This project aspires to help fill that gap in some capacity in addition to honoring the memories of those who have and those who continue to experience housing loss and crises. This project is built using Free and Open Source technologies such as MapLibre.