Global Data Visualization: Bringing GIS into HBS
Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting April 2008
•Benjamin Lewis, Center for Geographic Analysis, Harvard University
•Carla Tishler, Educational Technology Group, Harvard Business School
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College.
Carla Tishler, Director of Program Innovation, HBS
Work closely with faculty to determine how, if, whether, educational
technologies can enhance teaching and learning in the MBA
classroom
•
Curriculum review: EC vs. RC
•
Case review
•
Programmatic level
Background:
•
10 years of print publishing, focusing on higher ed and business
•
12 + years in online publishing and educational technology
•
M. Ed., Harvard Graduate School of Education
Ben Lewis, Center for Geographic Analysis, Harvard
Harvard Business School: 100 years and counting
1.
School was founded in 1908—before that, management was not
considered an area of serious academic study
2.
Mission: To educate leaders who make a difference in the world.
3.
900 MBA students in each class. Two-year residential program
4.
9000 Executive Education students annually
5.
200 Faculty, 1000 staff
6.
Harvard Business School Publishing: Books, technology
products, cases, Harvard Business Review,
HBS: The Case Method
1.
MBAs read 500 cases during their HBS experience
2.
Based on real-world business problems: students take on role of
protagonist and try to solve, based on data
3.
In-class case discussion led by faculty via standard shared
method, but students do 90% of the talking
4.
Part of the HBS brand, part of the shared transformative
experience
HBS’s Educational Technology Group partners with faculty to enhance content, enliven
teaching and learning, and amplify student learning before, during, and after the
classroom experience.
Action
Learning
Resources
Games and
Simulations
Assessment
tools
Tutorials
Delivery/
Support
Tools
Web-based
multimedia
Learning
Networks
Online Accounting &
Quantitative
Methods Prematriculation
Virtual
communities
Video
Course Platform ,iSites,
Video Tools
Multimedia
cases
Wikis & Blogs
Animations
Beer Game, VC
Game, PLD CapSim
Poll tool,
Learning Path Tool
Strategy, Leading
Change, Marketing
Performance
GMP re-entry,
Legacy Books,
Newsletters
Learning Nexus for
knowledge sharing
The Course: Entrepreneurship and Global Capitalism
1.
Elective course covering the rise of global capitalism in the 19th
and 20th centuries
2.
30 case on global companies such as Singer, Ford, IBM , as well
as commodities, such as bananas and oil, and other indices of
growth
3.
Case methodology only
4.
Looking for some way to liven up the course and engage students
Global Data Visualization (GDV)
GOAL: to create visual, interactive maps that show the
interrelationships of underlying data related to the spread of
globalization as measured on various points:
•
economic growth
•
communications data
•
the spread of imperialism
•
policy changes
•
migration patterns
•
http://courseware.hbs.edu/multimedia/gdv/index.html
GDV R1 Topics to Research
1.
Spread of imperialism (spread of colonial empiresdecolonization)
2.
Spread/movement of policy regimes
3.
Spread/growth/change in international organizations
4.
Spread/growth/change of transportation methods (railroads, shipping, air)
5.
Spread/growth/change in communication modes (telegraph, telephone, sea cables,
internet)
6.
Migration/movement of people over time
7.
Fertility and mortality rates
8.
Prices, production, and trade volumes of key commodities
History of Harvard’s Center for Geographic Analysis
CGA Founded in 2006.
Technology platform in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science
(IQSS).
Works across the University to strengthen GIS education, research,
services, and infrastructure.
Builds on the foundation of the Harvard Geospatial Library, Harvard
Map Collection, and other GIS initiatives around the University.
CGA Services
Support research and teaching that relies on geographic analysis.
Administer Harvard-wide GIS infrastructure, including GIS software
site licenses.
Collect and disseminate spatial datasets from scattered sources.
Forge interoperability between many distributed Harvard systems,
including the Harvard-MIT Data Center, the Harvard Geospatial
Library, and others.
Enable collaboration in the Harvard community through centralized
access to GIS resources.
Manage CGA help desks.
Other Large Scale GIS Projects at CGA
China Historical GIS http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~chgis/
Digitizing the Roman Empire and Medieval Europe
http://gis.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k235&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup7706
AfricaMap http://africamap.harvard.edu
The Challenge of Global Data Visualization Project
Challenge: Provide tool to allow professors to present global historic
patterns and flows visually.
Approach: Develop simple methodology for creating various types of
time animated maps.
 Create animations in video format and use slider to control time.
 Deploy animations via the web.
Types of Data
Two categories must be handled:
1) Continuous Time with Boolean Values ex. “Rise of Communism”
2) Regular Interval Time with Numeric Values ex: “Coffee Exports”
Continuous Time, Boolean Values
Example:
“Rise of Communism” or “Membership in WTO”
Description:
Countries turn on or off as status changes.
Workflow: Rise of Communism
1.
Researchers loads data to spreadsheets with columns for Country
and Year:



Country
Russia
Cuba
Year
1917
1959
2.
Spreadsheet is joined to country polygon GIS shape file.
3.
ESRI ArcScene used to generate animation in AVI format.

4.
ArcScene provide options for choosing the country color, the title of the
map, and the date to be displayed
AVI is Converted to Flash (swf) format.
Regular Interval, Numeric Values
Example:
“Coffee Exports” or “Oil Production”
Description:
Countries show color gradients for % of total
with time represented by decade intervals.
Workflow: Coffee Exports - 2D
1.
Researchers load data to spreadsheet of with columns for Country, Time
Interval 1, Time Interval 2, etc.

Country
1940

Columbia
3307

Brazil
9443
1950
3838
12,507
1960
4715
16,137
2.
Spreadsheet is joined to country polygon GIS shape file.
3.
Color gradient chosen in ArcMap - color value threshholds are selected which
can be used for all years.
4.
For each time interval i.e. 1940, a map is generated and saved to an image
format such as PNG.
5.
PNG images are loaded to Powerpoint.

Slide with title and date is created for each interval

Slides are loaded to “animation scheme” in Powerpoint
6.
Screen capture software such as Camtasia is used to capture slide show to
Flash ( http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp ).
Regular Interval, Numeric Values
Example:
“Coffee Exports” or “Oil Production”
Description:
Countries extruded based on % of total
with time represented by decade intervals.
Workflow Coffee Exports - 3D
1.
Researchers load data to spreadsheet of with columns for
Country, Time Interval 1, Time Interval 2, etc.



Country
1940
Columbia 320
Brazil
920
1950
415
1250
1960
546
1400
2.
Spreadsheet is joined to country polygon GIS shape file.
3.
ArcScene used to symbolize maps by extruding countries based
on a data value.

4.
PNG images are loaded to Powerpoint.


5.
Extruded maps are created for each time interval and saved as image
format such as PNG
Slide with title and date is created for each interval
Slides are loaded to “animation scheme” in Powerpoint
Screen capture software such as Camtasia is used to capture the
slide show to Flash ( http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp ).
Regular Interval, Numeric Values
Example:
“Wealth” or “Number of Cell Phones”
Description:
Countries displayed as cartograms based on % of
total.
Workflow: Cartograms
1.
Researchers load data to spreadsheet of with columns for Country, Time
Interval 1, Time Interval 2, etc.

Country
1950

China

India
2000
2.
Spreadsheet is joined to country polygon GIS shape file.
3.
For each time interval, a cartogram is generated and saved to an image format
such as PNG. (http://arcscripts.esri.com/details.asp?dbid=15384 )
4.
PNG images are loaded to Powerpoint.

Slide with title and date is created for each interval

Slides are loaded to “animation scheme” in Powerpoint
5.
Screen capture software such as Camtasia is used to capture slide show to
Flash ( http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp ).
Demos
1.
Rise of communism
2.
Coffee Exports 2d
3.
Coffee Exports 3d
4.
Cartograms (maps from Worldmapper http://www.worldmapper.org)
Thank you
Carla Tischler ctishler@hbs.edu
Ben Lewis blewis@cga.harvard.edu