Maps and mapping are a useful way of building community capacity.
Selected Portfolio
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NativeMaps.org
www.nativemaps.org is an important and popular repository of news and best practices in GIS use for traditional knowledge mapping, training, methodology, and data. The site has increasingly included other topical areas, important news stories, and job postings. There has been an evolution in what information the AMN delivers, and this precipitated a re-thinking of how AMN information should be stored, accessed, updated, searched and presented. That's where MapsWest came in.
We proposed to enhance www.nativemaps.org in three main ways, by: (1) adding more interactivity and functionality; (2) giving it more sparkle; and (3) making the site easier to maintain. We redesigned the AMN portal using best of breed open source web design and web database software: we installed a dynamic page delivery system using a content management system (CMS). The completed site leverages the following open source web tools: Drupal (www.drupal.org), PHP (www.php.net), MySQL (www.mysql.com) to build the AMN CMS.
The original site (top left) was built and updated using Dreamweaver. The site had a confusing hiearchy of categories and more than 400 pieces of information (from one sentence notes to full PDF reports). For the completed site (top right) we migrated all 400+ pieces of information into MySQL. These nodes are now searchable, and easily modified using the Drupal CMS front end. As of February 2008 there are over 2800 nodes in the system and thousands of users.
Click here to visit the new AMN Portal: www.nativemaps.org
Tsawataineuk First Nation
More information coming soon.
Peninsula Play Spaces
The Peninsula Parks and Play Spaces Project wa an initiative to increase awareness and use of parks and play spaces as local resources that can help foster the healthy development of young children (0-6 years) and their families.
MapsWest supported the second phase of the project: GIS and cartography. The resulting map received an honourable mention and is included in the 2008 ESRI Canada Map Calendar. Read more about the project at the Common Ground Community Mapping Project website.
