Envisioning the future of academic cartographic education

Abstract

Abstract. Why do we teach cartography? The need for cartographic education:In our day to day life, on an individual or societal level there is a continual need or even demand for geospatial information. On an individual level this need is expressed by questions like: Where am I?, How far away is my new doctor’s office?, Which route should I take to get to my destination based on current traffic patterns? Other questions may include: What is the spatial extent of my land parcel? What do I have permission to build on my parcel? On a societal level questions include: What cities suffer from high unemployment? What are the most efficient spots to build a new wind farm? Where is the optimal place to build a new road without fragmenting important species habitats? To offer answers to these questions, geographic information systems (GIS) including tools and instruments have been developed. The most important communication tool to foster decision making, as part of a GIS, is the map. Reality is too complex to comprehend with the naked eye. Therefore patterns are often missed, maps and other cartographic models are an interface between humans and the reality used to abstract, symbolized, a simplify view of the world. These maps then allow us to view spatial patterns and relationships between objects in the world. The world cannot do without maps. Why? Because they tell us about spatial issues on both local and global scale that influence our lives. How? Maps are the most effective and the most efficient tools to into and overview of geographical data which help us answer spatio-temporal questions and to provide new insight. What is ongoing in our world? Trends in our domain: yesterday, today and tomorrow:Looking at the timeline of our domain, cartography, we could argue that after a long period where maps where seen as artifacts, maps are now considered to be interactive and dynamic (web) services, and in the near future we move to human centered cognitive map displays that are immersive and ubiquitous. Yesterday, the map could be considered an artifact, a static object, on paper or on a screen. The map stores the information and can no longer be changed. The user did not play a prominent role in map design. Today, with the internet, there has been a huge increase in data access and generation resulting in maps being produced and used especial to satisfy individual location-based queries such as ’Where am I right now’ and ‘How-do-I-get-there?’ questions. Societal questions are answered by maps available via automated services accessible via dedicated portals. Today maps are no longer artifacts, but provided as a digital map services. However, tomorrow the map will yet again be different. We are able to sense and monitor the world real time and ubiquitously, including human users’ spatial abilities, emotions, needs and requirements. With developments in interface design including more opportunities for 3d/4d/Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality Human-Computer-Interfaces are becoming even "closer" to our human processing system. Maps will increasingly become human-centered, highly interactive, dynamic and adjustable visual displays. Purpose: What are the cartographic consequences of these developments? Required cartographic competences: The above developments have resulted in the expansion of what define the existing established cartographic method: making geospatial data and information accessible for users to foster discovery and insight into and overview of spatiotemporal data. Map design, including fundamentals such as projection, scale, generalization and symbolization, remain core to cartography. Yesterday, cartographic education was focused on how to optimally create fixed graphical representations at a defined scale constrained by the media, but with an eye for syntactical as well as graphical/aesthetical quality. Today knowledge and skills cartographers require have expanded, and they include an understanding of Spatial Data Infras