Person:

Blossom, Jeffrey

WorldMap is a web-based, map-centric data exploration system built on open-source geospatial technology at Harvard University. It is designed to serve collaborative research and teaching, but is also accessible to the general public. This article explains WorldMap's basic functions through several historical research projects, demonstrating its flexible scale (from neighborhood to continent) and diverse research themes (social, political, economic, cultural, infrastructural, etc.). Also shared in this article are our experiences in handling technical and institutional challenges during system development, such as synchronization of software components being developed by multiple organizations; juggling competing priorities for serving individual requests and developing a system that will enable users to support themselves; balancing promotion of the system usage with constraints on infrastructure investment; harnessing volunteered geographic information while managing data quality; as well as protecting copyrights, preserving permanent links and citations, and providing long-term archiving.

Founded in 1818, the Harvard Map Collection (HMC) is the oldest map collection in America, holding 400,000 maps, more than 6,000 atlases and thousands of reference books. HMC has a strong commitment to digital resources and manages the Harvard Geospatial Library, a foundation for geospatial data service at Harvard. The Center for Geographic Analysis at Harvard University (CGA) was founded in 2006, independent of the library system, to serve the entire university. This article presents the history, organizational structure, and operational model of CGA and HMC, reviews achievements, lessons learned, suggests future improvements, and reviews GIS-related medical research at Harvard.

The Center for Geographic Analysis (CGA) at Harvard University supports research and teaching that relies on geographic information. This includes supporting geographic analysis for public health research at Harvard. This article reviews geographic concepts that apply to public health, pertinent data available in geographic format, and GIS analytical techniques. The work-flow methodology the CGA has developed for conducting research with geographic data will be presented, highlighting successful practices to follow and pitfalls to avoid. Applications of this work flow are illustrated through an in-depth discussion of specific case studies in public health research at the university.