Post on 30-Dec-2015
Mapping interviews with open source
technologies
Dr. Chris McDowallLandcare Research
FOSS4G, SydneyOct 23, 2009
geography
making stuff
+ knowledge representation
stuff that interests me
context
system
thoughts
[ some context ]
Qualitative researchis hard
After participating ininterviews, two thingsbecame clear …
Important material is lost
Audio is hard to analyse and search
So, this is what I did …
[ early experiments ]
Embed media in interactive map
User interface offers guided narrative and exploration
Good way to share and contextualise stories
Content creation is time consuming and costly
Does not address our interview problems
I kept stumbling across clues on the web …
http://www.iapad.org
http://johnnylee.net
An idea started forming …
[ the system ]
Interviewsnippet
Place name Geo-location
265 Queen Street, Auckland 1010,
New Zealand
POINT(-36.8507, 174.7464)
Build a system based on{ audio, placename, location }that answers questions like …
“Take me to the bit when she talked about Rawene”
“Show me all interviews that mention Taupo”
“Make me a map of the interview”
SQLite
OpenLayers
Create a new interview
Navigate to region of interest.Sync audio recording with the app …
… and begin
Markers are time-stamped, reverse-geocoded and sent to the database
The system also recognises freehand lines
Lines and markers remember what zoom level the map was at when they were created
When you’re finished, upload the mp3 file …
… and you have a map where audio is synced to gestures
Selecting markers on map or list controls the audio playback
Map centers and zooms to focus
… and lines too
[ whiteboard ]
terracode.com
[ some thoughts ]
This is an alpha system
Untested in a real interview
Next steps:testing,refine interface,control map with playerenhanced search
How should the system …
. assign names to lines?
. handle multi-part lines? (e.g. arrows). balance ease of use with flexible options?
search: audio geotagging
Thank you
Chris McDowall – Landcare ResearchTwitter @fogonwater