We are developing
a web-based Atlas of Global Inequality.
This mini-grant will be used to bring
faculty together from several campuses
to discuss the potential of web-based
teaching using cartographic and graphical
materials. The pilot version of the
Atlas uses dynamic presentations to
discuss large social issues: globalization,
forms of inequality, and governance.
Advantages to the
use of online presentations include
1) easy access in classroom, and by
students working outside of class,
to high-quality map and graphical
presentation 2) dynamic presentations
of data that cannot be replicated
in print 3) interactive access to
databases 4) multimedia components.
This web-based atlas
has the potential to improve access
to map and graphical presentations
in large courses. The web-based atlas
can make maps and visuals more accessible
to students and more easily available
for classroom use. Dynamic presentations,
showing changes in particular indicators
over several decades, can increase
student comprehension and raise important
questions about changes in particular
countries and the strengths and limitations
of the data. Online presentations
can use roll-over techniques to put
successive data presentations (e.g.,
national infant mortality at ten year
intervals) onscreen in rapid succession.
This facility makes comparison of
changes in global data quickly apparent.
Amongst other possibilities, we think
students will be able to utilize ideas
and information from the Atlas in
class or section debates. This possibility
will be explored next quarter.
Professors Crow
and Lubeck teach an introductory course,
Sociology 15 World Society, which
introduces students to debates about
globalization and ways of understanding
international forces and social change.
Some 500 students take Sociology 15
each year. It covers a wide range
of historical, sociological and economic
data which can best be explored with
the help of graphical and map presentations.
In winter 2002, Prof. Crow will be
using atlas materials to establish
a debate in section about views of
globalization.
Prof. Watts teaches
Development Studies 10 another large,
introductory course that would benefit
from an online atlas. Both Sociology
15 and DS10 have sometimes used the
Third World Atlas (Thomas and Crow
1994) which the Principal Investigator
helped to produce. Prof. Muldavin
teaches International Development
Studies 100A Introduction to Development
Studies with 300 students at UCLA.
A prototype of the
atlas has been created, and can be
viewed at http://media.ucsc.edu/globe/.
The development
of this pilot online atlas has been
supported by contributions from a
number of sources, including: UCSC
Classroom Technologies Grant of $15k
to Prof. Lubeck (1998-9) for the Global
Information Internship Program (GIIP),
$200k Carnegie Foundation grant on
globalization and Islam to Lubeck,
and a $1k grant from the Santa Cruz
Center for International Economics
to fund a research assistant.
Planning objectives
that have a reasonable chance of leading
to a full-scale implementation grant
proposal include:
UCSC Sociology:
Assistant Professor Ben Crow, Professor
Paul Lubeck.
Economics: Professor Menzie Chin.
Women's Studies: Radhika Mongia.
UC Berkeley: Professor Michael Watts,
International Studies and Geography.
UCLA: Assistant Professor Joshua Muldavin,
Co-Chair International Development
Studies, Geography Department.
