Funding

  Project Proposal:   
  Atlas of Global Inequality

  Participants:
  UCB, UCLA, UCSC, UCSD

  Principal Investigators:
  Ben Crow (UCSC)

Our team of UC faculty and students is applying for the Teaching Learning and Technology Collaborative Implementation Grant for 2002-2003 to support the enhancement and broader application of the UC Atlas of Global Inequality in the University of California system. This project is a multimedia web-based atlas focusing on economic and social inequality and changes associated with globalization.

Globalization has been described as '...a widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness in all aspects of contemporary social life, from the cultural to the criminal, the financial to the spiritual' (Held and McGrew 1999: 2). The information that we present in the website will serve as a resource for UC instructors and students of large undergraduate courses that explore the many aspects of globalization.

The objective of this project is to allow users to examine global inequality and the impact of globalization through interactive presentations. Map, graphical and tabular presentations show and give students access to current data and information. This project aims to provide instructors of introductory courses with a multifaceted instructional resource. Materials can be used in class lectures, in section, or by students on their own. This website will harness Internet capabilities for multi-media presentations to deepen student learning. Dynamic and interactive presentations incorporating video, text, photos, audio, graphs, maps will be used to bring economic and social data to life.

The atlas can assist students in making regional and national comparisons. An exercise along these lines has been used successfully in Sociology 15 at UCSC. The Atlas can also be used to stimulate discussion of broad topics such as the impacts of free trade on well being in developing countries.

Students will have access to a series of dynamic and creative presentations. The interactive time-series maps currently available on the website provide one example. Animation will be used to illuminate the inter-relationships between economic and social indicators (e.g. income and access to healthcare). Photo essays will depict alternative perspectives on globalization.

  Background:

The development of the Atlas began Spring 2001 with funding and administrative support from the UCSC Center for Global, International and Regional Studies (CGIRS) and Santa Cruz Center for International Economics (SCCIE). The website can be viewed at www2.ucsc.edu/atlas.

The TLtC Planning Mini-Grant in December of 2001 enabled a planning workshop to be held in March. Faculty from six UC campuses contributed to a discussion about the design, content and pedagogical issues of the next phase of the project. That workshop helped identify some of the weaknesses of the current layout and a range of improvements that could encourage a wider use of the site.

Student research assistants and the Principal Investigator Ben Crow at UC Santa Cruz developed the design and layout of this site in Fall 2001 and Winter 2002. This web-based atlas has been successfully used in teaching two large undergraduate introductory courses at UC Santa Cruz and at UC Santa Barbara. Student evaluations of use of the Atlas in UCSC are reported below.

Geographical Information System (GIS) labs at UC Santa Cruz and UC Santa Barbara campuses will provide technical support. The project has this far been funded with support from the UCSC Committee on Teaching New Technologies Grant program, which will provide funding for the computer hardware and software needed to maintain and further develop the design of this website.

TLtC Planning Grant Follow-up Report:
The TLtC $5k Planning grant funded two elements of the project development:

• Workshop. The inter-campus workshop that was held in Santa Cruz on March 1st. Fourteen faculty members, from six UC campuses, contributed to the Workshop (a copy of the agenda and a summary of the meeting minutes is included).
• Student Research Assistant. A student research assistant was hired to help in the implementation of suggestions generated by the March 1st workshop, collaborate on the design and improvements of the Atlas, as well as to draft future funding proposals for this project.

Workshop discussion generated a range of ideas about website focus, content and design, and its use in improving large course instruction and student learning. All those involved in the workshop have agreed to participate in extending the scope of the Atlas. A range of suggestions, coming from the Workshop, about the content, design and innovative utilization of the website is under discussion.

Evaluation of student use of Atlas in Sociology 15 World Society
Students of Sociology 15, World Society, at UCSC used the Atlas for one assignment in the winter 2002 quarter. They were asked to examine changes in life expectancy and Gross Domestic Product per capita in a country of their choice. The website enabled them to examine global and regional changes in these data and to readily extract data for a group of countries. Course texts and other Internet sources provided concepts and information that illuminated processes of change involved. Students presented their findings in discussion sections. Then each wrote a two-page essay summarizing what he or she had found.

At the end of the class, students completed a questionnaire rating the utility and navigability of the website. On a five-point scale, 48% of students ranked the Atlas 4 or 5, 40% rated it 3, and only 12% ranked it 2 or 1. Inspection of students' narrative answers shows that even those who ranked the site 2 or 1 liked the idea of the Atlas. Some feature of the website that they found inaccessible irritated many of these students. Asked if they would like to see the Atlas used in other courses, most said yes and gave examples of courses where they would like the Atlas to be used. One student wrote, 'Should be in all courses that have to do with econ and soc issues'. Suggestions for improvement concerned design and expansion of available of data.

  Nature of the Collaboration

The following UC faculty will be involved in the design of the next stages and in developing the instructional use of the UC Atlas of Global Inequality.

• Assistant Professor Ben Crow, Department of Sociology, UCSC (Principal Investigator)
• Professor Paul Lubeck, Department of Sociology, UCSC (Co-Principal Investigator)
• Professor Menzie Chinn, Department of Economics, UCSC
• Professor Radhika Mongia, Department of Women's Studies, UCSC
• Professor Michael Watts, Department of Geography, Director of the Institute of International Studies, UCB
• Associate Professor Frank Hirtz, Department of Community Studies, UCD
• Professor Richard Applebaum, Department of Sociology, Director of the Institute for Social Behavioral and Economic Research, Co-Director, Center for Global Studies, UCSB
• Professor Paula Braveman, Department of Family Health, UCSF
  

Faculty members have agreed to serve as a working group for the project in order to maintain its relevance in course teaching at the university level. Since we have generated support from a diverse group of faculty members, each member will provide direction on how they would be able to effectively implement this website into their course instruction. The working group will also include Bob Sutcliffe (Economics, Cambridge University), author of 100 Ways to View an Unequal World, Professor Emeritus David Sweet, Department of History at UCSC, Professor Geoffrey Robinson, Department of History at UCLA, Professor Richard Perry and Professor Joshua Muldavin at Sarah Lawrence College. Subsequent workshops will be held in the future to continue the improvement and use of the site in course teaching within the UC campus system and at other universities as well.

Additionally, we will receive web-server support and technical services from the Geographic Information Systems (GIS) lab on the UC Santa Cruz, and training and GIS web design support from the Center for Spatially Integrated Social Sciences (CSISS) at UC Santa Barbara. The collaboration will consist of web hosting and maintenance to be provided by the UC Santa Cruz GIS Lab, where they have agreed to a cost-sharing agreement for software and services. Programming support will come from CSISS at UC Santa Barbara and is essential in implementing GIS software for use by the target audience of the Atlas. Training and the enhancement of the GIS website capabilities will be coordinated between UCSC researchers and CSISS staff.

  Choice of Technology:

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and interactive database software packages offer powerful capabilities for instructors. The initial version of the UC Atlas of Global Inequality is tapping only the simplest of these capabilities. Already it is apparent that a web-based atlas presents significant advantages, including 1) easy access in classroom by students to high-quality maps and graphical presentations 2) dynamic presentations that cannot be replicated in print and allows the addition of updated data and new presentations easily and within a short time frame 3) interactive access to data bases so that teachers have the ability to cross-reference data interactively and generate maps, charts and graphs for their own presentations 4) multimedia capabilities including maps, graphs, charts, text, photos, hyperlinks, video and sound.

We are using ESRI ArcView mapping software to create presentation-quality graphics. In this next phase, we will add a fully interactive web interface, using ESRI ArcIMS, which allows users to develop maps using their own unique queries.

  Project Goals

Objective
The Atlas of Global Inequality provides a resource that is engaging and that can stimulate a wide range of student participation. With the aid of this web site, instructors will be able to present material using the multimedia capabilities of the internet. Subsequently, students can explore the Atlas individually or in groups to analyze and compare qualitative and quantitative data.

In the past, economic and social data has often been presented in hard copy. For example, the Third World Atlas (Thomas and Crow 1994), which Principal Investigator Ben Crow helped to produce, has been used in this way. Hard copy presentations are limited in at least two ways. First, the presentation of data is static and difficult to update. Second, publication is expensive and hard to access in library reference sections. By contrast, a web-based atlas 1) has the potential to provide dynamic presentations of data 2) is cheap and easily updated and 3) is readily accessible to those with an internet connection.

In addition, the GIS technology will present data in more dynamic and interesting ways than are possible in hard-copy format. In this next phase, we will implement a prototype of a completely interactive web-based GIS interface. This interface can promote a new style of learning. As students read the presentations, they will develop questions about trends in social and economic indicators. They can then use the ArcIMS interface to develop custom queries based on their questions. The results of the queries will be immediately available in map and text format, allowing students to continue exploring their topics of interest. For example, if students notice a trend, they can explore other indicators related to that trend. They could also use the interface to compare trends between countries and regions of their own choosing. The range of data that will be available, coupled with the interactive nature of the site, will allow students to investigate many issues in new ways. This is what we mean when we suggest that the Atlas will enable students to develop a deeper understanding of global questions.

Design and Learning Outcomes
The design and layout of the UC Atlas of Global Inequality provides a simple and innovative way to present economic and social data to students. Easy access to the Internet will facilitate interaction between students and instructors in both large and small class settings. The Atlas will also enable more sophisticated exercises suitable for smaller groups to participate in during section and lab times. The web site presentations allow students to individually access and analyze the material on their own in order to reinforce the course material, as well as providing a tool for researching class assignments.

The initial design will provide four divisions of global indicators (described below). Participating faculty will provide data sources and ideas on the presentation and animation of these data for the instructional use of the Atlas. These divisions will be multi-layered examinations of global connectivity, utilizing a range of multi-media resources in the presentations. The first layer incorporates various data collected by the World Bank and United Nations to reflect the global trends, which will be shown using geo-referenced interactive maps that have already been developed by student research assistants using GIS software. Subsequent layers will present more specific views involving intra-country disparities and changes, presented using a combination of quantitative and qualitative data by presenting smaller statistical samples, photos, audio, additional text and animation to engage the student to think about the underlying issues that surround the global statistical data presented in the first level.

Each division will also incorporate historical elements that are not captured in contemporary statistical data collections. The unique historical sources will come from such archives as the historical movements of disease, catastrophic events and commodity trading. These historical sources will enrich the content of the site by providing additional and unique informational analysis of globalization. We intend for this website to provide students with a deep historical context in which to begin understanding the depth of global interconnectedness.
We will also include information on the various methods being implemented to alleviate or change these disparities, such as information from the Equity Gauge Initiative, which is monitoring health equity of 11 developing countries and micro-finance programs that are being used in economic development plans. The initial four divisions of the Atlas of Global Inequality will be:

• Economy. Students will be able to examine global maps and data tables on such indicators as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), Gross National Product (GNP). Future Atlas presentations will examine intra-country inequalities, and we expect to be able to portray flows between countries of trade, capital and people (migration).
• Health. Health inequalities within as well as between countries are very significant. For example, the mortality rate of children under 5, in developing countries, can be 4 to 15 times higher for the poor than for the rich (Braveman presentation, Workshop 3/1/02).
• Gender. The Gender Development Index (GDI) developed by the UN Development Program provides one way of illustrating global gender inequalities. We plan to use case studies to present more specific, and qualitative, analysis of gender relations.
• Environment. We plan to work with Environmental Studies faculty to identify the pedagogically most-useful presentations. Obvious candidates include measures of the energy-efficiency of economic activity, deforestation rates, greenhouse gas emissions and access to clean water.

In addition the Atlas will contain case studies that highlight the various impacts of economic and social changes. This phase of the project will present five case studies to illustrate how students can begin to think about globalization using the World Bank data that is provided in the Atlas. The five case studies will explore the changing conditions of the following regions.

• South East Asian "miracles" - Industrialization and financial crisis in South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong.
• South / Central Africa - Explore the economic and social impacts of the AIDS crisis.
• Discuss the phenomenon of low growth and high human development countries such as Sri Lanka, Costa Rica and Cuba.
• Discuss the economic and social experiences of former socialist bloc countries.
• Discuss the experience of Latin American Newly Industrializing Countries, Brazil, Mexico and Argentina.

  Instructional Applications

Courses that will be using the Atlas during its first year include:

• Sociology 15, World Society (500 students) - UC Santa Cruz.
• Economics 140, International trade - UC Santa Cruz.
• Development Studies 10 (132 students) and Development Studies 100 (125 students) - UC Berkeley.
• The Global & International Studies Program Introductory Course (310 students) and an upper division course on the contemporary world system (90 students) - UC Santa Barbara.
• CRD 154, Social Theories of Community Change and CRD 151, International Community Development- UC Davis.

The website will provide presentation materials for course instructors and will be used to motivate discussions and assignments outside the classroom. Instructors will be able to use the website within their lectures to demonstrate various relationships between indicators. If Internet capabilities are unavailable in the classroom instructors can download maps and other graphical presentations to use on overhead projectors. Instructors can also use the interactive capabilities of the website software. Instructors will be able to select data and compare certain countries, regions or trading blocs to present. This allows the site to be used in different types of courses. The Atlas also has great potential as an element in distance learning courses and multi-campus courses.

Many courses in the Social Sciences require students to write research papers of some kind as part of the curriculum. This web site will provide students with a unique presentation of material, which will allow them to develop their own hypotheses to explain the data trends. The interactivity of the site allows students with different methods of learning to adapt the multi-media tools that are most effective for their individual learning. Raw data will be available from the World Bank and other sources, providing a consolidated source of information. The site also provides simple and accurate explanations of the fundamental concepts being presented so that students have substantial foundation of understanding that enables them to move forward in their own individual research and understanding.

The future goals of this project will be to further expand the information available to reflect regional and country presentations so that students can compare regional and intra-country issues. Some of the topics that will be included in the next phase of this project will include gender inequality, environmental changes and social / historical progressions. Other elements that will also be added to the website are presentations that focus on specific investigative topics, such as the affects of free trade zones and micro-finance programs. These investigative topics can be on going research projects developed for courses utilizing this website or individual student research papers. We will also include an internet bulletin board enabling students, and instructors, in the various disciplines to contact one another for other informational resources to encourage a more collaborative learning process between campuses. We also plan to include more qualitative resources such as essays, literature suggestions, hyperlinks to other sites and news articles that will be suggested by our working group.

  Timeline

The initial phase of the project is complete and has been successfully used in the classroom. The next step is for us to enhance the technical capabilities of the site, as well as expand the scope of the content. The project will be augmented for inter campus use in stages over the course of one year. The multi-phased approach provides the opportunity to incorporate classroom feedback into later stages of the project's enhancement, as well as increase the content of the site.

Summer 2002 - We will be implementing the suggestions from our March 1st collaborative workshop as well as using Winter 2002 student feedback to improve the site. We will also put into operation the computer hardware and software that was funded by UCSC Committee on Teaching New Technologies Grant. The software will enable our group to develop ways of tracking the use of the website online, develop an online database, allow for more data sources to be available to students in text, photo, or audio formats and create other presentations using animation capabilities. We will continue our collaboration with the GIS lab at UCSC and the CSISS at UCSB to enhance the site for wider use throughout the UC system. Student Researchers will develop significant new sections of content as described above. In addition to improving the maps and graphics, student researchers will analyze the data for trends and correlations between different indicators, and develop corresponding text to explain their findings.

2002-2003 school year - The 2002-2003 school year will be dedicated to implementing improvements and enhancing the web site based on the student and instructor responses, as well as suggestions from the inter-campus video conference to be held mid-year. Student Research Assistants will continue introducing new information so that the five divisions of globalization have the first and second levels completed. Student Research Assistants will also identify text, photo, graphical and audio resources to include on the site. We will implement a prototype of the interactive ArcIMS GIS interface. We will continue incorporating the site into course instruction where we will compile student feedback at the end of each course to help us improve the functionality and navigation of the site. At the end of the year, we will hold an all-day conference with the working advisory group, to help set the direction for the next phases of implementation. The new development may include technical enhancements, as well as expanding the scope of the content.

2003 Summer - At this stage we will begin implementing intra-country comparisons and improving on the site design based on surveys collected during the 2002-2003 school year. This phase will consist of gathering diverse number of data sets as well as qualitative information and integrating it with the existing web format and GIS software. Student Researchers will develop new content based on feedback from the advisory group conference. We will complete implementation on a fully functioning interactive ArcIMS GIS interface.

2003- 2004 school year- The 2003- 2004 school year will involve further web site enhancement by expanding content and incorporating suggestions, as relevant, to be implemented for the use of instructors during the course of the year. At this point, the site will be a substantial resource that can be made more readily available to institutions outside the UC system to further extend content through the collaboration with other university instructors. Future assessments will involve tracking, observation and feedback with findings building onto previous years' results and patterns.

  Project Assessment

We are currently using feedback from student surveys and instructors' input to improve on the format and content of the website, as well as planning for the site's enhancement in the future. This component of the project's assessment is vital in sustaining instructor support and use of the site in the future. It will remain an integral aspect of the site's enhancement moving forward.

The 2002 - 2003 school year will offer a more complete version of the web site. Tracking software will be used to evaluate site usage. We will be able to monitor the "hit rate," which pages are accessed most often, which links are followed, and which images, texts and maps are downloaded. UC campus instructors will continue to include this site as an instructional tool, which will provide feedback on the website's functionality as a classroom tool, as well as the ease of the design. Direct student feedback will continue to be a major component of this project's evaluation. A feedback button will be located on the site that allows students to submit any suggestions to improve the site. We will also use instructor / TA observations to give us indication of students' usage of the site as an informational source for research papers and discussion sections.

Throughout this time we will maintain contact with our advisory group through emailed project updates and a video conference to be held mid-way through the project's first year so that we can continue to improve the functionality of the website as instructors begin involving the site in more course applications.

We will also coordinate another workshop in the spring of 2003 inviting our working group to return to assess the progress of the project, propose any additional improvements and to discuss how we will be able to maintain the website's relevance and usefulness as an academic resource in the future.

The summer of 2003 will involve further web site development by expanding content and incorporating suggestions from the spring 2003 workshop. Future assessments will involve tracking, observation and feedback with findings building onto previous years' results and patterns.

  Plan for Continued Funding

We plan to seek continued support from the TLtC Implementation Grants for 2003-2004 and 2004-2005 in order to maintain funding for Student Research Assistants to further expand and enrich each division of the website in the future. This will also fund the web-server maintenance of the website by the GIS lab staff at UCSC.

We will also apply for additional funding from sources such as the Carnegie Education Fund, the Rockefeller Foundation's Global Inclusion Fund, the Russell Foundation and the Hewlett Foundation. We plan to submit Letters of Inquiry to each of these foundations in spring 2002.

Additionally, we will seek technological support from private corporations such as the AOL / Time Warner Foundation. We plan to submit these inquiries during the fall of 2002 once we have developed a strategy of technological implementation with the participating GIS labs.