Web Basics and Background Information

One of the leaders in employing the power of the Internet in geography today is Dr. Kenneth E. Foote of the University of Texas at Austin. He maintains a set of on-line notes that outline some of the basics of the Internet. One of Dr. Foote's pages, in fact, was modified in creating this overview for the workshop.

Another very good resource, prepared by Willard McCarty at the University of Toronto, is a "review of the basics" of the Internet and the WWW. These notes are part of an excellent larger collection on Geography and Geographers on the Web, which includes a well-documented resource sampler and a web-page writing exercise.

You might also examine a short set of articles entitled "The Accidental Superhighway: A Survey of the Internet" that appeared in the Economist in 1995. This is one of the best surveys of the Internet available on-line.

Getting Started

Many indexes and lists are available to help you find resources in the World Wide Web. V.U.'s Geography and Meteorology home page, for instance, has links to a few geography resources. Most departmental home pages do. As examples here, I have selected a few fundamental resources for geographers and a few that may lead you to interesting materials.

• The Virtual Geography Department
  This rich site contains a wide range of resources and materials aimed at linking geography departments worldwide using the Internet and World Wide Web. Key links: "Other Geography Courses," "Departments in the Web," and "Educational Resources." You might also explore some of the links to specific working groups or "clusters."
  
  
• The WWW Virtual Library
  This site consists of a searchable catalogue of materials arranged by subject. Check out the "Geography" link, as well as others that may contain useful information.
  
  
• USGS Homepage
  Many resources for geography, cartography, and GIS.
  
  
• NASA's Homepage
  Consider the materials that NASA is making available in the Web. This is an especially good remote sensing site.
  
  
• POPClock
  A service of the U.S. Bureau of the Census.

Searching

Use one of the popular Web search engines to look for materials relating to your personal or teaching interests. These engines are found here and can also be accessed by pressing the "Net Search" button on the frame of the Netscape window.

Some newer search engines allow for multiple parallel searches of existing engines or for "smarter" searches of a limited number of screened web sites. Consider the following examples:

Savvy Search

OneKey: The Smart Search Engine

Examine

It is worth examining a few projects and sources in more detail, including:

• The Bosnian Virtual Fieldtrip
  Consider this new and exciting approach to fieldtrips that combines maps, text, photographs, sounds, and a glossary of key terms. By including thoughtful questions, this is an excellent exercise for students on the Bosnian crisis.
  
  
• The GeoWeb Project
  A project intended to improve worldwide access to geographical data.
  
  
• Earthworks
  A revolutionary new on-line journal of geography. Articles are submitted, reviewed, and published electronically. The hypertext format of the Web creates many new and exciting opportunities for authors.
  
  
• Maps in the News
  An excellent assortment of maps from the John R. Borchert Map Library at the University of Minnesota on current issues, including.Bosnia, Chernobyl, and the Middle East.
  
  
• Geo Info Systems Online: GIS Resource Links
  A well-organized resource list with an accompanying clickable imagemap on GIS materials. Resource subtopics include hardware and software, on-line data, government agencies, and remote sensing.
  
  
• The Great Lakes: An Environmental Atlas and Resource Book, Third Edition
  An entire atlas loaded with maps and text available on-line. Jointly produced by the Government of Canada and the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 1995.
  
  
• The Geo-Images Project
  A project at the University of California at Berkeley designed to make images (mostly photographs) that are useful in teaching geography more widely available. Conceived, constructed, and maintained by G. Donald Bain.
  
  
• Yellowstone National Park
  The National Park Service's web site for the crown jewel of our national park system. Lots of good information on the park itself, as well as a link to the park's Spatial Analysis Center (GIS lab).

Learning More

There is a wide range of published guides and texts available commercially. Many come with cd-roms loaded with shareware programs, web page templates, and the like.. Just about any source of this kind will be useful, but will probably be out of date in six months. The best sources for learning how to publish are on-line.

A much more modest resource, with a few select links and a summary of HTML tags, exists for my course on the Profession of Geography.

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