Course Title: Design and Electronic Publishing 1

Part A: Course Overview

Course Title: Design and Electronic Publishing 1

Credit Points: 12.00

Course Code	Campus	Career	School	Learning Mode	Teaching Period(s)
GEOM2097	City Campus	Undergraduate	145H Mathematical & Geospatial Sciences	Face-to-Face	Sem 2 2006, Sem 2 2007, Sem 2 2008, Sem 2 2009, Sem 2 2010
GEOM2098	City Campus	Postgraduate	145H Mathematical & Geospatial Sciences	Face-to-Face	Sem 2 2006

Course Coordinator: Gita Pupedis

Course Coordinator Phone: 03 9925 3267

Course Coordinator Email: gita.pupedis@rmit.edu.au

Course Coordinator Location: 12.10.23

Course Coordinator Availability: Wednesday - Friday

Pre-requisite Courses and Assumed Knowledge and Capabilities

Cartography 1

Students must have a thorough understanding of cartographic theory and skills in the use of CorelDraw for map production.

Course Description

This course comprises two distinct components of cartographic design and electronic publishing. The first component is that of cartographic design issues – in particular those related to paper based products, the second component focuses on the usability of cartographic products, with a focus on web based mapping.

Cartographic Design Issues
These lectures and field trip are designed to expand the student’s understanding of cartographic design issues. Existing research in areas including; psychology of design, elements of graphic design featuring cartography, use of colour, choropleth map design and typographic design issues are explored. The aim is to enable students to understand, analyse and utilise the appropriate design tools for any given cartographic design exercise. The focus is on paper based products, although the theory is applicable to all cartographic products. The course is run as a series of lectures, tutorials and a field trip.

Usability of Cartographic Products
These lectures, tutorials and workshops provide a theoretical and practical program that investigates the role of evaluation in the development of usable cartographic products. Emphasis is placed on different evaluation techniques and associated procedures. The aim is to equip students with the necessary skills to be able to incorporate evaluation processes into the cartographic product design life cycle and to be able to critically assess the quality of designs in a controlled, scientific manner. The course is run as a series of lectures, tutorials and workshops.

Objectives/Learning Outcomes/Capability Development

This course should enable you to develop the following capabilities:

The ability to use sound cartographic design principles to not only produce a "good looking" geospatial product, but also an effective, useful and usable product. 
A sound knowledge of the design of usable products and the role of evaluation in the cartographic product development life cycle.
An understanding of evaluation techniques and the ability  to develop sound testing methodology.
The ability to apply evaluation theory and techniques.
The ability to present, discuss and justify the results of evaluation exercises.
The ability to prepare a professional evaluation report and other written materials.

Overview of Learning Activities

This course is presented as a series of lectures, tutorials and workshops, together with a three day fieldtrip.

Overview of Learning Resources

Prescribed References:
Neilson, J. (1993) Usability Engineering, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc: San Francisco, USA.
Rubin, J. (1994) Handbook of Usability Testing: How to plan, design and conduct effective tests, John Wiley & Sons, Inc: New York, USA.

Recommended References:
Kraak, M.J. & Ormeling, F.J. 1996, Cartography: Visualisation of Spatial Data, Harlow, UK : Addison Wesley Longman Ltd.
Cartography, Mapping Sciences Institute, Australia.
MacEachren, A.M. & Taylor, D.R&gtF&gt, (ed) 1994, Visualisation in Modern Cartography, New York : Pergammon.
SUC Journal, Society of Cartographers.
The Cartographic Journal, The British Cartographic Society.
Australian Bureau of Statistics (1999) An Introduction to Sample Surveys: A User’s Guide, ABS Catologue no. 1299.0, ABS: Australia.
Hague, P. (1993) Questionnaire Design, The Market Research Series, Krogan Page Limited: London, UK.
Other references will be provided in class as appropriate.

Overview of Assessment

This course is assessed by a combination of Tutorial exercises, Assignments, Practical map design exercises (plus field trip); student based learning projects and a usability-testing project.