Assignment I – Identify & Review a DA or DH Tool: CartoDB

Posted on January 28, 2015 by robbiebyrne008 in Digital Humanities // 0 Comments

Mission Statement:

“I wanted to find and learn the basic operations of a free tool that could be used by a data-journalist to visualize data sets in order to generate news stories.”

1.0: Searching For A Tool

The initial tool I downloaded for use in this assignment was Gephi – an interactive

visualisation platform that is often used by data-journalists. However, once I

downloaded the programme it failed to open on my Mac. Searching for a fix on a

Gephi support forum revealed that the tool was not developed to work with any

Versions of Java past 6.0 (OSX Yosemite now runs on 9.0). This forced me to scrap

Gephi and search for a new tool that could visualize data sets layered over some

form of graph/ data representation.

2.0: Gathering Information

2.1: Is there a website about this tool?

Yes. The CartoDB is entirely web based, apart from the option to add spreadsheet data from Excel. Saved geospatial information is stored on a cloud server. No software download available. Find the link below:

<http://cartodb.com>

2.2: Did you collect and summarize information on this website?

I first came across the tool on the following link: <http://www.creativebloq.com/design-tools/data-visualization-712402>

I then followed the link to the CartoDB website where I gathered some information on the tool from semi-helpful video tutorials, to the text based help page.

2.3: Is there research-articles about the tool? Did you read them?

Not particularly. While, there are several bloggers that discuss the uses and potential uses for the tool, I could find only one article from a reputable source (University of Oregon) that could be considered a research article. Though I use the term ‘research’ in the loosest manner possible. The article explores the tool’s most basic functions, from creating a geospatial table akin to Google Fusion, to sharing the end product. Please find the link below:

<https://library.uoregon.edu/QW05-Mapping-CartoDB>

2.4: Does the information gathered show that the tool fits your research goals?

Yes. Any article however brief praises CartoDB’s simplicity and capability in comparison to software based mapping tools. Though I’ve only been able to unlock the most basic degree of the tool’s potential, I feel that if I commit myself fully to the data journalism cause this tool will be helpful.

3.0 Tool Maturity & Stability:

3.1: Did you find a roadmap for the tool?

Yes. I located what appears to be a partial roadmap for the tool. CartoDB Beta was released on September 15^th, 2011. Version 1.0 was released in April 2012. Version 2.0 was released in November 2012 is the current and final build.

3.2: Is it far from the first version?

Technically, CartoDB is on its third build, following Beta & version 1.0. CartoDB is currently investing $7 million to convert information into usable datasets. Therefore, the application has yet to reach de facto completion.

3.3 Is it Stable?

I had no stability issues with the tool. An inspection of online forums revealed no issues with the current version of the tool. However, there is no official CartoDB forum publically available, so there may be some issues discussed among developers that we will not know of.

4.0: Sustainability of the tool.

4.1: How long has the tool been available for?

The tool has been available for 40 months. (Sept 2011).

4.2: Is there a strong community supporting it?

There appears to be a strong community supporting CartoDB. The supporting community can be found on the following Google groups thread: <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/cartodb>

Another active forum is can be found on the Freenode IRC channel #cartodb. Members of the CartoDB developer and user community are known to gather at the Free and Open Source Software for Geospatia (FOSS4G) annual conferences.

4.3: Is it open-source?

Yes.

4.4: Can you export data and its results?

Yes.

4.5: What kind of export?

After creating updated, or deleted data from a CartoDB table, you can export them for sharing or offline use. You can also embed maps and data created on a self-hosted website.

5.0: Sustainability of your research

5.1: Do you understand how the tool works (including algorithm)?

While I don’t have a strong understanding of the mechanics behind the tool, I have read that CartoDB uses PostgreSQL and PostGIS that allows queries on data the user runs through SQI API. What this means, however, I‘d love to know!

5.2 Will the tool allow your research results to be verifiable and reproducible?

As of now, I am undecided as to what my actual research topic is going to be. However, I would assume that once the data used in the input table is reputable, the research results generated by CartoDB would be equally verifiable. As for CartoDB’s ability to generate reproducible research results – I couldn’t see how this would be an issue due to the tool’s ability to embed links and export data.

6.0 What I Created

I set out to create three basic maps on CartoDB. I must admit that I found the tool difficult to work with at first, but I soon found myself back on track after checking out the CartoDB forum on Google groups.

The data I used came from The Guardian’s recent article: ‘Today’s key fact: you are probably wrong about almost everything.’[1] For this article I picked out the European nations from three data sets:

Difference between actual and average: Out of 100 people, how many people do you think are Muslim?
Difference between actual and average: Out of 100 people, how many people do you think are Christian?
Difference between actual and average: Out of 100 people, how many people do you think are immigrants?

These three questions were then compiled using geospatial tables pulled from <www.naturalearthdata.com>. I then visualized this information on CartoDB. While my first map was quite basic, as I progressed onto the other data sets I felt more comfortable in toying around with the tool’s visual settings. I then compiled the three data sets to create my own ‘ignorance index’ akin to the Guardian’s, albeit with CartoDB’s ‘bubble’ function.

7.0: Live Links to my CartoDB Graphs:

8.0 Adding To DiRT Directory

CartoDB was uploaded to the DiRT Directory by Shawn Day (Last modified: 29/12/2014). I also added this review of the tool to DiRT.

[1] Nardelli, Alberto, and George Arnett. “Today’s Key Fact: You Are Probably Wrong about Almost Everything.” The Guardian 29 Oct. 2014. The Guardian. Web. 27 Jan. 2015.