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Project Mentor
Dr. Anna H. Yu
Department of Computer Science
North Carolina A&T State University
Greensboro, NC 27411
Project Sponsor
CREW
Project title:
Design and Implementation of Web-Based Graphic User Interfaces for Geographic Information Systems
Report Period: June 1, 2000 to May 30, 2001
1. Goals and Purpose
This report presents the results of twelve months of work on the project "Design and Implementation of Web-Based Graphic User Interfaces for Geographic Information Systems" in the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina A&T State University (NC A&T SU). In this project we developed friendly, simple and easy to use Web-Based Graphic User Interfaces. The GUIs provide a user friendly environment to help users retrieve the rich GIS information.
The purposes of this project are: a) to attract African American female students to join computer science research activities, b) to train African American female students to collaborate towards research in a technical environment, c) to improve the students’ research capabilities, and d) to enhance minority students research and education at NC A&T SU – a HBCU.
2. Activities
The following are significant activities performed that were directly related to the project supported by CREW.
Under Dr. Yu's guidance Ms. Moore and Ms. King spent one month searching related literatures. They learned how to use published resources, such as IEEE, ACM, to find published papers on Web design and implementation as well as GIS related research results. The faculty selected and guided them to read two GIS related papers, and five Web related papers. Finally the students wrote a summary.
Dr. Yu gave two GIS lectures for the students. The first lecture introduces the concept of GIS, the architecture of GIS, how GIS information was used without Web-Based Interfaces. The second lecture discussed using WWW technology for GIS.
Dr. Yu gave several lectures to introduce the principles of how to retrieve general information through the WWW, the architectures of WWW systems, and the design and implementation techniques of Interactive Graphic User Interfaces.
Dr. Yu and two undergraduate junior students formed a research group. They met on a two week basis to discuss problems, present papers, exchange ideas, and develop the project. Under the faculty guidance the students designed the GUIs according to the requirements of GIS.
The students learned Java language, JavaScript and HTML. They used object-oriented techniques, such as abstraction, encapsulation, aggregation, association and inheritance, to implement the GUIs. In the GUI start page the forty eight states, US highway, introduction can be selected. In the second layer the selected state map is displayed. A user can select different map legends, different counties, and various functions. In the third layer more detailed information can been displayed, etc. If a user selects US highways all highways will be displayed on the forty eight states map.
3. Conclusions and Results
We have successfully conducted this project and implemented the executable Interactive Graphic User Interfaces. The GUIs provide basic functions for a Web-Based Geographic Information System. Two junior female African-American students joined the project and received excellent research training.
4. Students and Mentor Involved
Two undergraduate junior African-American female students involved this project. They are Dana M. Moore and Tnitra S. King. The mentor is Dr. Anna H. Yu who is an associate professor in the Department of Computer Science at North Carolina A&T State University.