Digital Space: Practical

Section 1: Data with Coordinates

In this section we will be taking some data with coordinates and plotting them on a map using Google Fusion Tables

It works best if you use Firefox or Chrome.

• Download the 2018-06-merseyside-street.csv from http://nickbearman.me.uk/data/2018-09-13-north-west/ and save it in Documents (or somewhere else you can find it). Remember to save this as a CSV file. This is a series of crimes from the Merseyside Police area for June 2018. Have a look at the data in Excel if you like.
• Go to Google Drive. Sign in to your Google Account or create a Google Account if you don't already have one.
• Click the New button.
• Click the More button.
• Click the Connect more apps bar at the bottom of the resulting list.
• Type fusion tables in the Search Apps box and hit the Enter key.
• On Fustion Tables (experimental) click the blue + CONNECT button, then click the OK button in the confirmation dialog box.
• Close the Connect more apps window.
• Click New > More > Google Fusion Tables.
• In the Import new table dialog box, click Browse.
• Browse to where you downloaded 2018-06-merseyside-street.csv and select it.
• Click Next.
• Check that the data is formatted correctly as shown in the picture below and click Next.

• Give your table a name.
• Add some notes to this page, potentially explaining where you got the data from. For example you could say:
• Data used in GIS exercise from Northwest Digital Research Methods Festival, 13th Sept 2018.
• Click Finish.

Fusion Tables auto-detects location data in a table and displays a tab called Map of location column name . In this case, the Map tab is titled Map of Latitude.

• Click Map of Latitude.

This will automatically show the data on a map, using the coordinate data provided. Try clicking on each point - it will give you more details. Using the Filter by tool, we can select out specific types of crime.

• Click Filter.
• Select Crime type.
• Click the checkbox on one of the crime types. Note how the map updates automatically.

Experiment with the different crime type options. Do you notice any spatial patterns?

We also have the option of creating a heat map. Have an experiment with the options. Is the heat map any help? What does it show?

Section 2: Data with Addresses

We can use the same approach for data without coordinates, using postal addresses instead.

• Download the file liverpool-addresses-1.csv. (This is just a list of random addresses in Liverpool I have come up with. Have a look in Excel if you like).
• Go back to Google Drive, and click New > More > Google Fusion Tables as before.
• Load in the file you have just downloaded.
• Click Next as before.
• Click Map of Addresses. Google will automatically geocode the addresses. This may take a little bit of time, so be patient. There are about 100 addresses, so it will take about 1-2 min to process.
• When it is finished, you may need to zoom in to Liverpool to look at the data.

We can also do the same process without postcodes - although the results are less reliable. Try experimenting with the liverpool-addresses-2.csv file.

As will all maps, you should always check the results you are getting. Do they make sense? Are the addresses geocoded in the correct place?

This practical was written using Google Fusion Tables on 10/09/2018 for use at the Digital Space session at the North West Digital Research Methods Festival at University of Liverpool on 13/09/2018. It is available at https://github.com/nickbearman/north-west-digital-research-methods-festival and if you wish to reuse, please contact Dr Nick Bearman nick@geospatialtrainingsolutions.co.uk first.