Encouraging Transdisciplinary Participation Using an Open Source Cybercartographic Toolkit: The Atlas of the Lake Huron Treaty Relationship Process

Abstract

Digital web atlases can incorporate perspectives derived from diverse participants or communities to create and present narratives using qualitative and quantitative information structured around a set of maps as organizational and analytical tools. Development of such an atlas requires a transdisciplinary team to contend with complexity in subject matter, technologies, and project dynamics. Technologies required are potentially as much an obstacle to some potential participants as they may be necessary to the fulfilment of a project's outreach and communication goals. This paper describes the Cybercartographic Atlas of the Lake Huron Treaty Relationship Process, the open source atlas toolkit used to implement it, and features of the toolkit that are intended to encourage transdisciplinary participation. The discussion explicitly addresses issues related to the iterative processes, at multiple scales, required to develop atlas projects within an academic research setting while using and creating open source software.