The Final Stretch

This past week was very, very stressful. After completing my data sets and beginning to focus on the format of my project, specifically how it will be presented to the public, I found myself with more questions than answers. I decided to go see Professor Ross last week for some help, and it was a tremendous aid to the direction of my project. I have now decided to scrap the idea of building an entire website from scratch using the University provided web space, and will instead be uploading my material to a public blog site, just like this one.

    The major issue I had encountered was how I would effectively communicate the data in my GIS model, given that I had built my model in geocommons and was having a difficult time getting the map embedded. Then Professor Ross introduced me to an amazing piece of software online that Vince had discovered while attempting to resolve the same issue for his project. Essentially, the program allows you to screen-shot videos on your computer screen and create voice-overs throughout them. I feel as though this will hugely simplify things for me, as well as improve the manner in which I’m attempting to communicate my findings.

Came across a couple more issues last week with my data. Unfortunately, hockeydb.com was not able to provide me with all the information I required (Specifically player salaries), and so I had to begin barking up other trees. I have been using capgeek.com and hockeyzoneplus.com together, as at times one or the other is missing financial information on a given player for a given year. I emailed both sites on Thursday of last week without response. However, I have read through the Terms of Use and do not feel as though my project will violate any of their expectations of me as a user.

Time to get back to prepping my blog, incorporating my maps and improving the context in which my data can be interpreted.

Talk again soon. 

Moving Forward with My Project

    Last week I did not accomplish everything I set out to do, so I’m hoping to complete some of those tasks this week. Specifically, I want to clean up my blog a bit. 

    This week I need to do a little more tweaking to my data set. As I poured over my data last week, I began to realize I may have forgotten a detail in my data. This is because I came to the realization that my map might be more useful if it were to accurately reflects dates of movement by each player. For the purposes of my map, this would obviously improve the portrayal of data and information that would be plainly visible to the naked eye, such as months which saw accelerated player relocation during the lockouts. Obviously this is something that I can manage so long as I am able to find dates of contract signings, which might prove difficult. I have been searching through NHL.com which has a great deal of information, however I am unsure if it will possess information such as this on less popular players. There have been other sources which have offered some details, however at times this has been spotty. Luckily, as has been the case through much of this project, some of the players did not relocate at all during the lockout which spares me the task of seeking out the same kinds of information on them. s

    The learning curve for this project and class has been extremely slow, however I am becoming only more and more optimistic as time presses forward. Having selected a topic which truly interests me was definitely a lifesaver, at times this project has proved to be very monotonous and time consuming with little progress. However, at other times everything seems to go very smooth. This seemingly constant battle has been very frustrating, but at the same time I feel I’ve learned a great deal more through the process than I knew previously about IT and the field of digital humanities.

Copyright Developments

    As I have previously blogged about, I recently ran into some trouble regarding copyrighting data, specifically with reference to Mr. Ralph Slate and his online hockey database site. Mr. Slates concerns regarding my initial project idea were fair and understandable. His greatest concern being that the creation of my site may hinder his online traffic. 

    After carefully modifying my project in such a way that I accomplished two things, 1) I wanted to salvage as much of my already mapped data as possible and 2) I had to tweak my site to destroy any possible competition it may have created with hockeydb.com.

    As mentioned last week I have changed my project to more so encompass travel patterns for players during the lockouts of 2004-05 and 2012-2013. I was very excited because I thought I had accomplished what I set out to do.

    I emailed Mr. Slate regarding my project changes and he responded that he is no longer concerned by my project idea and that I may use his site as a data reference. This access does however come with two stipulations. The first is that all data borrowed must be properly accredited as having came from hockeydb (In such instances). The second is that I not use any program which can automatically skim data from his site. I believe his concern may be that too much data be borrowed from his site, however this is no concern of mine as I have reduced my relevent data to two seasons of NHL hockey and had already begun mapping and transferring this data manually.

    This weekend I have continued to work on my project and build my site. I’m becoming more excited as the conclusion of the semester draws near, as I can’t wait to see my finished product.

    This upcoming week should be much of the same. I also have some plans to do a little blog sprucing, as I’m beginning to feel it looks a little drab. Time for an update? We’ll see.

Project Development: Eureka!

I believe I may have had the breakthrough I was looking for with my project. I am very relieved, as this has been extremely stressful throughout this semester, and I finally feel as though I possess an idea that accomplishes everything I wanted to: Uses GIS, encorporates hockey, effectively illustrates an idea, and makes my data set perfectly manageable.

To this point I had considered several different ideas all relating to hockey. I considered doing a project similar to Vince’s illustrating player origin. That had since evolved into an idea which plotted those players as well as their journeys throughout their careers, looking at trade deadlines and player impact on new teams. This was going to be a tremendous amount of data and was something that had been plaguing my nerves.

I also had a personal qualm with that project idea: I had decided to cut off any data from my map before 1980, contending that this data would be far less useful to my project then the data from years after 1980, as player movement during that time was far less. I like to be able to justify, in a sound manner, reasons for why my projects relating to academia are crafted the way they are. I was not sure that I had achieved this with my 1980 cut-off, as even to me that seems somewhat arbitrary. My train of thought was that if I felt this way, and I was the project creator, I should likely try to address that.

Then I got an idea! 

I started thinking about what had happened in the hockey universe lately. Things like, who has been winning and losing? How have drafts affected team performance? Things like that. Then my brain said: Steve, you’re an idiot. Lockout. Duh.

Ofcourse! The lockout!

I have decided that what I will do is map the movement of each player who was in the NHL during the lockout. This will be similar to my original project idea, which saves me some of the work I’ve done, as well as the skills with GIS I’ve been slowly and painfully developping. 

Essentially, my map will consider things like players age and political climate when mapping player movement. Were younger players more likely play in Europe? Did governmental structure change appeal to players as indicated by the map? Did players select leagues by which paid the most money? I’m sure that I will bring this into greater focus as we draw nearer to the conclusion of the semester, but my excitement is buidling. This is primarily the result of having addressed what I felt were the most difficult obstacles standing in my academic path: Proving something and avoiding an arbitrary launching point. 

In other news, I continue to be in contact with hockeydb.com regarding the use of their database as the primary resource tool for my project. As mentioned during my presentation, the primary concern of hockeydb.com is that my site will be competitive with theirs, disturbing their traffic and business. I feel that this new information about the tweak I’ve made in my project will be to their relief, and secure their blessing. That is the next objective.

Presentation Review: Vince Fecteau

This week we began to present our project ideas and bring one another up to speed on where we’re at, and where we’re going. During this time, Vince presented his project idea, which combines GIS and hockey history. Vince’s project essentially consists of the construction of an Internet database of hockey players, mapping where they were born using GIS technology. 

     Vince also presented the data sheet which he will be using as the basis for his mapping. Thanks to help from Professor Ross (Collaboration), Vince is well equipped to successfully complete his map of hockey players, of which there are a resounding 6400. At the completion point of this project, Vince’s project should in some ways resemble something like this.

   The most difficult challenge I believe Vince will encounter is that of finding a way to make the map display or communicate something specific. The creation of a database, though difficult, is essentially the visual display of raw data, and the project is meant to prove something, similar to an academic paper. 

    I do not feel that this will be an insurmountable obstacle for Vince, as it is likely the deeper he delves into his research, the greater the likelihood of patterns emerging and being recognized. It seems very likely that time lapses of hockey players could illustrate the progressively international reach hockey has endured since the inception of professional hockey. 

For example, Vince could choose to combine his project with other data to illustrate relationships between the growth of hockey popularity in various countries with things such as economic expansion or political climate. 

All in all the project seems very interesting and it should be exciting to see the end product and how Vince geared the data. GIS is a very effective tool for data display such as this, and I feel Vince was very wise in selecting it as the format for his database.