Welcome to the GIScience 2023 full day workshop on Geospatial Web Apps in Python and R!#

Learning Objectives#

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • Understand why web apps are useful for communicating your results

  • Describe the structure of a basic web application

  • Understand the basics of user interface and experience design

  • Use Python packages to create interactive applications

  • Use R Shiny to create interactive applications

  • Use popular (free) web hosting services for hosting your applications

What you need#

  • Python and/or R skills

  • Understanding of Git (we can work on this!)

Course Structure#

  1. Overview of web applications, why are they useful, and some examples

  2. Setting up - downloading all the files you need, troubleshooting any problems

  3. Python - Basics of interaction with Jupyter Notebooks

  4. Python - Using widgets to design interfaces

  5. UI/UX for absolute beginners

  6. Python - Mapping with ipyleaflet

  7. Python - Notebooks to Apps with Voila

  8. Python - Hosting and sharing Voila with Binder

  9. Overview of other web-hosting services

  10. R - Overview of Shiny

  11. R - Interactivity and mapping in Shiny

  12. R - Sharing your Shiny Applications

Overview of Web Apps#

Why might you want to use one?#

The term ‘Web application’ is a bit vague, it can refer to things as diverse as ArcGis Online and Twitter (X). The important thing that makes web apps unique and useful compared to a more traditional website is interactivity, the user can use an interface to execute code and see the results of their inputs.

Web apps can be a really powerful way of sharing your results,

Geospatial and mapping web apps are powerful and popular ways to communicate the results of your research, and can allow the public to engage directly with your work. At their most basic level, they can let a user view and explore data you have generated, and at a more advanced level let users generate data themselves using models and tools you have developed. Much geospatial research is directly relevant to people’s everyday lives, and is politically important, so letting people use and share your research can help it have impact outside of academia or industry.

If you want inspiration, here are some really good examples of scientific web apps: