January 21, 2011

In the Spotlight: The Global Wildlife Disease News Map

The Global Wildlife Disease News Map
Getting a New Look

Recently, the Wildlife Disease Information Node, developers of the Global Wildlife Disease News Map, quietly released a new beta version of the Map for users to explore. You can get to the new version through a link provided on the current map (see link highlighted with a red box in the image to left).


Users will find this new map provides all the features found in the current version along with new ones.

The new improvements include:
  1. Makes all the Digest news reports (dating back to 2006!) available for exploration. The number of stories is no longer limited to the last 45 days.
  2. Includes a free text search function which searches all filter text, article short description, article titles, etc.
  3. Adds more filter options that limits news reports viewed on the Map, such as by species group (fish, birds, or mammal) or by different geographic levels (e.g. continent or state/province), which can be chained together (e.g. filter by a specific species AND geographic level AND article topic - you can even select multiple options for each filter!)
  4. Offers other map symbolization options beyond geopolitical association (e.g. pushpin colors/legend refers to species or zoonotic potential rather than geographic specificity).
  5. Provides other non-geographical ways to view news reports. Users can look at news reports on a Timeline or as a List of Articles with headlines and descriptions.  (Plus, users can use the filters to limit data in those views as well!) 
(See image below to match the numerated comments with the different map features).

Match the numbers highlighting the new map features in this image with the numerated comments above.







Before we replace the current the Disease Map with this new version, we are looking for feedback from our users. Use the email feedback link and send us your suggestions. (The feedback link is highlighted in the image to the right). Your suggestions for improvements will be used to make additional changes to the Map before its final release.

We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

>>> TO GLOBAL WILDLIFE DISEASE NEW MAP - THE NEW BETA VERSION