GGS 411: Final Map Proposal

I've decided that I would like to add onto my map from previous cartography class, GGS 310. For this map, I found the 50 largest colleges in the country and mapped them across the United States. There were a couple things I didn't like about the map, but if I recreate it using Flash, I will be able to make a much better version of this map.

My vision of what this map will be is as follows: I want a map of the United States in which you can individually select each state. Doing so will zoom into the state. This now central state to the viewer will see 5 college logos mapped out throughout(they will be the 5 largest in the state). You can now click on each college logo to learn about the institution(enrollment, type of school, facts, conferences, sports etc.)

The reason I chose this idea was because I really didn't like my 310 map and I would like to make it better. Another purpose of this map will be to help in decision making process of what school you may want to go to as an upcoming college student. The map will give that specific viewer plenty of information including location. The audience will be anyone aspiring to go to a college or anyone who just wants to learn about some teams in the NCAA tournament.

Visualization will be somewhat mixed. Most will be similar to our most recent lab in which clicking an object will take you to another page(clicking a college logo will take you to a different page with information on the college). I will have mouse overs on both the states and the college logos, however these will most likely just be the names. Finally, I would like to add a a zoom in function which I have seen before, but never used. By clicking a state, it would be cool to just zoom into that state until the state is centered as appose to it just changing to a picture of the state.

Data source has not been acquired, but the data will be easy to obtain. Enrollment for schools are public and a quick Google search will tell me the top 5 colleges in each state.

I have two main concerns. The first is the data for 2 of our states. Both Alaska and Hawaii do not have sufficient data as most of there schools are either very small or satellite schools from larger universities in different states. I may decide to remove the two from the map. The other concern of mine will be time. If I do 50 states and 5 schools per state, it will be a lot to do on Adobe Flash and I am worried I will run out of time.

http://www.univsource.com/region.htm