mpjashby/crimemapping

Tutorials for crime mapping in R

crimemapping's Issues

Add a box explaining that error messages produced by knitr refer to the first line of the chunk causing the error

Add warning box not to suppress messages/warnings globally via knitr::opts_chunk$set()

The box should be approximately here:

crimemapping/inst/tutorials/14_writing_reports/14.Rmd

Line 546 in 50375b8

Tell students not to save their .Rprofile in RStudio tour video

Release tutorials 6 and 7

• Add questions
• Add further reading
• Add concluding message with thumbs up emoji
• Reduce image sizes using harmonise_image_sizes()
• Spell check
• Check all code in RStudio Server

Release tutorials 10 and 11

• Add questions
• Add further reading
• Add concluding message with thumbs up emoji
• Reduce image sizes using harmonise_image_sizes()
• Spell check
• Increment package version number
• Check all code in RStudio Server
• Update Moodle

Add descriptions to data cleaning and crime series tutorials

Release tutorials 14 and 15

• Add questions
• Add further reading
• Add concluding message with thumbs up emoji
• Reduce image sizes using harmonise_image_sizes()
• Spell check
• Increment package version number
• Check all code in RStudio Server
• Update Moodle

Add note-well boxes to tutorials

Use Allison Horst monsters and some CSS to denote these boxes.

Add section on interactive maps to geographic profiling tutorial

Since interactive maps might be particularly useful for exploring a geoprofile surface. Possibly use the mapview package or possibly leaflet.

Explain the function sequence st_transform() |> st_buffer() |> st_transform()

At:

crimemapping/inst/tutorials/02_your_first_crime_map/02.Rmd

Lines 325 to 337 in db1960b

	You don't need to understand what each of these R functions does – we will cover
	them all in a future tutorial.
	```{r exercise6, exercise=TRUE, exercise.setup = "exercise5-setup", exercise.lines=13}
	# Define the area included in the map, based on a 500m buffer around the data
	map_boundary <- homicides %>%
	st_bbox() %>%
	st_as_sfc() %>%
	st_as_sf() %>%
	st_transform(26967) %>%
	st_buffer(500 * 3.3) %>%
	st_transform(4326) %>%

the tutorial tells students this will be explained later, but it doesn't appear to be actually explained anywhere. A possible answer is in this answer to a question on Moodle.

Minimise size of images used in tutorials

Possibly resize full-width cartoons to 800px width at 150dpi and hex stickers to 150px at 150dpi. Remember to add max-width to the corresponding CSS so that images are not scaled too large.

Add section distinguishing syntax errors from runtime/logical errors

It would be useful for students to understand the difference between syntax errors (meaning R cannot interpret what the code means) and runtime/logical errors (meaning R know what the code says but what you are trying to do causes some sort of error).

Customise tutorial appearance

Use this blog post by Allison Horst as a starting point.

Add list of common errors to debugging tutorial

Based on:

• replies to asking this question on Twitter
• Common R Programming Errors Faced by Beginners

Add a note-well box: tmap should only be used for interactive maps

Replace references to numeric EPSG codes with the format EPSG:1234

Geocomputation in R recommends at section 7.2:

we recommend the more explicit AUTHORITY:CODE representation to prevent ambiguity and to provide context.

Since this affects almost all the tutorials, it will need to be implemented in the next complete update of the tutorials for January 2023.

Release tutorials 12 and 13

• Add questions
• Add further reading
• Add concluding message with thumbs up emoji
• Reduce image sizes using harmonise_image_sizes()
• Spell check
• Increment package version number
• Check all code in RStudio Server
• Update Moodle

Create a template R script to demonstrate good script organisation

• Break it up into sections using the ---- feature of Markdown
• Include reference to loading all packages at the start of the script
• Reference the template at the end of tutorial 5, perhaps adding a section to go through the template

Check calculation for number of seconds in geocoding tutorial

The Geocoding page of the Messy Data tutorial says that the Nominatim API allows 1 call per second that that equates to 3,600 per day, but 1 per second equates to 1 * 60 * 60 * 24 = 86,400 calls per day, so this needs to be checked.

Provide a more-detailed explanation of what EPSG codes are

Mention that an EPSG code is a way to reference an entry in a database of ways to translate numbers to points on the earth. Give examples like 'EPSG 27700 tells R that co-ordinates reference points on the earth in terms of how many metres they are north and east of a point in the Atlantic Ocean' vs [something else].

Add cartography package to area mapping tutorial

The tutorial 'Mapping area data' currently uses the tmap package for static choropleth maps. These would be better done with the cartography package because it allows inclusion of base maps on static choropleth maps. Keep using tmap as a wrapper around leaflet for dynamic maps.

Add video explaining incidence/prevalence/concentration rates

Explain function clashes between packages

Probably best done in the context of geocode() from ggmap and tidygeocoder in the messy-data tutorial.

Remove section on geographic profiling

It's not possible to do justice to geographic profiling justice in the time available and this is a case where a little knowledge could well be dangerous, so remove this content.

Add explanation for how to load a data file stored locally

Include an example of loading a file in a different directory, e.g. ~/Downloads.

Add video on how to investigate errors, including creating a reprex

In particular, show the iterative process of writing a bit of code, checking the output, fixing any errors and then writing the next bit.

Add description of how to deal with missing co-ordinates represented by 0,0 (null island)

Release tutorials 1, 2 and 3

• Add questions
• Add further reading
• Add concluding message with thumbs up emoji
• Reduce image sizes
• Spell check
• Check all code in RStudio Server

Add video on what code should go in the console vs a script

Add to tutorial 5 (second crime map) a video that distinguishes code that you write in the process of developing a script (e.g. using head() to view part of a dataset) and code that is required within the script itself.

Add section on proportional symbol maps to the area-data tutorial

This should demonstrate that proportional symbol maps might be better than choropleth maps when there are extreme differences in the size of different areas, as illustrated by Andy Wheeler.

Release tutorial 16

• Add questions
• Add further reading
• Add concluding message with thumbs up emoji
• Reduce image sizes using harmonise_image_sizes()
• Spell check
• Increment package version number
• Check all code in RStudio Server
• Update Moodle

Use the base pipe rather than magrittr pipe

Hadley says it's time

Add section warning against mapping all types of crime on a single hotspot map

This might be useful in a list of top 10 hotspot mapping mistakes, or something like that.

Add label to each tutorial showing the year it was published in

To make it clear to students if they're accidentally using an out-dated version of a tutorial.

Add section on route planning to crime series tutorial

Using the stplanr library

Release tutorials 4 and 5

• Add questions
• Add further reading
• Add concluding message with thumbs up emoji
• Reduce image sizes using harmonise_image_sizes()
• Spell check
• Check all code in RStudio Server

Explain differences in using download.file() on Windows

Some Windows users need to use mode = "wb" when downloading a binary file using download.file(), e.g. a zip archive, Excel file or gzipped CSV.

Add section on when to use a table and when to use a chart

Tables are generally better when readers need to know exact values for variables, or when you need to present several quantities for each unit of analysis. Charts are better at showing patterns or differences. A chart accompanied by an appendix table can be the best of both worlds.

Add MCQs to check understanding at the end of each tutorial section

Moving debugging tutorial to earlier in the course

Possibly:

• 04_projects -> 08_projects
• 06_code_with_style -> 04_code_with_style
• 08_handling_bugs -> 06_handling_bugs

Add note to leave a blank line before/after each Rmarkdown chunk

Students are still not doing this, which means:

• it's harder to see where one chunk starts/finishes, which has led some students to end up with un-finished chunks, and
• students often end up with text starting on the same line as a figure sits, rather than on a new line below.

Add patchwork cartoon to crime series tutorial

Cartoon from Allison Horst's GitHub

Add section on harm weighting

At the moment, when asked to choose crime types for police to focus on, many (most?) students simply choose the most frequent. Add a section to explain on what basis you can choose to prioritise different types of crime, including joining harm weights to crime counts and then producing a harm-weighted bar chart.

Add box with 10 R functions never to use

For example, base::attach().

In each case, explain why students shouldn't use it.

This should probably go in the tutorial on handling errors, since the reason the functions should not be used will typically because they make code (or coders) more prone to errors.

Transfer data files to a separate repo

Since some of the data files are also used by the https://github.com/mpjashby/learn-pop/ package of tutorials, it would be better if the data files could be housed in a separate repo. This would also make it easier for other people to use the data, so it would be useful to provide some documentation for each dataset at the same time.

Use cartography package for colour ramps

Use the cartography package instead of Color Brewer for colour ramps because cartography allows more than nine colours in a ramp.

Add serial murder data

This needs to be carefully chosen to minimise the risk that anyone taking the course might be distressed because they know someone involved (this has happened to me before). It needs a travelling offender. Only the necessary details of the crimes should be included and no details of the offender.

Possibly using the canal murders around Frankfurt between 1976 and 1983. Use data from the Wikipedia page (the German and English pages are virtually identical, but both have exact dates and locations) plus this record of some newspaper research done (translated from DE to EN) to confirm some of the locations.

Release tutorials 8 and 9

• Add questions
• Add further reading
• Add concluding message with thumbs up emoji
• Reduce image sizes using harmonise_image_sizes()
• Spell check
• Check all code in RStudio Server
• Update Moodle

Add Mexico crime data

Warn about interpreting correlations visually

In some of their assessments, students have claimed 'strong relationships' or similar between variables based on a scatter plot, even when there is little or no actual relationship. Add a note to the section on scatter plots to warn students not to attempt to judge relationships visually.