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About Locus Tempus

Locus Tempus is an open-source digital mapping tool that leverages a geospatial environment to engage students as repository builders, researchers and curators. Faculty and students from all disciplines can collaboratively identify, organize, and visualize geolocated materials within a course context. Working within Locus Tempus, students experience the process of creation, discovery, and rediscovery while locating and manipulating places on a map. This process also taps into visual learning, spatial thinking and quantitative skills to help synthesize disparate knowledge, ideas and resources. Students develop a shared vocabulary to categorize mappable objects. The overall experience invites curiosity, encourages exploration and inspires problem solving. The Center for Teaching and Learning has long engaged and experimented with geospatial visualizations and applications, including Mapping the African American Past, Footprints and Writ Large. After addressing these as custom efforts, Locus Tempus unifies this extensive pedagogical experience into a versatile mapping tool. Our experience has shown the amalgam of skills required to collect and compose materials in time and space sparks deeper learning, surfaces unexpected patterns and generates new ideas. We are seeking partners to integrate this tool into existing or new curricular experiences. Please reach out to the CTL project team. Principal Investigator Center for Teaching and Learning at Columbia University License Locus Tempus source code is on Github with GNU GPLv3 license. Questions and Feedback Questions and Feedback If you’re interested in implementing this tool in your teaching practice, to learn more about Locus Tempus, or to send feedback on this application, please reach out to the CTL project team that is developing Locus Tempus using our feedback form or email us at ctl-locustempus@columbia.edu. Contact our team