Rose dsam capstone presentation 12 dec 2018

School of Computing & Information
U N I V E R S I T Y O F P I T T S B U R G H
Telecom Policy, Regulation, & Enforcement
Radio Spectrum
Digital Studies and Methods Certificate
Capstone
J Stephanie Rose
JSR67@PITT.EDU
DSAM Portfolio: http://www.pitt.edu/~jsr67/radio.html
12 December 2018

OVERVIEW
S c h o o l o f C o m p u t i n g & I n f o r m a t i o n S c i e n c e s a t P i t t | w w w . s c i . p i t t . e d u
Public Knowledge. “https://www.publicknowledge.org/news-blog/videos/wireless-spectrum-
how-to-use-it-and-why-you-might-lose-it”. 14 Feb 2014

INTRODUCTION
Electromagnetic Spectrum & Regulation – Enforcement
 Spectrum is everywhere, and the need for it is increasing
 The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) – A Regulatory Authority
 Current spectrum solutions focus on how to manage access to spectrum better
 Enforcement of spectrum is not usually considered or discussed
 So what does the FCC do besides allocate spectrum as a part of their regulatory obligations?

THE DATASET
In 2017, I came across the FCC Enforcement Bureau (EB) transitional website. The EB
adjudicates various violations that fall under the purview of the FCC.
 8000+ records (administrative decisions, violations, market disputes, case dismissals, etc.)
 Not coded in a way for traditional digital methods of data collection ( e.g. scraping)
 Unorganized in many ways (inconsistent record keeping, broken/missing links, not searchable)
FCC Database– Recap
Reviewed each record and parsed out spectrum specific violations
National Archives– Recap
Archives II Visit – Hoped to find supplemental information to incorporate into my dataset

THE DATASET CON’D

PREVIOUS ITERATIONS
Research Questions:
How often does spectrum interference occur?
Who are the primary offenders (individuals, businesses, etc.)?
What kind of offenses/ interference occurs?
Project Goals:
 Initial data collection
 Testing digital tools
 Analyzing w/ each iteration
 Reflecting on the entire process and future goals
The previous iterations were like dating a data collection approach and flirting with digital tools.

MILESTONE I - LIS 3600 | FALL 2017
My initial data collection and first digital tools
 What is the best method for collecting this data, it cannot be scraped
 Welcome to Geospatial Information Systems
 What kinds of GIS tools exist and how do I use them?
 What do the results tell me?

CON’D
RQ1 | How often does spectrum interference occur?

CON’D
RQ2 | Who are the primary offenders (individuals, businesses, etc.)?

CON’D
RQ3 | What kind of offenses/ interference occurs?

MILESTONE II - LIS 3902 | SPRING
2018
More data collection and narrowing down digital tools
 Consistent data collection
 Adopted Tableau
 Started running into errors regarding importing my data into tools
 Results remained mostly the same as milestone I

2018 CON’D
RQ1 | How often does spectrum interference occur?

2018 CON’D
RQ2 | Who are the primary offenders (individuals, businesses, etc.)?

2018 CON’D
RQ3 | What kind of offenses/ interference occurs?

POINTS OF FAILURE – Discarded Digital Tools & Methods
Some tools were not the best approach for my data, also some user error and teachable
moments
 Color Brewer
 No description for data
 Scribble Maps
 Intimidating
 QGIS
 Also Intimidating, but may have future promise
 CAST
 Required additional plug-ins
 Google Fusion Tables
 Works, but…no longer being maintained
Voyant?

ADOPTED DIGITAL TOOLS & METHODS
Down to Two Tools
 Google Maps
 Familiarity
 Able to embed into a website (e.g. digital portfolio)
 Easy to read legend
 Descriptive information for each violation event - FULL
 Tableau
 Variety of visualization tools (e.g. bubble plots, traditional charts and graphs, etc.)
 Link data sources
 Ready to import data such as the U.S. Census

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
DATA 101: INTRODUCTION TO MAPPING
 Hands-on activities where we plotted and mapped different things
 Spatial thinking
SHANNON MATTERN
 Programmatic themes and group work
Other disciplines and their approach
LUNCH W/ ANNETTE VEE
 Discussion about spectrum and administrative red tape
Keep trucking…

LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES
JACK HESSEL
 Computer-based workshop – machine learning
 In the future, I may want to attempt to adopt machine learning the records
WORLD HISTORY SYMPOSIUM (w/ GIS WORKSHOP)
 Exposure to a discipline I am not traditionally exposed to
How they deal with data and GIS

Milestone III - Capstone | Fall 2018
The final stretch of my research… for now.
Research Questions:
How often does spectrum interference occur?
Who are the primary offenders (individuals, businesses, etc.)?
What kind of offenses/ interference occurs?
Project Goals:
 Complete data collection
 Parse out spectrum violations and clean data
 Work with Google Maps and Tableau to resolve errors
 Analyze Data
 Complete capstone deliverables

CON’D
RQ 1 | How often does spectrum interference occur?

CON’D
RQ 2 | Who are the primary offenders (individuals, businesses, etc.)?
First Milestone – Fall 2017 Third Milestone – Fall 2018

CON’D
RQ 2 | Who are the primary offenders (individuals, businesses, etc.)?

CON’D
RQ 3 | What kind of offenses/ interference occurs?

LIMITATIONS
These aren’t real limitations, just learning experiences that have been perceived incorrectly
 Data disparities
 Inconsistent or missing data – made the decision to drop records (unable to verify at Archives II)
 Failure to import records without errors
 Had to drop additional data points – cases that were missing city or null valued rows
 Skill level
 I am still learning
 Informational blackouts
 Interesting violations, but I got distracted instead of staying on task

NOT A LIMITATIONS, BUT A SCARE
https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/maps/fcc-enforcement-actions-against-pirate-radio-location/

FUTURE WORK
Replicate this entire process for my dissertation
 Instead of data collection, I will be focused on categorizing the violations
 Upgrade my version in Tableau
 Dedicate time to QGIS
 Sufficient time to analyze and investigate different perspectives or unobserved factors
that are effecting my data (e.g. policy changes, FCC manpower and operations, and NTIA)

FINAL REFLECTION & DISCUSSION
Everything is a learning process and even mistakes and mishaps can produce progress
 Exposed to a suite of GIS tools, learning opportunities, and people
 The iterative process works
 Approaching my research from a new perspective
An aside for my DSAM colleagues:
“Take meticulous notes, you’ll thank me later”

QUESTIONS?

LINKS TO IMPORTANT PRES THINGS
 Spectrum Globe – My GoogleMaps Only
 The FCC Data - 1999 View
 Tableau Online - Not the Same as My Desktop Versions, yes I have multiple – no linkage
 FCC Action Against Pirate Radio – Is My Research Redundant?
 The Guardian – The GIS I Really Liked

ADDITIONAL SLIDES – GIS Goals
The Visualization I Really Wanted My End Product to Look Like
 The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/interactive/2013/may/14
/alaska-villages-frontline-global-warming

ADDITIONAL POINTS OF FAILURE
More about Google Maps and Errors
 Added supplemental data, that cleared up some of the issues however, since some of the
records do not include all of the location data a few records needed to be dropped from the
imported dataset.

More about Tableau and Errors
 Unable to locate specific points

More about Voyant and Errors
 Similar to the issue with not being able to scrape, I believe this error may have been
thrown due to the way the documents are encoded.

Excel and GIS
 TBD

Rose dsam capstone presentation 12 dec 2018

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