This document summarizes a conference presentation on using crowdsourcing approaches like volunteered geographic information (VGI), citizen science (CS), and participatory mapping (PM) to engage the public in policymaking. It defines these approaches and provides examples. While governments have been reluctant to use crowdsourced data due to quality and legal concerns, the presenters argue that capitalizing on established crowdsourcing models and open data practices could help develop public policies to formally incorporate crowdsourcing into government decision-making and engagement. Recommendations are provided for overcoming barriers and assuaging government adoption of these approaches.
Experiences as a producer, consumer and observer of open dataProgCity
Peter Mooney, is an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funded Research Fellow at the Department of Computer Science, NUI Maynooth. He has been working with the EPA on making environmental data publicly accessibly for the last ten years.
Presentation was part of The 1st Seminar of the ERC Funded Programmable City Project based at NIRSA, NUI Maynooth, Republic of Ireland.
First Annual Canadian Homelessness Data Sharing Initiative
Calgary Homeless Foundation and The School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary
May 4, 2016, Officer’s Mess – Fort Calgary, Calgary, Alberta
Canada is a data and technological society. There is no sector that is uninformed by data or unmediated by code, algorithms, software and infrastructure. Consider the Internet of Things (IoT), smart cities, and precision agriculture; or smart fisheries, forestry, and energy and of course governing. In a data based and technological society, leadership is the responsibility of all citizens, a parent, teacher, scholar, administrator, public servant, nurse and doctor, mayor and councillor, fisher, builder, business person, industrialist, MP, MLA, PM, and so on. In other words leadership is distributed and requires people power. This form of citizenship, according to Andrew Feenberg, Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology, requires agency, knowledge and the capacity to act or power. In this GovMaker Keynote I will introduce the concept of technological citizenship, I will discuss what principled public interest governing might look like, and how we might go about critically applying philosophy in our daily practice. In terms of practice I will discuss innovative policy and regulation such as the right to repair movement, EU legislation such as the right to explanation, data subjects and the right to access and also data sovereignty from a globalization and an indigenous perspective.
Experiences as a producer, consumer and observer of open dataProgCity
Peter Mooney, is an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) funded Research Fellow at the Department of Computer Science, NUI Maynooth. He has been working with the EPA on making environmental data publicly accessibly for the last ten years.
Presentation was part of The 1st Seminar of the ERC Funded Programmable City Project based at NIRSA, NUI Maynooth, Republic of Ireland.
First Annual Canadian Homelessness Data Sharing Initiative
Calgary Homeless Foundation and The School of Public Policy at the University of Calgary
May 4, 2016, Officer’s Mess – Fort Calgary, Calgary, Alberta
Canada is a data and technological society. There is no sector that is uninformed by data or unmediated by code, algorithms, software and infrastructure. Consider the Internet of Things (IoT), smart cities, and precision agriculture; or smart fisheries, forestry, and energy and of course governing. In a data based and technological society, leadership is the responsibility of all citizens, a parent, teacher, scholar, administrator, public servant, nurse and doctor, mayor and councillor, fisher, builder, business person, industrialist, MP, MLA, PM, and so on. In other words leadership is distributed and requires people power. This form of citizenship, according to Andrew Feenberg, Canada Research Chair in Philosophy of Technology, requires agency, knowledge and the capacity to act or power. In this GovMaker Keynote I will introduce the concept of technological citizenship, I will discuss what principled public interest governing might look like, and how we might go about critically applying philosophy in our daily practice. In terms of practice I will discuss innovative policy and regulation such as the right to repair movement, EU legislation such as the right to explanation, data subjects and the right to access and also data sovereignty from a globalization and an indigenous perspective.
ABSTRACT:
The central argument of this dissertation is that Canadian reality is conditioned by government data and their related infrastructures. Specifically, that Canadian geographical imaginations are strongly influenced by the Atlas of Canada and the Census of Canada. Both are long standing government institutions that inform government decision-making, and are normally considered to be objective and politically neutral. It is argued that they may also not be entirely politically neutral even though they may not be influenced by partisan politics, because social, technical and scientific institutions nuance objectivity. These institutions or infrastructures recede into the background of government operations, and although invisible, they shape how Canadian geography and society are imagined. Such geographical imaginations, it is argued, are important because they have real material and social effects. In particular, this dissertation empirically examines how the Atlas of Canada and the Census of Canada, as knowledge formation objects and as government representations, affect social and material reality and also normalize subjects. It is also demonstrated that the Ian Hacking dynamic Looping Effect framework of ‘Making Up People’ is not only useful to the human sciences, but is also an effective methodology that geographers can adapt and apply to the study of ‘Making Up Spaces’ and geographical imaginations. His framework was adapted to the study of the six editions of the Atlas of Canada and the Census of Canada between 1871 and 2011. Furthermore, it is shown that the framework also helps structure the critical examination of discourse, in this case, Foucauldian gouvernementalité and the biopower of socio-techno-political systems such as a national atlas and census, which are inextricably embedded in a social, technical and scientific milieu. As objects they both reflect the dominant value system of their society and through daily actions, support the dominance of this value system. While it is people who produce these objects, the infrastructures that operate in the background have technological momentum that also influence actions. Based on the work of Bruno Latour, the Atlas and the Canadian census are proven to be inscriptions that are immutable and mobile, and as such, become actors in other settings. Therefore, the Atlas of Canada and the Census of Canada shape and are shaped by geographical imaginations.
Abstract:
The Census is the only national public policy tool that collects data with a large enough sample size to report findings at small sub-municipal geographic scales. The loss of the long-form census may impede researchers and community based organizations from conducting neighbourhood analysis. Other surveys conducted by Statistics Canada do not have a large enough sample size to fill this gap. Canadians may be left with analyzes on a variety of public policy issues only at the city or metropolitan area scale. This would impede the ability for place based analysis and location specific action. Neighbourhood scale research using Census data will be discussed, The Cybercartographic Pilot Atlas of the Risk of Homelessness created at the Geomatics and Cartographic Research and other examples from community based research initiatives such as the Community Data Consortium will be presented. This will include maps and data about social issues in Canadian cities & metropolitan areas (e.g. Calgary, Toronto, Halton, Sault Ste. Marie, Hamilton, Ottawa, Montreal, & others) to demonstrate the importance of local analysis. The impact of the loss for evidence based decision making for communities in Canada’s will be the key element of the discussion.
Note:
Interactivity and animation are lost when the slides are converted to PDF.
Abstract:
In a technological society such as Canada, it is suggested that a specialized kind of expert citizenship is needed (Andrew Feenberg). In the era of big data, others suggest that there is a need to learn how to read algorithms and to study its high priests and alchemists (Genevieve Bell). While, doing citizenship requires a political ethics of technology to thwart technological and quantitative fundamentalism (Darin Barney). Finally, in the midst of a data revolution we need to critically re-conceptualize data (Rob Kitchin). Quite simply, in today's Canada doing citizenship requires data literacy, technical, philosophical and political. Access to print media - books, government documents, academic journals - in libraries and archives enabled a literate society, the prerequisite of a democratic system. I argue that good governance in knowledge producing institutions, is to have technological experts, both data creators and preservers, working to store, manage, disseminate and preserve data so that we have the requisite artifacts to increase our literacy and build upon collected knowledge. Data literacy I suggest, is indispensable in the current democratic system, and that requires having access to data, data infrastructures - knowledge and technology - and dedicated skilled people and resources to sustainably care for them. I consider research data management to be our duty.
Usability of VGI in Haiti earthquake response - preliminary thoughtsMuki Haklay
Muki Haklay's presentation in the 2nd Workdshop on usability of geographic information, 23rd March 2010 at UCL, London. See details at http://www.virart.nottingham.ac.uk/GI%20Usability/index.html
Danish Institute for Study Abroad
Communications:
New Media and Changing Communities
Dublin Visit
Tracey P. Lauriault
NIRSA Seminar Room
National University of Ireland Maynooth
2nd April 2015
GSDI Liaison report on Earth Observation-related activities for the CEOS WGISSRemetey-Fülöpp Gábor
Introduction of EO-related activities in GSDI Association highlighting some relevant actions of its regional member EUROGI and national level member HUNAGI
OpenStreetMap and CycleStreets: collaborative map-making and cartography in t...CycleStreets
Abstract: The arrival of web-based mapping from Google and others has revolutionised, in the space of only five years, the way many people interact with maps and map data. And the success of projects such as Wikipedia highlight how collation of small amounts of information from large numbers of people - an approach called 'crowdsourcing' - can challenge traditional models of data collection and ownership. Bringing these concepts together is OpenStreetMap, a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. Well-established enterprises such as the Ordnance Survey are coming under increased pressure from this new model, and large companies such as MapQuest and Microsoft are starting to use and invest in it. Martin Lucas-Smith, Webmaster in the Department, and one of two main developers of the leading UK-wide cycle journey planner website, CycleStreets, will discuss OpenStreetMap, its use within a wide range of systems (from cartography, routing, and even its central role helping deal with the Haiti disaster) and discuss the challenges it poses to traditional forms of cartography and data collection.
Hawke's Bay Open Data Conference - 2 May 2019enotsluap
Hawke's Bay Open Data Conference - 2 May 2019. Presentation on open data Policy, data available and innovative ways it is being reused. Also why the private sector could/should release data.
Seminar at CSAIL, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. Date: Friday October 30, 2015. Time: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm, Location: D463 (Star)
Abstract:
Today we are witnessing several shifts in scholarly practice, in and across multiple disciplines, as researchers embrace digital techniques to tackle established research questions in new ways and new questions afforded by digital and digitized collections, approaches, and technologies. Pervasive adoption of technology, coupled with the co-creation of new social processes, has created a new and complex space for scholarship where citizens both generate and analyse data as they interact at the intersection of the physical and digital. Drawing on a background in distributed computing, and adopting the lens of Social Machines, this talk discusses current activity in digital scholarship, framing it in its interdisciplinary settings.
Bio:
David De Roure is Professor of e-Research at University of Oxford, Director of the Oxford e-Research Centre, and chairs Oxford’s Digital Humanities research programme. He previously directed the Digital Social Research programme for the UK Economic and Social Research Council, and serves as a strategic advisor in new forms of data and realtime analytics. Trained in electronics and computer science, his career has involved interdisciplinary collaborations in chemistry, astrophysics, bioinformatics, social computing, digital libraries, and sensor networks. His personal research is in Computational Musicology, Web Science, and Internet of Things. He is a frequent speaker and writer on digital research and the future of scholarly communications. URL: http://www.oerc.ox.ac.uk/people/dder
New forms of data for the social sciences: Smarter cities, more efficient organisations, and healthier communities. Wednesday 3rd November 2015, UCL, London, United Kingdom
Presentation on The Story of Open Data in Fingal and the challenges Public Sector Bodies face in releasing data given as part of Seminar on Open data and evidence informed decision making in NUI Maynooth on 13th November, 2013
ABSTRACT:
The central argument of this dissertation is that Canadian reality is conditioned by government data and their related infrastructures. Specifically, that Canadian geographical imaginations are strongly influenced by the Atlas of Canada and the Census of Canada. Both are long standing government institutions that inform government decision-making, and are normally considered to be objective and politically neutral. It is argued that they may also not be entirely politically neutral even though they may not be influenced by partisan politics, because social, technical and scientific institutions nuance objectivity. These institutions or infrastructures recede into the background of government operations, and although invisible, they shape how Canadian geography and society are imagined. Such geographical imaginations, it is argued, are important because they have real material and social effects. In particular, this dissertation empirically examines how the Atlas of Canada and the Census of Canada, as knowledge formation objects and as government representations, affect social and material reality and also normalize subjects. It is also demonstrated that the Ian Hacking dynamic Looping Effect framework of ‘Making Up People’ is not only useful to the human sciences, but is also an effective methodology that geographers can adapt and apply to the study of ‘Making Up Spaces’ and geographical imaginations. His framework was adapted to the study of the six editions of the Atlas of Canada and the Census of Canada between 1871 and 2011. Furthermore, it is shown that the framework also helps structure the critical examination of discourse, in this case, Foucauldian gouvernementalité and the biopower of socio-techno-political systems such as a national atlas and census, which are inextricably embedded in a social, technical and scientific milieu. As objects they both reflect the dominant value system of their society and through daily actions, support the dominance of this value system. While it is people who produce these objects, the infrastructures that operate in the background have technological momentum that also influence actions. Based on the work of Bruno Latour, the Atlas and the Canadian census are proven to be inscriptions that are immutable and mobile, and as such, become actors in other settings. Therefore, the Atlas of Canada and the Census of Canada shape and are shaped by geographical imaginations.
Abstract:
The Census is the only national public policy tool that collects data with a large enough sample size to report findings at small sub-municipal geographic scales. The loss of the long-form census may impede researchers and community based organizations from conducting neighbourhood analysis. Other surveys conducted by Statistics Canada do not have a large enough sample size to fill this gap. Canadians may be left with analyzes on a variety of public policy issues only at the city or metropolitan area scale. This would impede the ability for place based analysis and location specific action. Neighbourhood scale research using Census data will be discussed, The Cybercartographic Pilot Atlas of the Risk of Homelessness created at the Geomatics and Cartographic Research and other examples from community based research initiatives such as the Community Data Consortium will be presented. This will include maps and data about social issues in Canadian cities & metropolitan areas (e.g. Calgary, Toronto, Halton, Sault Ste. Marie, Hamilton, Ottawa, Montreal, & others) to demonstrate the importance of local analysis. The impact of the loss for evidence based decision making for communities in Canada’s will be the key element of the discussion.
Note:
Interactivity and animation are lost when the slides are converted to PDF.
Abstract:
In a technological society such as Canada, it is suggested that a specialized kind of expert citizenship is needed (Andrew Feenberg). In the era of big data, others suggest that there is a need to learn how to read algorithms and to study its high priests and alchemists (Genevieve Bell). While, doing citizenship requires a political ethics of technology to thwart technological and quantitative fundamentalism (Darin Barney). Finally, in the midst of a data revolution we need to critically re-conceptualize data (Rob Kitchin). Quite simply, in today's Canada doing citizenship requires data literacy, technical, philosophical and political. Access to print media - books, government documents, academic journals - in libraries and archives enabled a literate society, the prerequisite of a democratic system. I argue that good governance in knowledge producing institutions, is to have technological experts, both data creators and preservers, working to store, manage, disseminate and preserve data so that we have the requisite artifacts to increase our literacy and build upon collected knowledge. Data literacy I suggest, is indispensable in the current democratic system, and that requires having access to data, data infrastructures - knowledge and technology - and dedicated skilled people and resources to sustainably care for them. I consider research data management to be our duty.
Usability of VGI in Haiti earthquake response - preliminary thoughtsMuki Haklay
Muki Haklay's presentation in the 2nd Workdshop on usability of geographic information, 23rd March 2010 at UCL, London. See details at http://www.virart.nottingham.ac.uk/GI%20Usability/index.html
Danish Institute for Study Abroad
Communications:
New Media and Changing Communities
Dublin Visit
Tracey P. Lauriault
NIRSA Seminar Room
National University of Ireland Maynooth
2nd April 2015
GSDI Liaison report on Earth Observation-related activities for the CEOS WGISSRemetey-Fülöpp Gábor
Introduction of EO-related activities in GSDI Association highlighting some relevant actions of its regional member EUROGI and national level member HUNAGI
OpenStreetMap and CycleStreets: collaborative map-making and cartography in t...CycleStreets
Abstract: The arrival of web-based mapping from Google and others has revolutionised, in the space of only five years, the way many people interact with maps and map data. And the success of projects such as Wikipedia highlight how collation of small amounts of information from large numbers of people - an approach called 'crowdsourcing' - can challenge traditional models of data collection and ownership. Bringing these concepts together is OpenStreetMap, a collaborative project to create a free editable map of the world. Well-established enterprises such as the Ordnance Survey are coming under increased pressure from this new model, and large companies such as MapQuest and Microsoft are starting to use and invest in it. Martin Lucas-Smith, Webmaster in the Department, and one of two main developers of the leading UK-wide cycle journey planner website, CycleStreets, will discuss OpenStreetMap, its use within a wide range of systems (from cartography, routing, and even its central role helping deal with the Haiti disaster) and discuss the challenges it poses to traditional forms of cartography and data collection.
Hawke's Bay Open Data Conference - 2 May 2019enotsluap
Hawke's Bay Open Data Conference - 2 May 2019. Presentation on open data Policy, data available and innovative ways it is being reused. Also why the private sector could/should release data.
Seminar at CSAIL, MIT, Cambridge, Mass. Date: Friday October 30, 2015. Time: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm, Location: D463 (Star)
Abstract:
Today we are witnessing several shifts in scholarly practice, in and across multiple disciplines, as researchers embrace digital techniques to tackle established research questions in new ways and new questions afforded by digital and digitized collections, approaches, and technologies. Pervasive adoption of technology, coupled with the co-creation of new social processes, has created a new and complex space for scholarship where citizens both generate and analyse data as they interact at the intersection of the physical and digital. Drawing on a background in distributed computing, and adopting the lens of Social Machines, this talk discusses current activity in digital scholarship, framing it in its interdisciplinary settings.
Bio:
David De Roure is Professor of e-Research at University of Oxford, Director of the Oxford e-Research Centre, and chairs Oxford’s Digital Humanities research programme. He previously directed the Digital Social Research programme for the UK Economic and Social Research Council, and serves as a strategic advisor in new forms of data and realtime analytics. Trained in electronics and computer science, his career has involved interdisciplinary collaborations in chemistry, astrophysics, bioinformatics, social computing, digital libraries, and sensor networks. His personal research is in Computational Musicology, Web Science, and Internet of Things. He is a frequent speaker and writer on digital research and the future of scholarly communications. URL: http://www.oerc.ox.ac.uk/people/dder
New forms of data for the social sciences: Smarter cities, more efficient organisations, and healthier communities. Wednesday 3rd November 2015, UCL, London, United Kingdom
Presentation on The Story of Open Data in Fingal and the challenges Public Sector Bodies face in releasing data given as part of Seminar on Open data and evidence informed decision making in NUI Maynooth on 13th November, 2013
How Collaboration Can Exploit Technological InnovationsCrowdsourcing Week
Stephane Beauduin, Chief B2B Officer, Mobistar. Presented at Crowdsourcing Week Europe 2015. For more information or to join the next event: http://crowdsourcingweek.com/
Presenting a new, clear approach to defining neogeography and its various elements, understanding the stakeholders in VGI and researching how volunteered information may benefit users over and above traditional cartography.
REFERENCE:
PARKER, C.J., MAY, A. and MITCHELL, V., 2012. Using VGI to enhance user judgements of quality and authority. IN: Geographical Information Science Research UK (GISRUK) 2012 Conference Proceedings. Available at: https://dspace.lboro.ac.uk/dspace-jspui/handle/2134/9509
Amateur Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has been used together with Professional Geographic Information (PGI) since its inception during the mid 00’s alongside neogeography. While the geographic accuracy and quality of VGI has been demonstrated to be more than good enough, no previous research has been published on the influence VGI has on the user perceptions of the mashup. This paper presents a quantitative investigation into how including VGI in mashups, and telling users their mashup contains VGI influences user perceptions of quality and authority- which ultimately decide if the user wishes to utilise the mashup or not.
Community, collaborative, social. Will the language industry survive crowdsourcing?
Presentation for the XXXIV IALB-ASTTI Conference "The World in Crisis – And the Language Industry?"
Geneva, 13-14 November 2009
Maps from the Crowd in Crisis context / OpenStreetMap Response to humanitaria...Pierre Béland
Maps from the Crowd in Crisis context
OpenStreetMap Response to humanitarian crisis
Haiyan Typhoon / 2013 and Ebola Epidemic / 2014 Cases
Pierre Béland Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team
IHTC 2014, Montréal, 2014-06-01
This presentation was given online as part of the free Nonprofit Webinars series by Amy Sample Ward in May 2011. For more information, please visit http://amysampleward.org
Short slides produced for the "Crowd-Sourcing Data and Citizen Science" Breakout Session at the FCERM.Net (Flooding & coastal Erosion Risk Management Network) Annual Assembly 2016: "Future-Thinking Flood Risk Management", held on 29th June 2016 in Newcastle. These slides from Nicola Osborne, who chaired this breakout, give an overview of general crowd sourcing considerations as well as sharing some specific learning from the EU FP7-funded COBWEB: Citizen Observatory Web project.
Extreme Citizen Science: the socio-political potential of citizen scienceMuki Haklay
Slides from a talk at the International Congress for Conservation Biology / European Congress for Conservation Biology 2015 (Montpellier 2-6 August). The talk positioned citizen science within the wider context of production and use of environmental information, and emphasised the need to extend citizen science to a wider audience. It also demonstrated how technology can be used within a careful participatory process.
The Willing Volunteer – Incorporating Voluntary Data into National DatabasesMuki Haklay
At present few mapping databases contain crowd sourced or voluntary data. Consider how, in the future, this will be a valuable source of data for national geospatial, cadastral and mapping agencies
A Socio-Technical Design Approach to Build Crowdsourced and Volunteered Geogr...José Pablo Gómez Barrón S.
Ph.D. dissertation defence at Technical University of Madrid (UPM).
A Socio-Technical Design Approach to Build Crowdsourced and Volunteered Geographic Information Systems (VGIS) Leveraging the Crowds and Participatory Communities for Geoinformation Management.
Invited presentation for plenary session 1: Leveraging a Never Ending Technological Revolution as part of the 4th GEOSS Science and Technology Stakeholder Workshop: Concepts, Technologies, Systems and Users of the Next GEOSS, Norfolk, VA, held on March 24-26, 2015. http://www.gstss.org/2015_Norfolk_4th/program.php
A talk exploring the different ways to analyse the policy aspects of citizen science, especially from the persepctive of environmental protection agencies in Europe. More information at http://wp.me/p7DNf-mE
Citizen-led perspectives: bridging the gapErinma Ochu
Talk to inform Austrian perspectives on bridging the gap between science and society presented at the Alpbach Forum 2014 working group session: http://bit.ly/1pEm00I
Featuring best practice principles and examples from UK citizen science projects
Data ecosystems: turning data into public valueSlim Turki, Dr.
Africa Information Highway Live Exchange #Session 7
8 October 2021
The AIH Live Exchange between the Africa Information Highway Team, partners and countries is a free monthly webinar hosted by the African Development Bank to discuss topics related to government data and statistics. This webinar series is the main platform for countries to share their experiences and best practices around open data including using their Open Data Platform of the AIH.
This session is co-organized with the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST) which is a mission-driven Research and Technology Organization (RTO) that develops advanced technologies and delivers innovative products and services to industry and society. These innovations can also be used to solve several societal challenges, particularly in the areas of the environment, security, education and culture, sustainable development, as well as the efficient use of resources.
Official statistical data are recognized as high-value datasets for the society and economy, to enrich research, inform decision making or develop new products and services. The use of these authoritative data sources contributes to building a society with more empowered people, better policies, more effective and accountable decision-making, greater participation and stronger democratic mechanisms.
Official statistics are produced to be used and re-used to make an impact on society through a higher degree of openness and transparency while ensuring confidentiality and, at the same time, providing equal access to information to citizens.
The value of data lies in its use and re-use. In this interactive webinar, you will learn new techniques to improve the use and re-use of your statistical data, going beyond the provision logic and adopting the ecosystem mindset. You will:
● Sharpen your capacity at identifying and engaging users and re-users and stakeholders (data ecosystem mapping)?
● Effectively tackle technical and organizational barriers to stimulate data use and re-use?
● Smartly orchestrate a self-sustainable data ecosystem to increase the impact of statistical data.
This session is an opportunity for Regional members countries to '' Sharpen their skills in making data used and re-used by developing an ecosystem mindset to effectively build sustainable community of users around their Open Data Platform thus promoting transparency and better decision-making”
Série de webinaires sur le gouvernement ouvert du Canada
L'équipe du #GouvOuvert est de retour avec un nouveau webinaire le 28 novembre! Nous allons discuter au sujet des #coulisses des #donnéesouvertes au avec la professeure
@TraceyLauriault
de
@Carleton_U
et
@JaimieBoyd
. Inscrivez-vous maintenant: http://ow.ly/UQvu50xabIb
Week 13 (Apr. 8) – Assemblages, Genealogies and Dynamic Nominalism
Course description:
The emphasis is to learn to envision data genealogically, as a social and technical assemblages, as infrastructure and reframe them beyond technological conceptions. During the term we will explore data, facts and truth; the power of data both big and small; governmentality and biopolitics; risk, probability and the taming of chance; algorithmic culture, dynamic nominalism, categorization and ontologies; the translation of people, space and social phenomena into and by data and software and the role of data in the production of knowledge.
This class format is a graduate MA seminar and a collaborative workshop. We will work with Ottawa Police Services and critically examine the socio-technological data assemblage of that institution. This includes a fieldtrip to the Elgin street station; a tour of the 911 Communication Centre and we will meet with data experts.
April 4, 2019, 17:30-19:30
IOG's Policy Crunch
Disruptive Innovation and Public Policy in the Digital Age event series
The Global Race in Digital Governance
https://iog.ca/events/the-global-race-in-digital-governance/
March 25, 2019, 9:30 AM
International Meeting of NAICS code Experts
Statistics Canada
Simon Goldberg Room, RH Coats building
100 Tunney’s Pasture Driveway
With research contributions by Ben Wright, Carleton University and Dustin Moores, University of Ottawa
Presented at the:
Canadian Aviation Safety Collaboration Forum
International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO)
Montreal, QC
January 23, 2019
This presentation was made in real-time while attending the Forum. The objective was to observe and listen, and share some examples outside of this community that may provide insight about data sharing models with a focus on governance.
From Aspiration to Reality: Open Smart Cities
Open smart cities might become a reality for Canada. Globally there are a number of initiatives, programs, and practices that are open smart city like which means that it is possible to have an open, responsive and engaged city that is both socio-technologically enabled, but also one where there is receptivity to and a willingness to grow a critically informed type of technological citizenship (Feenberg). For an open smart city to exist, public officials, the private sector, scholars, civil society and residents and citizens require a definition and a guide to start the exercise of imagining what an open smart city might look like. There is much critical scholarship about the smart city and there are many counter smart city narratives, but there are few depictions of what engagement, participatory design and technological leadership might be. The few examples that do exist are project based and few are systemic. An open smart city definition and guide was therefore created by a group of stakeholders in such a way that it can be used as the basis for the design of an open smart city from the ground up, or to help actors shape or steer the course of emerging or ongoing data and networked urbanist forms (Kitchin) of smart cities to lead them towards being open, engaged and receptive to technological citizenship.
This talk will discuss some of the successes resulting from this Open Smart Cities work, which might also be called a form or engaged scholarship. For example the language for the call for tender of the Infrastructure Canada Smart City Challenge was modified to include as a requisite that engagement and openness be part of the submissions from communities. Also, those involved with the guide have been writing policy articles that critique either AI or the smart city while also offering examples of what is possible. These articles are being read by proponents of Sidewalk Labs in Toronto. Also, the global Open Data Conference held in Argentina in September of 2018 hosted a full workshop on Open Smart Cities and finally Open North is working toward developing key performance indicators to assess those shortlisted by Infrastructure Canada and to help those communities develop an Open Smart Cities submission. The objective of the talk is to demonstrate that it is actually possible to shift public policy on large infrastructure projects, at least, in the short term.
This week we will learn about user generated content (UGC), citizen science, crowdsourcing & volunteered geographic information (VGI). We will also discuss divergent views on data humanitarianism.
Cottbus Brandenburg University of Technology Lecture series on Smart RegionsCritically Assembling Data, Processes & Things: Toward and Open Smart CityJune 5, 2018
This lecture will critically focus on smart cities from a data based socio-technological assemblage approach. It is a theoretical and methodological framework that allows for an empirical examination of how smart cities are socially and technically constructed, and to study them as discursive regimes and as a large technological infrastructural systems.
The lecture will refer to the research outcomes of the ERC funded Programmable City Project led by Rob Kitchin at Maynooth University and will feature examples of empirical research conducted in Dublin and other Irish cities.
In addition, the lecture will discuss the research outcomes of the Canadian Open Smart Cities project funded by the Government of Canada GeoConnections Program. Examples will be drawn from five case studies namely about the cities of Edmonton, Guelph, Ottawa and Montreal, and the Ontario Smart Grid as well as number of international best practices. The recent Infrastructure Canada Canadian Smart City Challenge and the controversial Sidewalk Lab Waterfront Toronto project will also be discussed.
It will be argued that no two smart cities are alike although the technological solutionist and networked urbanist approaches dominate and it is suggested that these kind of smart cities may not live up to the promise of being better places to live.
In this lecture, the ideals of an Open Smart City are offered instead and in this kind of city residents, civil society, academics, and the private sector collaborate with public officials to mobilize data and technologies when warranted in an ethical, accountable and transparent way in order to govern the city as a fair, viable and livable commons that balances economic development, social progress and environmental responsibility. Although an Open Smart City does not yet exist, it will be argued that it is possible.
Conference of Irish Geographies 2018
The Earth as Our Home
Automating Homelessness May 12, 2018
The research for these studies is funded by a European Research Council Advanced Investigator award ERC-2012-AdG-323636-SOFTCITY.
Presentation #2:Open/Big Urban DataLessons Learned from the Programmable City ProjectMansion House, Dublin, May 9th, 201810am-2pmhttp://progcity.maynoothuniversity.ie/2018/03/lessons-for-smart-cities-from-the-programmable-city-project/
Financé par : GéoConnexions
Dirigé par : Nord Ouvert
Le noyau de l’équipe :
Rachel Bloom et Jean-Noé Landry, Nord Ouvert
Dr Tracey P. Lauriault, Carleton University
David Fewer, Clinique d’intérêt public et de politique d’Internet du Canada (CIPPIC)
Dr Mark Fox, University of Toronto
Assistant et assistante de recherche, Carleton University
Carly Livingstone
Stephen Letts
Open Smart City in Canada Project
Funded by: GeoConnections
Lead by: OpenNorth
Project core team:
Rachel Bloom & Jean-Noe Landry, Open North
Dr. Tracey P. Lauriault, Carleton University
David Fewer, LL.M., Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC)
Dr. Mark Fox, University of Toronto
Research Assistants Carleton University
Carly Livingstone
Stephen Letts
Introductory remarks
- Jean-Noe Landry, Executive Director, Open North
Webinar 2 includes:
- Summary of Webinar 1: E-Scan and Assessment of Smart -
Cities in Canada (listen at: http://bit.ly/2yp7H8k )
- Situating smart cities amongst current digital practices
- Towards guiding principles for Open Smart Cities
- Examples of international best practices from international cities
- Observations & Next Steps
Webinar Presenters:
- Rachel Bloom, Open North
- Dr Tracey P. Lauriault, School of Journalism and Communication, Carleton University
Content Contributors:
- David Fewer CIPPIC,
- Mark Fox U. of Toronto,
- Stephen Letts (RA Carleton U.)
Project Name:
- Open Smart Cities in Canada
Date:
- December 14, 2017
AoIR 2017
Panel 17 Dorpat-Ewers, Tartu 9-10:30AM
Data Driven Ontology Practices
The Real world objects of Ordnance Survey Ireland
Abstract is available here: https://www.conftool.com/aoir2017/index.php?page=browseSessions&form_session=258&presentations=show
More from Communication and Media Studies, Carleton University (20)
Adjusting primitives for graph : SHORT REPORT / NOTESSubhajit Sahu
Graph algorithms, like PageRank Compressed Sparse Row (CSR) is an adjacency-list based graph representation that is
Multiply with different modes (map)
1. Performance of sequential execution based vs OpenMP based vector multiply.
2. Comparing various launch configs for CUDA based vector multiply.
Sum with different storage types (reduce)
1. Performance of vector element sum using float vs bfloat16 as the storage type.
Sum with different modes (reduce)
1. Performance of sequential execution based vs OpenMP based vector element sum.
2. Performance of memcpy vs in-place based CUDA based vector element sum.
3. Comparing various launch configs for CUDA based vector element sum (memcpy).
4. Comparing various launch configs for CUDA based vector element sum (in-place).
Sum with in-place strategies of CUDA mode (reduce)
1. Comparing various launch configs for CUDA based vector element sum (in-place).
Techniques to optimize the pagerank algorithm usually fall in two categories. One is to try reducing the work per iteration, and the other is to try reducing the number of iterations. These goals are often at odds with one another. Skipping computation on vertices which have already converged has the potential to save iteration time. Skipping in-identical vertices, with the same in-links, helps reduce duplicate computations and thus could help reduce iteration time. Road networks often have chains which can be short-circuited before pagerank computation to improve performance. Final ranks of chain nodes can be easily calculated. This could reduce both the iteration time, and the number of iterations. If a graph has no dangling nodes, pagerank of each strongly connected component can be computed in topological order. This could help reduce the iteration time, no. of iterations, and also enable multi-iteration concurrency in pagerank computation. The combination of all of the above methods is the STICD algorithm. [sticd] For dynamic graphs, unchanged components whose ranks are unaffected can be skipped altogether.
06-04-2024 - NYC Tech Week - Discussion on Vector Databases, Unstructured Data and AI
Round table discussion of vector databases, unstructured data, ai, big data, real-time, robots and Milvus.
A lively discussion with NJ Gen AI Meetup Lead, Prasad and Procure.FYI's Co-Found
Analysis insight about a Flyball dog competition team's performanceroli9797
Insight of my analysis about a Flyball dog competition team's last year performance. Find more: https://github.com/rolandnagy-ds/flyball_race_analysis/tree/main
Levelwise PageRank with Loop-Based Dead End Handling Strategy : SHORT REPORT ...Subhajit Sahu
Abstract — Levelwise PageRank is an alternative method of PageRank computation which decomposes the input graph into a directed acyclic block-graph of strongly connected components, and processes them in topological order, one level at a time. This enables calculation for ranks in a distributed fashion without per-iteration communication, unlike the standard method where all vertices are processed in each iteration. It however comes with a precondition of the absence of dead ends in the input graph. Here, the native non-distributed performance of Levelwise PageRank was compared against Monolithic PageRank on a CPU as well as a GPU. To ensure a fair comparison, Monolithic PageRank was also performed on a graph where vertices were split by components. Results indicate that Levelwise PageRank is about as fast as Monolithic PageRank on the CPU, but quite a bit slower on the GPU. Slowdown on the GPU is likely caused by a large submission of small workloads, and expected to be non-issue when the computation is performed on massive graphs.
Adjusting OpenMP PageRank : SHORT REPORT / NOTESSubhajit Sahu
For massive graphs that fit in RAM, but not in GPU memory, it is possible to take
advantage of a shared memory system with multiple CPUs, each with multiple cores, to
accelerate pagerank computation. If the NUMA architecture of the system is properly taken
into account with good vertex partitioning, the speedup can be significant. To take steps in
this direction, experiments are conducted to implement pagerank in OpenMP using two
different approaches, uniform and hybrid. The uniform approach runs all primitives required
for pagerank in OpenMP mode (with multiple threads). On the other hand, the hybrid
approach runs certain primitives in sequential mode (i.e., sumAt, multiply).
Unleashing the Power of Data_ Choosing a Trusted Analytics Platform.pdfEnterprise Wired
In this guide, we'll explore the key considerations and features to look for when choosing a Trusted analytics platform that meets your organization's needs and delivers actionable intelligence you can trust.
The Building Blocks of QuestDB, a Time Series Databasejavier ramirez
Talk Delivered at Valencia Codes Meetup 2024-06.
Traditionally, databases have treated timestamps just as another data type. However, when performing real-time analytics, timestamps should be first class citizens and we need rich time semantics to get the most out of our data. We also need to deal with ever growing datasets while keeping performant, which is as fun as it sounds.
It is no wonder time-series databases are now more popular than ever before. Join me in this session to learn about the internal architecture and building blocks of QuestDB, an open source time-series database designed for speed. We will also review a history of some of the changes we have gone over the past two years to deal with late and unordered data, non-blocking writes, read-replicas, or faster batch ingestion.
Crowdsourcing: A Geographic Approach to Identifying Policy Opportunities and Challenges Toward Deeper Levels of Public Engagement
1. The Internet, Policy and Politics Conference, Oxford Internet Institute University of Oxford , September 25-26, 2014
Tracey P. Lauriault, Programmable City Project
Peter Mooney, Environmental Protection Agency Ireland and Department of Computer Science
National University of Ireland at Maynooth (NUIM)
The Programmable City Project
Crowdsourcing: A Geographic Approach to Identifying Policy Opportunities and Challenges Toward Deeper Levels of Public Engagement
3. Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI)
•the public creates & contributes facts to websites where the facts are synthesized into geo- databases
•facts include both a geographic location and a description of one or more properties present at that location.
Goodchild, Michael F., and Linna Li. (2012).
4. Citizen Science (CS)
•process whereby citizens are involved in science as researchers:
•concerned citizens
•government agencies
•industry
•academia
•community groups, and
•local institutions
•collaborate to monitor, track and respond to issues of common community concern.
•not “scientists using citizens as data collectors,” but rather, “citizens as scientists”
Conrad, Cathy C., and Krista G. Hilchey (2011)
Marine LitterWatch
5. Participatory Mapping (PM)
•Approaches & techniques that combines cartography w/participatory methods to represent the spatial knowledge of local communities.
•inhabitants possess expert knowledge which can be expressed in a geographical framework
•Often socially or culturally distinct understanding w/information that is not in official maps.
•customary land boundaries
•traditional natural resource management practices
•sacred areas
•Traditional Place names
Brown and Kytta 2014
Ogiek Peoples visualizing their traditional lands Nessuit, Kenya
Good practices in participatory Mapping (2009)
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) http://www.ifad.org/pub/map/pm_web.pdf
6. Crowdsourcing
•Involves people not normally in your workspace to help collect information
•An organization has a task it needs performed
•An online community voluntarily performs the task
•The result is mutual benefit for the organization and the online community
Daren C. Brabham IBM Center for The Business of Government, 2013, Using Crowdsourcing In Government
7. Crowdsourcing
Daren C. Brabham & IBM Center for The Business of Government,(2013) Using Crowdsourcing In Government
8. Typology of Participation
Muki Haklay, Citizen Science and Volunteered Geographic Information: Overview and Typology of Participation. (2013)
9. Spectrum of VGI Contributors
Knowledge of Geographic Information
Degree of VGI Contribution
Neophyte
Interested Amateur
Expert Amateur
Expert Professional
Expert Authority
GeoConnections Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) Primer (2012)
11. Kitchin’s Data Assemblage
Attributes
Elements
Systems of thought
Modes of thinking, philosophies, theories, models, ideologies, rationalities, etc.
Forms of knowledge
Research texts, manuals, magazines, websites, experience, word of mouth, chat forums, etc.
Finance
Business models, investment, venture capital, grants, philanthropy, profit, etc.
Political economy
Policy, tax regimes, public and political opinion, ethical considerations, etc.
Govern- mentalities / Legalities
Data standards, file formats, system requirements, protocols, regulations, laws, licensing, intellectual property regimes, etc.
Materialities & infrastructures
Paper/pens, computers, digital devices, sensors, scanners, databases, networks, servers, etc.
Practices
Techniques, ways of doing, learned behaviours, scientific conventions, etc.
Organisations & institutions
Archives, corporations, consultants, manufacturers, retailers, government agencies, universities, conferences, clubs and societies, committees and boards, communities of practice, etc.
Subjectivities & communities
Of data producers, curators, managers, analysts, scientists, politicians, users, citizens, etc.
Places
Labs, offices, field sites, data centres, server farms, business parks, etc, and their agglomerations
Marketplace
For data, its derivatives (e.g., text, tables, graphs, maps), analysts, analytic software, interpretations, etc.
Systems of thought
12. Method
•Interaction type
•Trigger event
•Domain
•Organization
•Actors
•Data sets
•Process
•Feedback
•Goal
•Side effects
•Contact point
•Policy
•Legal
•Standards
•Data quality
•Technology
•Sustainability
•Credibility of the source
•Preservation
•Security
http://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/1433169/
17. Cybercartography
• Gwich’in Social and Cultural Institute
• Ingrid Kritsch used for 3 weeks
• Collected over 800 spoken place names, photos and videos w/elders on an iPad
• Data replicated back in Ottawa in a matter of hours
https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Overview
19. Cybercartographic Framework
Nate Engler, Teresa Scassa, and D. R. Fraser Taylor, (2014), Cybercartography and Volunteered Geographic Information
20. Cybercartographic Atlases
Atlas of Indigenous Perspectives & Knowledge
Atlas of Arctic Bay
Lake Huron Treaty Atlas
Inuit (Siku)Sea Ice Use & Occupancy Project
Views from the North
Kitikmeot Place Name Atlas
https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Atlases
21. Government of Canada
http://www.nrcan.gc.ca/earth-sciences/geomatics/canadas-spatial-data- infrastructure/8904
http://spatialinformation.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/white-paper-final-version.pdf
22. VGI Quality Control & System Openness
Open
Restricted
VGI System Openness
Quality Control Formality
The Crowd
Professionals
GeoConnections Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) Primer (2012)
24. Using Crowdsourcing In Government
1.Clearly define the problem and solution parameters
2.Determine the level of commitment to the outcomes
3.Know the online community and their motivations
4.Invest in usable, stimulating, well-designed tools
5.Craft policies that consider the legal needs of the organization and the online community
6.Launch a promotional plan and a plan to grow and sustain the community
7.Be honest, transparent, and responsive
8.Be involved, but share control
9.Acknowledge users and follow through on obligations
10.Assess the project from many angles
Daren C. Brabham IBM Center for The Business of Government, 2013, Using Crowdsourcing In Government http://www.businessofgovernment.org/report/using-crowdsourcing-government
26. CS as a Springboard to engagement
•VGI, Citizen Science, Participatory Mapping & Crowdsourcing
•Co-governance
•Deliberative democracy
•Evidence informed decision making
•Policy development
27. Q & A
Tracey.Lauriault@NUIM.ie
@TraceyLauriault
http://www.nuim.ie/progcity/
Peter.Mooney@nuim.ie
Thank You!
28. Abstract
Title: Crowdsourcing: A Geographic Approach to Identifying Policy Opportunities and Challenges Toward Deeper Levels of Public Engagement
Crowdsourcing in geography comes in a number of models, here we examine three: Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), Citizen Science (CS) and participatory mapping (PM). These are long standing knowledge generation models to study the human and physical world (Goodchild 2007, Audubon Society 1900, Peluso 1995). The field notes of new world explorers, for example, show that amateur scientists and officials extracted knowledge from those they colonized and used those data to inform colonial policies. Fortunately, a more critical form of geography combined with internet technologies such as Google Maps, APIs, and webmapping among other things such as interoperability standards and geotagging, have democratized crowdsourcing and made it a little easier, transforming members of the public, albeit often a highly qualified public with specialized, scientific and technological skills; from passive consumers of authoritative data into data producers (Dodge and Kitchin 2013) or prosumers (Ritzer 2008).
Successful VGI and CS examples such as OpenStreetMap, FixMyStreet, Zooniverse and Project Noah, are grassroots initiatives. PM, which here implies community mapping, counter mapping, and participatory GIS; includes stakeholders collaborating with cartographers and geomaticians in action oriented research settings to produce maps (e.g. All Island Research Observatory, cybercartographic atlases). These three established crowdsourcing models, provide a deep level of public engagement and reliable data, yet continue to inform public policy from the outside. To date there are very few CS, VGI or PM endeavours driven or adopted by government. Open511.ca, GeoConnections and the Canadian Geomatics Community Round Table, Bird Atlas of Britain and Ireland, and the Notification and Editing Service (NES) are examples where the potential of crowdsourcing as discussed here are being examined. Researchers and policy-makers have however just begun to examine the opportunities and challenges presented by these data driven models of public engagement at all scales. This paper therefore aims to describe and critically examine these models by applying a data assemblage framework (Kitchin 2012) to identify actors, forms of knowledge, technologies, data quality, practices and norms within a select number of case studies from Ireland, Canada and internationally toward the early development of a typology of practical policies to help government adopt crowdsourcing as a public engagement strategy.
A number of affordances for government to use data collected through CS (Bonney et al 2009), VGI in a national spatial data infrastructure context (Budhathoki et al 2008) and PM (Bryan 2014, Brown and Kyttä 2014) have been identified. This includes the potential for the public to act as “sensors of their environment” (Goodchild 2007, Johnson and Siber 2013), to analyze those data with government (de Leeuw et al 2011) and in the case of local and traditional knowledge, it is an opportunity for other worldviews to be represented such as indigenous toponyms, land use and occupancy, or biodiversity (Stafford et. al 2010, Taylor and Lauriault 2014). As governments in many jurisdictions must act with reduced budgets and limited human resources CS, VGI and PM offer an opportunity to include the public in data collection and analysis toward a more grounded approach to evidence informed decision-making. We suggest that governments can build public engagement opportunities by capitalizing on these three established geographic crowdsourcing models, furthermore, these models may also inform crowdsourcing processes more broadly.
29. Abstract (Cntd)
Governments to date, even with the adoption of open government principles and the launching of open data portals, have been reluctant to embrace crowdsourcing. Performance and accountability measures are of primary concern and focus of public managers and administrators. Governments cannot simply just begin to use crowdsourced data without understanding policy implications. The adoption of crowdsourced data introduces many challenges including the sustainability of VGI, CS and PM; authorship; public officials as public mediators; data and software ownership; and the reliability of data sources, to name a few. The widely held perception that VGI and CS data and to a lesser extent those of PM contain many data quality problems compared to authoritative sources is a major constraint. There are also legal implications for governments if the data they use are inaccurate, biased, or somehow flawed (Scassa 2014). Scientists and data analysts inside government departments cannot be expected to simply begin using crowdsourced data without first developing suitable structures, technologies, policies to do so. Formalized processes for the collection of VGI, CS and PM data (incorporating data quality controls and verification) coupled with the development of government structures to use these are therefore required.
Concurrently, governments are: signing onto the Open Government Partnership; adopting open government practices and launching open data projects which include increased public engagement. Governments have also recently begun to understand how to leverage myriad internet technologies (e.g. Web 2.0, APIs, GeoWeb) and are participating in new forms of public engagement activities such as hackathons, data dives, app contests and un-conferences (e.g. GovCamps) where officials and the public collaborate to derive meaning from authoritative datasets or mash these up with CS/VGI data into new apps. Interestingly, the data assemblage of open data and open government often differs from CS, VGI and PM. It is suggested here, that there is a need to study the lessons learned arising from successful efforts and demonstrate ways for governments to engage with VGI, CS and PM communities and that the spirit of the open data movement in government provides an opportunity for this form of experimentation.
This paper will identify some of the common barriers making officials reluctant to adopt crowdsourcing. We will compare these barriers with the best practices identified in three geography based crowdsourcing models and some open data examples, with the objective of developing public policy recommendations to assuage government to include crowdsourcing into their public engagement practices. A recent report by the European Commission (Science for Environmental Policy 2013) remarked that in Europe many initiatives to incorporate CS in environmental policymaking as part of a broader development of participatory forms of democracy are in their early stages. This paper will contribute in a small way to the advancement of knowledge in this area.
Finally, we argue that governmental reform, increased demand for transparency and accountability combined with open government practices are changing the relationship between the public and government and can serve as springboards for developing the concept of data informed co-governance and open opportunities for the incorporation of VGI, CS and PM into government decision-making, policy development, and meeting regulatory reporting obligations.