Urban data and city dashboards: Six key issues

This chapter considers the relationship between data and the city by critically examining six key issues with respect city dashboards: epistemology, scope and access, veracity and validity, usability and literacy, use and utility, and ethics. While city dashboards provide useful tools for evaluating and managing urban services, understanding and formulating policy, and creating public knowledge and counter-narratives, our analysis reveals a number of conceptual and practical shortcomings. In order for city dashboards to reach their full potential we advocate a number of related shifts in thinking and praxes and forward an agenda for addressing the issues we highlight. Our analysis is informed by our endeavours in building the Dublin Dashboard

Guidelines for a participatory urban cycling dashboard: A case study for Münster, Germany

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial TechnologiesUrban cycling as a sustainable mobility system gets increasing attention in practical and academic urban transportation planning. At the same time, many cities are willing to foster their transparency and openness of urban data by utilizing urban dashboards. In conjunction, it lacks digital tools such as an urban cycling dashboard that have the potential of collecting cycling-related data, assessing it, and finally communicating its information with data visualizations. However, intended users are rarely integrated already at the earliest conceptualization stage of such an urban dashboard, which often results in low usability and utility. Simultaneously, there is a lack of integrating cyclists and their experiences into the quality assessments of urban cycling. To address these practical and research problems, this work aims in conceptualizing a user-centered and participatory urban cycling dashboard. Therefore, we conduct a user survey with cyclists/citizens, and decision makers from our case study in Münster, Germany, and apply findings from literature and dashboard reviews. The results show the users’ preference for an informational focus on cycling infrastructure but also their motivation of exchanging information on cycling experiences and future projects. Generally, the feedback for integrating the local users at earliest stage is positive. Such a user-centric conceptualization is a first systematic step of developing a participatory urban cycling dashboard that should support the understanding of a complex urban cycling system as well as fostering more participation and transparency in urban cycling planning

Participatory diagnosis and adaptive management of small-scale fisheries in the Niger River Basin

In a broad sense, analysis of ‘resilience’ is about the capacity of systems to adapt to shocks, recognizing that disturbance and change are integral component of complex systems. More formally, resilience analysis proposes to focus on mechanisms and processes that help systems absorbing perturbations and shocks, and coping with uncertainty and risks. Defined in such a way, the concept of resilience thus appears particularly useful for the management of small-scale fisheries. However, while the resilience concept is appealing, particularly in the face of the failure of current management approaches, the danger is that it remains largely academic and theoretical, and not of a great help in effectively improving the way natural resources are managed on the ground. The challenge, therefore, lies in a pragmatic approach to operationalizing the concept of resilience and making its implementation on the ground practical and meaningful. In this project we propose a framework aimed at this objective and we test it in the specific context of small-scale fisheries in the Niger River Basin

Towards highly informative learning analytics

Among various trending topics that can be investigated in the field of educational technology, there is a clear and high demand for using artificial intelligence (AI) and educational data to improve the whole learning and teaching cycle. This spans from collecting and estimating the prior knowledge of learners for a certain subject to the actual learning process and its assessment. AI in education cuts across almost all educational technology disciplines and is key to many other technological innovations for educational institutions. The use of data to inform decision-making in education and training is not new, but the scope and scale of its potential impact on teaching and learning have silently increased by orders of magnitude over the last few years. The release of ChatGPT was another driver to finally make everyone aware of the potential effects of AI technology in the digital education system of today. We are now at a stage where data can be automatically harvested at previously unimagined levels of granularity and variety. Analysis of these data with AI has the potential to provide evidence-based insights into learners’ abilities and patterns of behaviour that, in turn, can provide crucial action points to guide curriculum and course design, personalised assistance, generate assessments, and the development of new educational offerings. AI in education has many connected research communities like Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED), Educational Data Mining (EDM), or Learning Analytics (LA). LA is the term that is used for research, studies, and applications that try to understand and support the behaviour of learners based on large sets of collected data

Digital Disruption in Teaching and Testing

This book provides a significant contribution to the increasing conversation concerning the place of big data in education. Offering a multidisciplinary approach with a diversity of perspectives from international scholars and industry experts, chapter authors engage in both research- and industry-informed discussions and analyses on the place of big data in education, particularly as it pertains to large-scale and ongoing assessment practices moving into the digital space. This volume offers an innovative, practical, and international view of the future of current opportunities and challenges in education and the place of assessment in this context

Data analytics on key indicators for the city's urban services and dashboards for leadership and decision-making

Cities are continuously evolving human settlements. Our cities are under strain in an increasingly urbanized world, and planners, decision-makers, and communities must be ready to adapt. Data is an important resource for municipal administration. Some technologies aid in the collection, processing, and visualization of urban data, assisting in the interpretation and comprehension of how urban systems operate. The relationship between data analytics and smart cities has come to light in recent years as interest in both has grown. A sophisticated network of interconnected systems, including planners and inhabitants, is what is known as a smart city. Data analysis has the potential to support data-driven decision-making in the context of smart cities. Both urban managers and residents are becoming more interested in city dashboards. Dashboards may collect, display, analyze, and provide information on regional performance to help smart cities development having sustainability. In order to assist decision-making processes and enhance the performance of cities, we examine how dashboards might be used to acquire accurate and representative information regarding urban challenges. This chapter culminates Data Analytics on key indicators for the city's urban services and dashboards for leadership and decision-making. A single web page with consolidated information, real-time data streams pertinent to planners and decision-makers as well as residents' everyday lives, and site analytics as a method to assess user interactions and preferences are among the proposals for urban dashboards. Keywords: -Dashboard, data analytics, smart city, sustainability

A framework for dashboarding city performance : an application to Cascais smart city

Project Work presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Information Management, specialization in Information Systems and Technologies ManagementThere has been a recent move to open up the data about the cities and transform it in indicators of interest to share with citizens through online, interactive data visualizations, often termed ‘city dashboards’. This project reflects on the building of dashboards mainly based on open data generated in the smart city context of Cascais. The main goal of these dashboards is to provide detailed information about city performance and trends, without citizens or the managers of the municipality needing to collect or learn how to handle data. These open data and dashboard initiatives are changing not only the relationship between government and the public, but also the way that the municipality is managed. The work begins with a literature review composed by a framework describing the characteristics of a smart city followed by an approach about the open data and a perspective about dashboards. Then, a benchmarking is presented as a means to select a series of indicators that can efficiently capture the performance of the smart city. These indicators will feed the dashboards that will permit to see Cascais as visualized facts, changing the way how managers and citizens know their municipality. The work also identifies the need of a graphic rules manual to follow up in future dashboards in order to achieve coherence in the public share of dashboards by the various departments of Cascais. The project ends with the presentation of a set of key indicators that describe the municipality in several dimensions and with an application case of the constructed dashboards to the open data portal of Cascais

Big Data and Urban Planning in Pakistan: A Case Study of The Urban Unit

This Major Paper presents research on the use of big data for urban planning and smart cities in the global South. It does so through a case study of the use of data at the Urban Unit in the province of Punjab, Pakistan. Based on a series of interviews and extended literature review, I trace the evolution of a science of cities and the growth of urban informatics and smart cities. I then define big data and discuss its related opportunities and limitations. The bulk of this Paper consists of a case study of the Urban Unit and research findings regarding the use of data in planning in Pakistan. A number of challenges to the use of data are identified, classified into challenges regarding data access and reliability, data literacy, and institutional challenges. A major finding is that the practice of urban planning in Pakistan is quite limited in a number of ways. The final chapter shares recommendations from interviewees and reflections on research findings, focusing on the politics of data. The paper ends by discussing future research directions

Development of a framework and interactive dashboard for evaluation and monitoring smart regions: the Oeste smart region case

Dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Geospatial TechnologiesThe 12 municipalities comprising the Oeste region of Portugal is desirous of developing a smart region. There is a need for the development of a framework and tool for the monitoring and evaluation of the performance of the Oeste smart region. These would also serve as a baseline against which progress could be measured. The goal of this thesis is, therefore, to develop and implement of a framework for the monitoring and evaluation of the performance of the Oeste smart region. The study adopted a design research approach. It achieved its aim by reviewing literature and frameworks on smart regions and smart cities and noted four (4) dimensions and eighteen (18) indicators which were most important within the context of smart regions. These dimensions and indicators were then applied to the Oeste smart region context. Of the 18 indicators, fourteen (14) were available either directly or in form of proxy data, for the region. These 14 indicators in 4 dimensions were then used to construct an interactive dashboard. After the extract, transform and load (ETL), the storage, the dashboard construction, and data visualization were all performed in github to ensure reproducibility. From the data presented, it was noted that the smartest municipality in the region is Nazaré, while the least is Cadaval. The dashboard was also used as a tool for smart region goal setting. This was demonstrated by setting a goal of a 10% increase in performance. The implications of setting a 10% increase in smartness were then presented at the regional, and municipality levels. Also, the targets for the indicators and dimensions were presented. Overall, the dashboard was effective as a tool for monitoring and evaluation of the smart region.Os 12 municípios que compõem a região Oeste de Portugal desejam desenvolver uma região inteligente. Existe a necessidade do desenvolvimento de um framework e ferramenta para o monitoramento e avaliação do desempenho da região inteligente do Oeste. Estes também serviriam como uma linha de base contra a qual o progresso poderia ser medido. O objetivo desta tese é, portanto, desenvolver e implementar um framework para a monitorização e avaliação do desempenho da região inteligente do Oeste. O estudo adotou uma abordagem de pesquisa de design. Ele alcançou seu objetivo revisando a literatura e estruturas sobre regiões inteligentes e cidades inteligentes e observou quatro (4) dimensões e dezoito (18) indicadores que eram mais importantes no contexto das regiões inteligentes. Estas dimensões e indicadores foram então aplicados ao contexto da região inteligente do Oeste. Dos 18 indicadores, quatorze (14) estavam disponíveis diretamente ou na forma de dados proxy para a região. Esses 14 indicadores em 4 dimensões foram então usados para construir um painel interativo. Após a extração, transformação e carregamento (ETL), o armazenamento, a construção do dashboard e a visualização dos dados foram todos realizados no github para garantir a reprodutibilidade. A partir dos dados apresentados, notou-se que o município mais inteligente da região é a Nazaré, enquanto o menos é o Cadaval. O painel também foi usado como ferramenta para definição de metas de regiões inteligentes. Isso foi demonstrado ao estabelecer uma meta de 10% de aumento no desempenho. As implicações de definir um aumento de 10% na inteligência foram então apresentadas nos níveis regional e municipal. Também foram apresentadas as metas para os indicadores e dimensões. No geral, o dashboard foi eficaz como ferramenta de monitoramento e avaliação da região inteligente

Measuring Change While Changing Measures: Learning In, and From, the Evaluation of Making Connections

This case study describes the evaluation of a multi-site, decade-long community change effort by the Annie E. Casey Foundation that aimed to improve outcomes for the most vulnerable children by transforming their neighborhoods and helping their parents achieve economic stability, connect with better services and supports, and forge strong social networks. The case study explores a myriad of issues related to the challenges of evaluating comprehensive community initiatives and keeping the evaluation relevant as the program evolved