Validating Volunteered Geographic Information: Can We Reliably Trace Visitors\u27 Digital Footprints?

The objective of this study is to evaluate the quality of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) data for the purpose of describing patterns of visitor movement within a tourism destination. Using a Southern United States tourism destination as a case study, this research quantifies visitor flow networks using both data mined from Instagram and data collected using a traditional online survey methodology and then conducts a series of statistical analyses to compare results. In doing so, this paper highlights the advantages of using VGI data for tourism research, but also draws attention to potential trappings. Keywords: Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), Instagram, visitor network, digital footprin

Multidimensional study of urban squares through perimetral analysis: three Portuguese case studies

This paper addresses one of the most symbolically and socially meaningful elements of the public open space: the urban square (Portuguese: praça). Besides their urban centrality, these spaces’ potential for liveliness depends on multiple factors and their identity as a place may only be grasped by formal methods that embrace that latent complexity and address the multi?scale and multivariate correlations of factors that defy human cognitive capabilities. This paper will present a synchronic multidimensional analysis of three Portuguese historic squares: Praça da Oliveira, Praça de Santiago (Guimarães) and Praça do Giraldo (Évora), representative of the national historic heritage.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Visual analytics of movement: An overview of methods, tools and procedures

Analysis of movement is currently a hot research topic in visual analytics. A wide variety of methods and tools for analysis of movement data has been developed in recent years. They allow analysts to look at the data from different perspectives and fulfil diverse analytical tasks. Visual displays and interactive techniques are often combined with computational processing, which, in particular, enables analysis of a larger number of data than would be possible with purely visual methods. Visual analytics leverages methods and tools developed in other areas related to data analytics, particularly statistics, machine learning and geographic information science. We present an illustrated structured survey of the state of the art in visual analytics concerning the analysis of movement data. Besides reviewing the existing works, we demonstrate, using examples, how different visual analytics techniques can support our understanding of various aspects of movement

Measuring urban activities using Foursquare data and network analysis: a case study of Murcia (Spain)

Among social networks, Foursquare is a useful reference for identifying recommendations about local stores, restaurants, malls or other activities in the city. In this article, we consider the question of whether there is a relationship between the data provided by Foursquare regarding users’ tastes and preferences and fieldwork carried out in cities, especially those connected with business and leisure. Murcia was chosen for case study for two reasons: its particular characteristics and the prior knowledge resulting from the fieldwork. Since users of this network establish, what may be called, a ranking of places through their recommendations, we can plot these data with the objective of displaying the characteristics and peculiarities of the network in this city. Fieldwork from the city itself gives us a set of facilities and services observed in the city, which is a physical reality. An analysis of these data using a model based on a network centrality algorithm establishes a classification or ranking of the nodes that form the urban network. We compare the data extracted from the social network with the data collected from the fieldwork, in order to establish the appropriateness in terms of understanding the activity that takes place in this city. Moreover, this comparison allows us to draw conclusions about the degree of similarity between the preferences of Foursquare users and what was obtained through the fieldwork in the city.This work was partially supported by Spanish Govern, Ministerio de Economía y Competividad, the reference number of which is TIN2014-53855-P

Analysis of spatio-social relations in a photographic archive (Flickr)

This thesis aims to study and analyse the complex spatio-social relations among social entities who interact together in a spatially structured social group. This aim is approached in three steps: 1. Collecting and classifying spatio-social data, 2. Disambiguating place names that people use to refer to their homes and 3. Analysis of data of this kind (numerical and visual). The source of spatio-social data used in this work is Flickr. Flickr is a yahoo photo sharing site. Users have a social network of friends and a collection of photos on their profiles. According to available statistics1 the Flickr database contains more than three billion photos, out of which a hundred million are geo-tagged. In retrieving data from Flickr database two different samples have been explored. Initially a random collection of photos that have been uploaded in Flickr during the examined periods has been collected on a daily basis. This is followed by much narrower and more precise criteria for the second data sampling that resulted in Flickr sample GB data. The thesis concludes that location dominates a significant pattern in online behavior of social entities who interact together via internet. The core contributions of this thesis are in the areas of: 1. Extracting indicative sample from very large data sets, 2. Disambiguation of place names that people use in their natural language to refer to their home locations and 3. Proposing potential new insights into behaviors of social entities with spatio-social relations. Overall, the popularity of social networking sites and availability of data that can be obtained from the web (whether people provide voluntarily or can be retrieve as a consequence of online interactions) are likely to continue the increasing trend in future. In addition, the realm of spatio-social data analysis and its visualization also continue to expand, as do the types of maps that are achievable, the visualization packages that the maps can be built with, the number of map users and improved gazetteers with more comprehensive coverage of vague terms. Therefore, the developed methods, algorithm and applications in this study can be beneficial to researchers in social and e-social sciences, those who are interested in developing and maintaining social networking sites, geographers who work on disambiguation of fuzzy vernacular geographic terms, visualization and spatial data analysts in general and those who are looking for development and accommodation of better business strategies (i.e. localization and personalization). 1 (http://www.Flickr.com, retrieved 20/07/09

Expanding Data Imaginaries in Urban Planning:Foregrounding lived experience and community voices in studies of cities with participatory and digital visual methods

“Expanding Data Imaginaries in Urban Planning” synthesizes more than three years of industrial research conducted within Gehl and the Techno–Anthropology Lab at Aalborg University. Through practical experiments with social media images, digital photovoice, and participatory mapmaking, the project explores how visual materials created by citizens can be used within a digital and participatory methodology to reconfigure the empirical ground of data-driven urbanism. Drawing on a data feminist framework, the project uses visual research to elevate community voices and situate urban issues in lived experiences. As a Science and Technology Studies project, the PhD also utilizes its industrial position as an opportunity to study Gehl’s practices up close, unpacking collectively held narratives and visions that form a particular “data imaginary” and contribute to the production and perpetuation of the role of data in urban planning. The dissertation identifies seven epistemological commitments that shape the data imaginary at Gehl and act as discursive closures within their practice. To illustrate how planners might expand on these, the dissertation uses its own data experiments as speculative demonstrations of how to make alternative modes of knowing cities possible through participatory and digital visual methods