The Geoweb for community-based organizations: Tool development, implementation, and sustainability in an era of Google Maps

Recent advances in web-based geospatial tools (the Geoweb) show promise as low-cost and easy-to-use methods to support citizen participation. This research presents two case studies of Geoweb implementation set in community-based organizations in rural Quebec, Canada. When comparing the development and sustainability of each Geoweb tool, the implementation time frame plays a key role. Two implementation time frames are defined; a discrete, or ‘one-off’ time frame associated with lower resource requirements, and a continuous, or ongoing time frame, that has a higher total resource cost, but can fulfill a different set of goals than a discrete implementation

A Web of Expectations: Evolving Relationships in Community Participatory Geoweb Projects.

This article was first published in ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies in 2015, available online: http://ojs.unbc.ca/index.php/acme/article/view/1235/1030.New forms of participatory online geospatial technology have the potential to support citizen engagement in governance and community development. The mechanisms of this contribution have predominantly been cast in the literature as ‘citizens as sensors’, with individuals acting as a distributed network, feeding academics or government with data. To counter this dominant perspective, we describe our shared experiences with the development of three community-based Geospatial Web 2.0 (Geoweb) projects, where community organizations were engaged as partners, with the general aim to bring about social change in their communities through technology development and implementation. Developing Geoweb tools with community organizations was a process that saw significant evolution of project expectations and relationships. As Geoweb tool development encountered the realities of technological development and implementation in a community context, this served to reduce organizational enthusiasm and support for projects as a whole. We question the power dynamics at play between university researchers and organizations, including project financing, both during development and in the long term. How researchers managed, or perpetuated, many of the popular myths of the Geoweb, namely that it is inexpensive and easy to use (thought not to build, perhaps) impacted the success of each project and the sustainability of relationships between researcher and organization. Ultimately, this research shows the continuing gap between the promise of online geospatial technology, and the realities of its implementation at the community level.Peer-reviewe

Propagation of Uncertainty for Volunteered Geographic Information in Machine Learning (Short Paper)

Although crowdsourcing drives much of the interest in Machine Learning (ML) in Geographic Information Science (GIScience), the impact of uncertainty of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) on ML has been insufficiently studied. This significantly hampers the application of ML in GIScience. In this paper, we briefly delineate five common stages of employing VGI in ML processes, introduce some examples, and then describe propagation of uncertainty of VGI

An agent-based approach to providing tourism planning support

Agent-based modeling (ABM) is a computer simulation approach that can be used to represent real-world systems and create planning scenarios to examine possible future outcomes of present-day decisions. This approach can be applied in tourism planning, where destinations are exposed to a variety of externalities, and must develop strategies to adapt to changing operational conditions. We describe the development of TourSim, an ABM of tourism dynamics set in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. We present an overview of the data sources and techniques used to inform agent behavior and the destination landscape, as well as consider aspects of system representation and validation and how these may affect the use of TourSim. TourSim is used to generate three scenarios of tourism dynamics; a base-case scenario, one that simulates the effect of a decrease in visitation from American markets as a result of economic crisis, and the use of advertising as a response to this lower level of visitation. These scenarios are used to evaluate ABM in comparison with other computer-based methods of modeling tourism, namely geographic information systems and system dynamics models.

Negotiating constraints to the adoption of agent-based modeling in tourism planning

Recent work exploring the use of agent-based models (ABMs) in a planning support role must be accompanied by an evaluation of the possible constraints that exist to the use of these models. This research presents an evaluation, from the perspective of professional tourism planners, of the potential for ABM of tourism dynamics to serve as a planning support system (PSS). Tourism is a phenomenon that is inherently individually based, with many interacting processes occurring at multiple scales, across space and time. This makes it a natural environment in which to test an ABM-based PSS. We conducted a series of interviews with tourism planners operating in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, a region where tourism plays an important economic role. These interviews consisted of a general-needs overview, coupled with an assessment of a prototype model we developed, called TourSim. The interviews sought to uncover the specific planning tasks to which ABM would be best applied and identify areas of adoption constraint. The results of this research indicate that TourSim served as a scenario development tool, with a focus on data analysis and communication. Conversely, TourSim was reported to lack transparency, which affected the confidence that planners had in its results. This evaluation clarifies the path forward for developers looking to introduce ABM to planning practice.

Tourism and Environmental Change in Barbados: Gathering Citizen Perspectives With Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI)

New map-based online tools have the potential to facilitate citizen participation in discussing the impacts of tourism. This research investigates the use of Geospatial Web 2.0 (Geoweb) tools to gather volunteered geographic information (VGI) on tourism-related environmental change from citizens of Barbados. We hosted participatory mapping workshops where groups of Barbadians directly contributed content to a series of online maps. These maps were made with the free Google My Map tool, allowing users to interact with detailed satellite imagery of Barbados. Qualitative observations were added and geo-referenced to these maps identifying several types of environmental change concerns, both those generated by tourism, and those with implications for tourism development. We analysed how participants used Google My Maps, identifying concerns of accuracy, data completeness and digital/computer literacy amongst users that could affect further use of this tool. Overall, the Geoweb approach provided participants with a unique perspective on environmental change that facilitated deeper discussion of issues and produced a publicly available, spatially referenced record of citizen concerns. Further research needs are demonstrated, including user interface design, accuracy and uncertainty, and how to manage varying levels of digital literacy

Towards a User-Oriented Open Data Strategy

The chapter explains that the single typical user of open government data does not exist. Therefore, data suppliers should take a five-step approach in the design of the user oriented policy: (1) define its objective(s) of open data, (2) recognise and identify the user types needed to arrive at the objectives, (3) assess the appropriateness of the identified users, (5) satisfy the needs. Although it will always be a challenging endeavour to satisfy all users to the fullest extent of their needs and/or demands, it is recommended to involve users in the decision-making processes related to open data: a shift from supply-to user-driven open data provision is a key step in open data management.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.OLD Geo-information and Land Developmen