Transforming Curriculums For An Age Of Multi-Modal Education: A 5-Phase Approach

The pandemic has accelerated the trend towards online and hybrid learning with many educational institutes pivoting their education to online learning environments and has subsequently transformed societal expectations. There have been many benefits associated with these changes (e.g., multi-dimensional interactions, flexibility and deep learning). As we move into more online education due to changing needs and demands from students, how best to adapt our education for multi-modal learning environments can be a challenge. Getting our education ready for a multi-modal age is bringing about disruptive changes forcing us to rethink what we teach and how we teach it. Thus, the objective of this paper is to present a framework that will allow for the evaluation of curriculums and enable educators to create sustainable, flexible educational environments relevant for multimodal learning environments while remaining at the forefront of educational needs. In this paper, we present the 5-phase approach that we used to assess our programme and redesign our curriculum. The five phases include: Inventory, Analysis, Evaluation, Design and Implementation. We will present the highlights from our experience and the challenges we have had to overcome. The framework that we present is applicable to different computer science, spatial and data engineering programmes that require a mix of theoretical and hands-on practicals

Mobile GIS and local knowledge in monitoring carbon stocks

Jeroen Verplanke describes the development of a mobile GIS unit that can be used by local communities to record and monitor the carbon stored in natural forests

Citizen surveillance of the state: a mirror for e-government

Abstract. This paper discusses, conceptually and empirically, the role of geographic ICT (geoICT) and virtual globes (e.g. Google Earth) at the interface of public policy and citizens. Our preliminary findings from on-going field work in an Indian city and in Zanzibar suggest that virtual globe technology can potentially transfer to citizens surveillance power, traditionally held by the government. Starting from the traditional electronic government framework, where bureaucracy acts as a filter between policy makers and citizens with grievances, we outline an emerging framework where commercial virtual globes act as mediators between policy-makers and citizens. We show that the emerging framework holds the potential of allowing citizens concerned, in our case, about the quality of water services, to influence policy makers directly. The virtual globe acts as a mirror to the traditional eGovernment framework and lends a different societal visibility both to public services provision, and to localized citizens' needs

A data support infrastructure for Clean Development Mechanism forestry implementation: an inventory perspective from Cameroon

Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) forestry project development requires highly multi-disciplinary and multiple-source information that can be complex, cumbersome and costly to acquire. Yet developing countries in which CDM projects are created and implemented are often data poor environments and unable to meet such complex information requirements. Using Cameroon as an example, the present paper explores the structure of an enabling host country data support infrastructure for CDM forestry implementation, and also assesses the supply potential of current forestry information. Results include a conceptual data model of CDM project data needs; the list of meso- and macro-level data and information requirements (Demand analysis); and an inventory of relevant data available in Cameroon (Supply analysis). From a comparison of demand and supply, we confirm that data availability and the relevant infrastructure for data or information generation is inadequate for supporting carbon forestry at the micro, meso and macro-levels in Cameroon. The results suggest that current CDM afforestation and reforestation information demands are almost impenetrable for local communities in host countries and pose a number of cross-scale barriers to project adoption. More importantly, we identify proactive regulatory, institutional and capacity building policy strategies for forest data management improvements that could enhance biosphere carbon management uptake in poor countries. CDM forestry information research needs are also highlighted

SIG mobile pour un suivi des stocks de carbone

Jeroen Verplanke nous présente un SIG mobile que les communautés locales peuvent utiliser pour l'enregistrement et le suivi des stocks de carbone dans les forêts naturelles

Wicked Water Points: The Quest for an Error Free National Water Point Database

The Water Sector Development Programme (WSDP) of Tanzania aims to improve the performance of the water sector in general and rural water supply (RWS) in particular. During the first phase of the WSDP (2007 to 2014), implementing agencies developed information systems for attaining management efficiencies. One of these systems, the Water Point Mapping System (WPMS), has now been completed, and the database is openly available to the public, as part of the country’s commitment to the Open Government Partnership (OGP) initiative. The Tanzanian WPMS project was the first attempt to map “wall-to-wall” all rural public water points in an African nation. The complexity of the endeavor led to suboptimal results in the quality of the WPMS database, the baseline of the WPMS. The WPMS database was a means for the future monitoring of all rural water points, but its construction has become an end in itself. We trace the challenges of water point mapping in Tanzania and describe how the WPMS database was initially populated and to what effect. The paper conceptualizes errors found in the WPMS database as material, observational, conceptual and discursive, and characterizes them in terms of type, suspected origin and mitigation options. The discussion focuses on the consequences of open data scrutiny for the integrity of the WPMS database and the implications for monitoring wicked water point data

Capturing and mapping quality of life using Twitter data

There is an ongoing discussion about the applicability of social media data in scientific research. Moreover, little is known about the feasibility to use these data to capture Quality-of-Life (QoL). This study explores the use of social media in QoL research by capturing and mapping people’s perceptions about their life based on geo-located Twitter data. The methodology is based on a mixed-method approach, combining manual coding of the messages, automated classification, and spatial analysis. Bristol is used as a case study, with a dataset containing 1,374,706 geotagged Tweets. Based on the manual coding results, three QoL domains were analysed. Results show the difference between Bristol wards in number and type of QoL perceptions in every domain, spatial distribution of positive and negative perceptions, and differences between the domains. Furthermore, results from this study are compared to the official QoL survey results from Bristol, statistically and spatially. Overall, three main conclusions are underlined. First, to an extent, Twitter data can be used to evaluate QoL. Second, based on people’s perceptions, there is a difference in QoL between neighbourhoods in Bristol. And, third, Twitter messages can be used to complement QoL surveys, but not act as a proxy for traditional survey results. The main contribution of this study is in recognising the potential Twitter data have in QoL research. This potential lies in producing additional knowledge about QoL that can be placed in a planning context and effectively used to improve the decision-making process and enhance quality-of-life of residents