Computer Models for Social Change - geoweb

New community economic development article

admin — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 03:06:09 +0000

Congratulations, Pierre on your first journal article!

Pierre Beaudreau, Peter A Johnson and Renee E Sieber. 2012. Strategic Choices in Developing a Geospatial Web 2.0 Application for Rural Economic Development. Journal of Rural and Community Development 7( 3)

The full article is available for download.

This year's AAG

sieber — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 22:24:38 +0000

Our presence at the annual Association of American Geographers meeting in NYC, February 24-28

Community Activism on the Geospatial Web 2.0 (Geoweb) (Sponsored by Geographic Information Science and Systems Specialty Group; Applied Geography Specialty Group; GIScience, Cyberinfrastructure, and Social Media Special Session Track)

ORGANIZER(S): Renee Sieber, McGill University; Jon Corbett, University of British Columbia-Okanagan

CHAIR(S): Renee Sieber, McGill University

Wendy E Brawer, Founding Director, Green Map System, Green Maps: Transforming Local Information into Global Interaction.

Marcy L Burchfield, MSc, Neptis Foundation, An experiment in building an ad hoc collaborative regional planning community on the Geoweb.

Pamela Robinson, MCIP RPP, Ryerson University; Nick Weigeldt, Clean Air Partnership, Expert vs. Crowdsourced Urban Planning: A VGI Cage Match with Governance Implications.

Renee Sieber, McGill University; Andreane Lussier, McGill University; Patrick Quinn, McGill University; Peter Johnson, McGill University, Community Activism, Watershed Management, and the Geospatial Web 2.0.

Jon Corbett, University of British Columbia-Okanagan, Food networking: using the geoweb to support food related dialogue.

Our first article from our governance and the geoweb project

sieber — Wed, 25 May 2011 23:08:40 +0000

Peter A. Johnson and Renee E. Sieber. 2011. Motivations driving government adoption of the Geoweb GeoJournal. Online First™, 11 May 2011

Recent increases in the use of Web 2.0 and Geoweb technologies by citizens have led many governments to investigate the adoption of these technologies. This research examines the motivations driving multiple levels of government in Quebec, Canada to consider the adoption of the Geoweb within a context of rural development. We present results from a series of interviews with key government representatives that identifies the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) of the Geoweb within provincial and municipal government. Respondents define two implementations of the Geoweb, informational and participatory, indicating that SWOT differs for each. This research concludes that for government to implement an informational Geoweb, there are few barriers, but that a participatory Geoweb will require a more substantial, and potentially long-term renegotiation of the relationship between citizen and government.

Team 41 at the GEOIDE Conference

sieber — Tue, 17 May 2011 23:45:54 +0000

Several graduate and undergraduate students represented Team 41 at the 2011 GEOIDE Conference, held this year in Toronto on May 16th and 17th.

Lukanyenko, Roman. 2011. Citizen Science 2.0: Increasing quality and participation. Poster presented at the 2011 Annual GEOIDE Conference May 16-17, Toronto.

Mc Conchie, Alan and Brian Klinkenberg. 2011. Interactive User Validation of Volunteered Geographic Information. Poster presented at the 2011 Annual GEOIDE Conference May 16-17, Toronto.

Torio, Dante. 2011. Using Fuzzy Logic to Map the Threat of Coastal Squeeze in Marshes at Wells Reserve and Portland, Maine. Poster presented at the 2011 Annual GEOIDE Conference May 16-17, Toronto.

Tudge, Pamela. 2011. Communicating Climate Change Report for Year 2. Presented 2011 Annual GEOIDE Conference May 16-17, Toronto.

Walker, Blake, and Claus Rinner. 2011. Deconstructing Effective Participation on the Geoweb. Poster presented at the 2011 Annual GEOIDE Conference May 16-17, Toronto.

QC grant becomes McGill recruiting tool.

sieber — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 04:22:42 +0000

Our work in Quebec has been highlighted in this video, which is being used to attract Fracophone students to McGill.

Geoweb in Australia

admin — Wed, 01 Dec 2010 02:59:01 +0000

Sieber was invited to give four presentations in Australia. Among them,

The Geospatial Web 2.0, Volunteered Geographic Information and Citizen Environmental Science. November 22. Dept of Geomatics. Univerisity of Melbourne.

Geoweb and the New World Order. Keynote speech at CRC-SI (Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information: Spatially enabling Australia) Annual Conference and Launch. November 23-24.

She also gave two talks on the Geoweb and the New World Order at two offices of Landgate, in Perth, WA and Midland, WA.

Call for abstracts

sieber — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:46:01 +0000

RGS-IBG SESSION: Governance and the Geoweb
Location and Dates: Royal Geographic Society Annual International Conference

September 1-3, 2010, London, UK.

Sponsor: GIScience Research Group (GIScRG)

The increasing challenges from crises such as climate change in addition to expectations from the public about modes of engagement mean that traditional methods of public participation are being challenged. eGovernment systems, such as authoritative Web mapping sites, which were heralded as the solution to this challenge, predominantly offer one-way communication from government to the public and do not include effective means to collect citizen feedback nor engage citizens in two-way dialogue. New mechanisms, like the Geospatial Web (or Geoweb), have the potential to address these challenges and present a unique opportunity for both local and central governments.

Presentation at OMRN

sieber — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:04:32 +0000

Hanif Rahemtulla, along with Gail Chmura, also at Mc Gill, presented "VGI in the Restoration and Conservation of Coastal Marshes: A Case Study of the Bay of Fundy" in the Linking Science and Local Knowledge session, Oceans Management Research Network (OMRN) Conference presentation, Ottawa, ON, October 23, 2009.

Moving geography students to the geoweb: the research challenges

sieber — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:36:12 +0000

Our undergraduate research assistant, Korbin daSilva presented a poster at McGill's Undergraduate Research Conference:

Echo "Hello, Farmer!": Implication of New Computational Technologies on Connecting Local food to consumers AND to geography

Despite growing calls for locally produced foods, a disconnect remains between average consumers and local producers. Web 2.0 with social networking capabilities offer new solutions to bridge this gap. Simple Digital Earth mashups (e.g., with Google Maps) are useful; Digital Earth APIs (Application Program Interfaces) contain greater potential to accomplish interactivity with geographic information. These more computational approaches represent a paradigm shift for traditional geography. I developed an application that allows urban consumers to easily customize Google Maps. The application also gathers information from rural farmers regarding what and where products are sold. I hope to bring the computation behind Web 2.0 to the discipline of geography and bring geographic information science to the layperson.