Waterloo Civic Map Lab

2017 Esri User Conference and The Cost(s) of Geospatial Open Data

Peter Johnson — Tue, 01 Aug 2017 12:00:00 +0000

I had the amazing opportunity recently to attend the 2017 Esri User Conference (UC) in San Diego, California. The Esri ‘UC’ as it’s known is an annual event that showcases what’s new and hot in the Esri GIS world, and provides a chance for over 16,000 GIS and map nerds to get together, learn from each other, and generally celebrate everything geospatial.

Tags: conferences, development, education, giscience, open data, publications, esri, journal, technology

Measuring the value and impact of open data: Recruiting doctoral students

Peter Johnson — Sat, 09 Jan 2016 12:00:00 +0000

I’ve recently been successful with obtaining five years of funding from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation’s Early Researcher Award (ERA). This generous funding will allow me to measure the value and impact of open data initiatives, assessing how open data is accessed, used, and exploited.

Tags: education, geothink, open data, research, academic, funding, giscience, opportunities

Esri Canada Centres of Excellence (ECCE) App Challenge 2015

Qing (Lucy) Lu — Mon, 20 Apr 2015 12:00:00 +0000

This is a guest post by graduate student Qing (Lucy) Liu about her team’s experience at the Esri Canada App Challenge:

The ECCE App Challenge is a coding completion held by Esri Canada. Started in February 27, 2015, teams of participants were given one week to develop an innovative app using open data and Esri software. The apps to be developed should be on some aspect of government services in Canada, for any of the following themes:

Tags: education, geoweb, giscience, gis, hackathon

Fulcrum – using mobile devices to collect field data

Peter Johnson — Fri, 21 Nov 2014 12:00:00 +0000

As part of Geography 187: Problem Solving in Geomatics, I’ve started using Fulcrum as a tool for students to gain experience collecting in-situ field data. Fulcrum is both a mobile app (for iOS and Android) and a data management/survey design backend.

Tags: education, geoweb, giscience, academic, fulcrum, gis, mobile, students, waterloo

A comparison of traditional and experiential approaches to first-year geomatics instruction

Peter Johnson — Mon, 10 Nov 2014 12:00:00 +0000

I'm currently leading a research project that looks to compare two first-year Geomatics courses (GEOG 181 and the new GEOG 187).

Tags: development, education, giscience, tools, academic, geomatics, grant, teaching

Geopatial Mobility Lab – Launched with support from CFI and ORF

Peter Johnson — Thu, 14 Aug 2014 12:00:00 +0000

I’ve recently been awarded funding from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and the Ontario Research Fund (ORF). I’d like to thank both of these government funding agencies for their support of a new research and training initiative that I call the ‘Geospatial Mobility Lab’. This effort is also co-sponsored through direct contributions of equipment and services from Esri Canada and Dell Computer.

Tags: education, giscience, tools, academic, geomatics, mobile, opportunities, research, technology

Balloon mapping experiment

Peter Johnson — Tue, 10 Jun 2014 12:00:00 +0000

It’s no secret – I’ve got a real love for do-it-yourself (DIY) and small-scale data collection methods.

Tags: development, education, giscience, open data, tools, aerial photography, balloon, diy, gis, remote sensing, teaching

Escape the winter blahs in sunny Tampa: Looking forwards to the AAG meeting

Peter Johnson — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 12:00:00 +0000

Yes indeed, after one of the longest, snowiest winters in recent memory, I’m eagerly anticipating the upcoming Association of American Geographers meeting in sunny Tampa, Florida. I’m going to be presenting in two venues, first the alt.conference on Big Data where I will be discussing (quickly – like lightning) different models of government adoption of crowdsourced data. Second, I’m doing a more conventional presentation on the challenges of jurisdictionality in government adoption of the Geoweb. See a trend here?

Tags: conferences, geoweb, giscience

Geothink.ca: How the Geospatial Web 2.0 is reshaping government-citizen interactions

Peter Johnson — Mon, 08 Jul 2013 12:00:00 +0000

Recently I’ve been fortunate enough to be part of a team that has been awarded a SSHRC Partnership Grant for a 5-year study of “How the Geospatial Web 2.0 is reshaping government-citizen interactions”, also called Geothink.

Tags: geothink, geoweb, giscience, open data, academic, government, neogeography, participation, user generated content, vgi

Can open data lead to open government?

Peter Johnson — Sat, 08 Dec 2012 12:00:00 +0000

The relationship between Open Data and Open Government is one that fascinates me. I’m curious as to how Open Data – that is, data that is easily accessible with a minimum of restrictions governing use or reuse, can be used as a conversation or focus point to increase the involvement of citizens in government. If government data is being collected to support decision-making, shouldn’t that data be shared with citizens?

Tags: geoweb, giscience, open data, academic, geothink, government, open government, participation