Author Archives: Drew Bush

Geothink Video Interview 2: Ever Wondered Why Geothink?

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By Drew Bush

Geothinkers, have you ever wondered how Geothink got its start? Or perhaps you are someone who just stumbled on this site and might be wondering what is Geothink?

Wonder no longer. Today we bring you two video interviews with Geothink Head Renee Sieber, associate professor in McGill University’s Department of Geography and School of Environment. She’ll not only put to rest where Geothink came from but also talk about how today’s technology has fundamentally altered our relationship with the cities we live in.

Watch the longer interview here:

In a rush? Get the quick answers on who and what Geothink is right here:

If you have thoughts or questions about these videos, get in touch with Drew Bush, Geothink’s digital journalist, at drew.bush@mail.mcgill.ca.

Geothoughts Conversations 1: Debating and Defining the Emergent Field of Crowdsourcing Civic Governance

Our second Geothoughts Conversations piece takes a look at crowdsourcing, the topic of the 2015 Summer Institute.

Our first Geothoughts Conversations piece takes a look at crowdsourcing, the topic of the 2015 Summer Institute.

By Drew Bush

One of the hallmarks of any academic conference are the conversations that take place in-between sessions, in the hallways and over meals. In our first Geothink Conversations we aim to give you a flavor of these discussions at Geothink’s now concluded 2015 Summer Institute.

This month’s conversation features Geothink Head Renee Sieber, associate professor in McGill University’s Department of Geography and School of Environment; Robert Goodspeed, assistant professor of Urban Planning at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; Daren Brabham, assistant professor in the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalism and Communication; and Monica Stephens, assistant professor in the Department of Geography at State University of New York at Buffalo. And, of course, I’m Drew Bush and I’ll be helping steer the conversation along.

Each day of the institute alternated morning lectures, panel discussions and in-depth case studies on topics in crowdsourcing with afternoon work sessions where professors worked with student groups one-on-one on their proposal to meet a challenge posed by the City of Ottawa. For more on the Institute, check out our web site at geothink.ca.

To start us off, Brabham gets the group rolling on what exactly defines the boundaries of crowdsourcing, the topic of many conversations overheard during the three-day conference.


If you have thoughts or questions about this podcast, get in touch with Drew Bush, Geothink’s digital journalist, at drew.bush@mail.mcgill.ca.

Geothink Researcher Peter Johnson Honored with Early Researcher Award from the Government of Ontario

Peter Johnson undertakes the Public Lab of Open Technology and Science (PLOTS, or simply ‘Public Lab’) balloon mapping technique to test it for future use in a class.

Peter Johnson undertakes the Public Lab of Open Technology and Science (PLOTS, or simply ‘Public Lab’) balloon mapping technique to test it for future use in a class.

By Drew Bush

Peter Johnson, assistant professor of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo, was honoured with the Ontario Government’s Early Researcher Award for his project, Measuring the Value and Impact of Open Data. Johnson was one of two professors in his department that were funded.

Peter Johnson, assistant professor in the University of Waterloo Department of Geography and Environmental Management, was recently awared Ontario's Young Researcher Award.

Peter Johnson, assistant professor in the University of Waterloo Department of Geography and Environmental Management, was recently awarded Ontario’s Early Researcher Award.

In the project, Johnson will build partnerships with stakeholders, develop case studies to measure the impact of open data initiatives, and assess how open data generates economic and social benefits. Ontario’s provincial and municipal governments now prioritize the sharing of open government data, like many North American communities.

And right now is a key time for evaluating the impacts of such data, Johnson told Geothink this past June at the University of Waterloo.

“I think we’ve reached a spot in open data provision where we understand the technical challenges to providing open data and some of the organizational challenges as well,” he said of his and his students’ work. “But it’s trying to understand what is the impact that open data provision is having. So trying to follow data from just being provided on a web site and a download portal to understanding are community groups using it, is the private sector using it, are other governments using it, or even is it being used internal to the government that’s providing it?”

Johnson’s research may impact how Ontario and other governments one day share open data and the way private developers, nonprofits, and citizens build applications and businesses using such data.

Other areas of research for Johnson and his students include looking at the use of government 311 applications that help citizens report overflowing garbage cans in a local park or if a particular sidewalk might need to be shoveled. Their research questions why governments are developing these applications and using them, the type of data such applications gather, and how this data can be used to improve government processes.

“Is this an opportunity for citizens to express their opinions on different potential developments or to connect with their elected officials?” he asked. “And how does this official channel compare to something that’s unofficial like Twitter?”

“What I’m really interested in is looking at is balancing citizen input that is delivered in these different ways,” he added. “So which one gets the results? Tweeting at your counselor or using the official government branded app to report your pothole at the end of your street?”

In addition to this research, Johnson published a paper with Geothink Head Renee Sieber, associate professor in McGill’s Deptartment of Geography and School of Environment,  this past July in Government Information Quarterly entitled “Civic open data at a crossroads: Dominant models and current challenges.

On his personal Web site, he writes that in this piece, “We take a look at the dominant models of open data provision by government and start to lay out what the challenges are for delivering open data. We tried to make this both a reflective look at where open data is, and also to push civic open data forward, examining how open data works as part of open government strategies.” Find a pre-print copy available here and also find the abstract below.

The award, given to 822 early career researchers since 2005, was given by the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation and The Ontario Research Fund – Small Infrastructure programs. The province will spend $209 million this year to support research projects and talent at research institutions across the province. This year’s successful 280 successful projects were chosen based on their research excellence and their economic and societal benefits for Ontario.

If you have thoughts or questions about this article, get in touch with Drew Bush, Geothink’s digital journalist, at drew.bush@mail.mcgill.ca.

Abstract
Civic open data at a crossroads: Dominant models and current challenges.
As open data becomes more widely provided by government, it is important to ask questions about the future possibilities and forms that government open data may take. We present four models of open data as they relate to changing relations between citizens and government. These models include; a status quo ‘data over the wall’ form of government data publishing, a form of ‘code exchange’, with government acting as an open data activist, open data as a civic issue tracker, and participatory open data. These models represent multiple end points that can be currently viewed from the unfolding landscape of government open data. We position open data at a crossroads, with significant concerns of the conflicting motivations driving open data, the shifting role of government as a service provider, and the fragile nature of open data within the government space. We emphasize that the future of open data will be driven by the negotiation of the ethical-economic tension that exists between provisioning governments, citizens, and private sector data users.

Geothoughts Talks 1, 2, & 3: Three Talks to Remember from the 2015 Geothink Summer Institute

Our first three Geothoughts Talks come from the 2015 Summer Institute.

Our first three Geothoughts Talks come from the 2015 Summer Institute.

By Drew Bush

Geothink’s Summer Institute may have concluded over a month ago, but, for those of you who missed it, we bring you three talks to remember. Run as part of Geothink’s five-year Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) partnership grant, the Institute aimed to provide undergraduate and graduate students from the partnership and beyond with knowledge and training in theoretical and practical aspects of crowdsourcing.

Each day of the institute alternated morning lectures, panel discussions and in-depth case studies on topics in crowdsourcing with afternoon work sessions where professors worked with student groups one-on-one on their proposal to meet a challenge posed by the City of Ottawa. See our first post on this here.

The lectures featured Geothink Head Renee Sieber, associate professor in McGill University’s Department of Geography and School of Environment; Robert Goodspeed, assistant professor of Urban Planning at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; Daren Brabham, assistant professor in the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalistm and Communication; and Monica Stephens, assistant professor in the Department of Geography at State University of New York at Buffalo.

Below we present you with a rare opportunity to learn about crowdsourcing with our experts as they discuss important ideas and case studies. A short summary describes what each talk covers.


Geothoughts Talk One: In-Depth Case Studies in Crowdsourcing (1hr 3min)

Join Sieber and Brabham as they discuss two case studies that examine the actual application of crowdsourcing technologies and techniques to real-world situations. First Sieber describes the work of her Master’s Student Ana Brandusescu in applying crowdsourcing technologies to chronic community development issues in three places in Montreal, QC and Vancouver, BC. Next, Brabham discusses one of his first efforts to research the application of crowdsourcing technology to public transportation planning during a design contest he held for a bus stop at the University of Utah campus in Salt Lake City, UT.


Geothoughts Talk Two: A Deeper Dive into Crowdsourcing: Advanced Topics in Crowdsourcing and Civic Crowdfunding (1hr 8min)

Goodspeed spends the morning covering three topics of inherent interest to anyone involved in crowdsourcing work. During this talk, he focuses in on three areas new to his own research including crowdfunding, formal crowdsourcing and the tool Ushahidi. Each of these topics helps prepare listeners for being a crowdsourcing professional.


Geothoughts Talk Three: Discussion on the Future of Crowdsourcing in the Public Sector (35 min)

Brabham and Goodspeed lead a discussion on where the future for crowdsourcing lies in the public sector. In particular, Goodspeed begins with an opening statement on how crowdsourcing can be used to help government agencies gain legitimacy by actually seeking input which can guide their actions. Brabham then challenges students to consider that crowdsourcing applications do fail and, even when they succeed, often can challenge whole professions that exist to collect the same data by other means.

If you have thoughts or questions about these podcasts, get in touch with Drew Bush, Geothink’s digital journalist, at drew.bush@mail.mcgill.ca.

City of Ottawa Selects Winner Out of Seven Student Designed Crowdsourcing Applications – Geothink Summer Institute Day 3

2015 Geothink Summer Institute students, faculty and staff after the conference concludes.

2015 Geothink Summer Institute students, faculty and staff after the conference concludes.

By Drew Bush

On day three the big issues discussed included using crowdsourcing in governance and the idea’s future in the public sector. By the end of the day, one of our student groups, GeoOne, had been crowned the winner by City of Ottawa officials and each of its members presented with a trophy in the image of Geothink’s logo, printed by a three-dimensional printer.

The winners, GeoOne, being presented their trophies by the Summer Institute's faculty.

The winners, GeoOne, being presented their trophies by the Summer Institute’s faculty.

But first, Daren Brabham, assistant professor in the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalistm and Communication, offered the students caution.

In a morning discussion, he reminded students not all crowdsourcing endeavours have been successes, and that flaws in some crowdsourced data mean it has limitations, as was pointed out on day two. Furthermore, one must consider traditional forms of data collection in comparison to crowdsourcing, he said, because whole institutions and professions exist to support such data collection’s objectivity.

For Brabham, however, this doesn’t mean crowdsourced data should be discredited. In fact, many aspects of the technology ensure it’s a very democratic way of making decisions and collecting data.

“It is easy to point to reasons why we shouldn’t be doing something, when you are in an established position of power and when you have a profession that you have built,” he said. “And I think this gets to maybe a more controversial point, and that’s—I see professionalism and the professions as really just ways to hold onto power.”

Check out more on Brabham’s views of the democratizing impact of crowdsourced data in the clip below:

The rest of the day leading up to the presentations was given over for students to fine-tune their pitches for the City of Ottawa and finalize their presentations themselves. Seven groups competed: GeoOne, GeoPlay, GeoWild, Grads Gone Ottawild, Ministry of Municipal Engagement, Terra Solutions and Wild VASS.

The excitement in the room before the first presenters began was palpable. This may have stemmed, in part, from the realization that the City of Ottawa and its citizens needed actual help rather than this being just some academic exercise. For some students, this meant the stakes were higher.

“It’s good that it’s rooted in something real,” Victoria Fast, a Ph.D. Candidate at Ryerson University in the Department of Environmental Applied Science and Management, said. “And I think that makes it more motivating to come up with something as good as possible because if they implement it, it improves how people are finding natural resources in their community and it can make things better for everybody.”

Each of the group’s proposals were designed to be used on mobile devices, a Web site, and often a combination of both. Many groups used maps to help citizens geo-locate themselves in relation to the city’s parks. However, how users were asked to contribute and in what forms varied greatly from one group’s app where users would vote on badges for particular uses at each park to another’s creation of ‘mad-lib’ story forms where users filled in the word for each park visit. Check out each of the student groups’ final presentations here:

GeoOne (Winner)

GeoPlay

GeoWild

Grads Gone Ottawild

Ministry of Municipal Engagement

Terra Solutions

Wild Vass

Stay tuned for more iTunes podcasts from the Summer Institute here, and, of course, watch more of our video clips (which we’ll be uploading in coming days) here.

If you have thoughts or questions about this article or the video content, get in touch with Drew Bush, Geothink’s digital journalist, at drew.bush@mail.mcgill.ca.

A Deeper Dive into Crowdsourcing – Geothink Summer Institute Day 2

Time for each of the seven competing teams to meet and work on their proposals in the upstairs classroom of the Environment 3 Building at the University of Waterloo during Geothink's Summer Institute.

Time for each of the seven competing teams to meet and work on their proposals in the upstairs classroom of the Environment 3 Building at the University of Waterloo during Geothink’s Summer Institute.

By Drew Bush

Day two of Geothink’s Summer Institute began with a deeper dive into crowdsourcing led by Robert Goodspeed, assistant professor of Urban Planning at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning. In the morning, he presented hot topics in his own research including crowdfunding, formal crowdsourcing and the crisis-mapping tool Ushahidi.

“In my world, within a planning project or a collaborative effort, these sort of structured tools can be plugged in,” he told students of his work in developing a visual preference tool to engage the public in more formal participatory community planning processes. “Technology is forcing us to rethink our methodologies, and rethink how we think things work.”

Each day of the institute alternated morning lectures, panel discussions and in-depth case studies on topics in crowdsourcing with afternoon work sessions where professors worked with student groups one-on-one on their submission to the City of Ottawa on day three.

Not sure what constitutes crowdsourcing? The goal of the institute, run as part of a five-year Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) partnership grant, was to provide undergraduate and graduate students from Geothink’s partners with knowledge and training in theoretical and practical aspects of crowdsourcing. See our post from day one to learn more about this important topic.

After some coffee, specific case studies brought home what crowdsourcing looks like in practice and the limitations of some crowd-sourced data due to demographic biases with gender amongst users who geo-reference data. Provided by Monica Stephens, assistant professor in the Department of Geography at State University of New York at Buffalo, and Daren Brabham,, assistant professor in the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalistm and Communication, these additional case studies gave insight into the types of research undertaken by Geothink researchers.

A random survey of users within many online mapping communities coupled with a look at interactions among members in specific communities proved revealing for Stephens.

“What became clear was that women were just as willing to socially tag, I was with so-and-so, but they weren’t willing to include the geographic information the way that men were,” Stephens told students in her case study on OpenStreetMap and other internet mapping communities. This simple fact, she demonstrated, has profound impacts on the types of features and attributes that get approved for inclusion on many maps.

Watch a clip of Stephens’s talk to find out how she conducted her research here:

For the students, the afternoon proved just as stimulating as all seven groups presented their initial concepts to the professors for feedback and guidance.

“I come from a GIS/Urban Planning background, and I found out about this through a professor,” said Alexa Hinves, a master’s student in Ryerson University’s Department of Geography who competed as a member of the group GeoPlay. “To me it’s just kind of incredible…you get to get together and do so many different activities. It’s not just you’re going to a conference and you’re listening to people for hours about what their interests are. But you are also sitting down and doing an intensive project and getting a lot of different perspectives.”

“You also get to think out of the box,” added her teammate, Ashley Zhang, a Ph.D. candidate at Waterloo University’s Department of Geography and Environmental Management.

Stay tuned for more iTunes podcasts from the Summer Institute here, check back on Geothink.ca for our last synopses of day three, and, of course, watch more of our video clips (which we’ll be uploading in coming days) here.

If you have thoughts or questions about this article or the video content, get in touch with Drew Bush, Geothink’s digital journalist, at drew.bush@mail.mcgill.ca.

Laying Out the Challenge – Geothink Summer Institute Day 1

The main atrium of the Environment 3 Building at the University of Waterloo between sessions at Geothink's Summer Institute.

The main atrium of the Environment 3 Building at the University of Waterloo between sessions at Geothink’s Summer Institute.

By Drew Bush

The day began with a warm welcome from Geothink Head Renee Sieber, associate professor in McGill University’s Department of Geography and School of Environment. By afternoon, the City of Ottawa had presented the 29 students attending Geothink’s Summer Institute at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada with the challenge of engaging its citizens with city natural areas.

Each day of the institute alternated morning lectures, panel discussions and in-depth case studies on topics in crowdsourcing with afternoon work sessions where professors worked with student groups one-on-one on their proposed solution to the City of Ottawa’s challenge. As the institute progressed, more time was given to the seven student groups to work on their solutions and prepare a final pitch to the city on day three.

The morning lecture topics ranged from “Conceptual Foundations in Crowdsourcing” to “The Future of Crowdsourcing in the Public Sector” and were taught or co-taught by Sieber, Robert Goodspeed, assistant professor of Urban Planning at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; Daren Brabham, assistant professor in the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalistm and Communication; and Monica Stephens, assistant professor in the Department of Geography at State University of New York at Buffalo.

Not sure what constitutes crowdsourcing? The goal of the institute, run as part of a five-year Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) partnership grant, was to provide undergraduate and graduate students from Geothink’s partners with knowledge and training in theoretical and practical aspects of crowdsourcing. And that’s a topic Brabham has been studying, as he puts it modestly, for “several years.”

“And I’ve been trying to look at how to take this model, which I define as connecting organizations with online communities to mutually solve problems or produce goods,” he told Geothink. “Taking that model which as been used in business and a number of for profit endeavours and trying to translate it for governments, for non-profits, for public health.”

On Day 1, students at Geothink’s Summer Institute worked together to solve Ottawa’s crowdsourcing problem using the knowledge gained in earlier sessions as well as individual areas of expertise. Much like many real-world challenges that crowdsourcing has been used to address, the presentation from the City of Ottawa made clear that the problem the city faced was complex and multifaceted. Goodspeed helped to summarize some elements of what was expected of students.

“What a wonderful, rich context, I mean, who knows what the problem is?” he told students. “Is it that people are going to too many parks or the wrong parks, or which people are we talking about? We have no idea…And I think this is very typical for a lot of problem settings you’ll encounter. And, in that sense, almost any month they showed could have been itself a crowdsourcing application.”

Watch a clip of Goodspeed’s introduction here:

After they’d been given a chance to start discussing ideas for crowdsourcing applications in their groups, Sieber and Stephens helped students to begin thinking about the geographical aspects of the applications they were designing as well as technical limitations they might face.

“So, this is a summer institute on crowdsourcing, why do we even talk about geography?” Sieber told students later in the first day.  “Because most open data, most data that comes out of government has some geographic component in it somewhere. So it’s useful often to tie crowdsourcing to geography.”

“If nothing else, that implies there is a jurisdictional aspect to the way that people communicate with government, that is that people are bounded in place,” she added.

Stay tuned for more iTunes podcasts from the Summer Institute here, check back on Geothink for synopses of days two and three, and, of course, watch more of our video clips (which we’ll be uploading in coming days) here.

Watch a clip of the presentation the City of Ottawa gave our students here (Beware, for the technophobic, it was conducted over videoconference).

If you have thoughts or questions about this article or the video content, get in touch with Drew Bush, Geothink’s digital journalist, at drew.bush@mail.mcgill.ca.

Geothink Summer Institute to Kick-off Monday, June 15, 2015!

The   Environment 3 Building (EV3), at the University of Waterloo, where the summer institute will be held.

The Environment 3 Building (EV3), at the University of Waterloo, where the summer institute will be held.

By Drew Bush

Get ready Geothinkers, this year’s Geothink Summer Institute will run from June 15-16, 2015 and will be held at the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario. Check in at our Summer Institute web site, where we’ll be live tweeting the day’s events.

The agenda is jam-packed with big names in the emergent field of crowdsourcing, which one Geothinker calls “a web-based business model that harnesses the creative solutions of a distributed network of individuals.” That’s from the University of Southern California Annenberg School of Journalistm and Communication Assistant Professor Daren Brabham, who will be giving one of the morning’s first sessions to more than 30 undergraduate and graduate students who have registered to attend.

Other speakers include Robert Goodspeed, assistant professor of Urban Planning at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; Monica Stephens, assistant professor in the Department of Geography at State University of New York at Buffalo and Geothink Head Renee Sieber, McGill University associate professor in the Department of Geography and School of Environment. Check out the full agenda here.

Speakers will explore topics related to crowdsourcing in a hyperlocal world where geospatial technologies like Google Maps and GPS-enabled cellphones enable massive quantities of data to be collected. In today’s world, there are tweets about potholes, mobile applications which deliver directions to the nearest coffee shop, and large databases only recently opened by many governments around the world.

The summer institute is hosted by Geothink, a five-year partnership grant awarded by the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) in 2012. The partnership includes researchers in different institutions across Canada, as well as partners in Canadian municipal governments, non-profits and the private sector. The expertise of our group is wide-ranging and includes aspects of social sciences as well as humanities such as: geography, GIS/geospatial analysis, urban planning, communications, and law.

If you have thoughts or questions about the article, get in touch with Drew Bush, Geothink’s digital journalist, at drew.bush@mail.mcgill.ca.