Rural open data: more than just a technical issue

By Suthee Sangiambut The conversation around open data is most commonly found at the city level. Ian Parfitt, GIS instructor and Coordinator of Selkirk College’s Selkirk Geospatial Research Centre, has a project looking at open data for rural communities. Parfitt’s past challenges in gaining access to data led to his project, which is helping to develop open data for planning … Read More

Leveraging Open Data: International perspectives presented at URISA’s GIS-Pro 2016 conference

This is a cross-post from Geothink co-applicant Dr. Claus Rinner‘s website, written by Geothink student Sarah Greene, Ryerson University. Sarah is Candidate for the Master’s of Spatial Analysis at Ryerson University. Her research focusses on open data. By Sarah Greene This past week, URISA held its 54th annual GIS-Pro conference in Toronto, bringing together GIS professionals and businesses from around … Read More

Open Data and Urban Forests – What’s Next?

This is a guest post from Geothink Post Doctoral researcher James Steenberg, Ryerson University School of Urban and Regional Planning, working with Dr. Pamela Robinson. By James Steenberg, PhD I recently had the opportunity to go on a Geothink summer exchange at the University of Waterloo hosted by Dr. Peter Johnson, a Geothink co-applicant and Assistant Professor at Waterloo’s Department … Read More

Geothink Co-Applicant, Colleague and Friend Leaves Behind Rich Legacy of Empowering Sustainable Urban Change at the Community Level

By Drew Bush Geothink Co-Applicant Alexander C.E. Aylett passed away on July 23, 2016 from cancer. A beloved son, husband and father, colleagues also remember him for his warmth and passion. His research empowered urban communities to engage with sustainable development through the use of digital technologies and open data. His wife Luna, their two daughters, Inara and Aurora, her … Read More

Geothoughts Talks 4, 5, 6, & 7: Four Talks to Remember from the 2016 Summer Institute

By Drew Bush Geothink’s Summer Institute may have concluded but, for those of you who missed it, we bring you four talks to remember. These lectures come from day two of the institute when four Geothink faculty members gave short talks on their different disciplinary approaches to evaluating open data. The lectures feature Peter Johnson, an assistant professor at Waterloo … Read More

Measuring the Value of Open Government Data – Summer Institute Day 2

By Drew Bush Day two of the 2016 Summer Institute began with presentations from Geothink’s faculty that aimed to provide different disciplinary approaches to evaluating open data. Armed with this information, students spent the rest of the day working in groups to first create measures to value open data, and, second, role-play how differing sectors might use a specific type … Read More

Cooking up Open Data with the Iron Chef – Summer Institute Day 1

By Drew Bush The 2016 Geothink Summer Institute kicked off on May 9 with introductions from Geothink Head Renee Sieber, associate professor in McGill University’s Department of Geography and School of Environment, and Pamela Robinson, associate professor in Ryerson University’s School of Urban and Regional Planning. By that afternoon, the 35 students attending had gotten their hands dirty conceptualizing applications … Read More

Getting a Better Handle on Geosocial Data with Geothink Co-Applicant Robert Feick

By Drew Bush A prevailing view of volunteered geographic information (VGI) is that large datasets exist equally across North American cities and spaces within them. Such data should therefore be readily available for planners wishing to use it to aid in decision-making. In a paper published last August in Cartography and Geographic Information Science, Geothink Co-Applicant Rob Feick put this … Read More

Inside Geothink’s Open Data Standards Project: Standards For Improving City Governance

By Rachel Bloom Rachel Bloom is a McGill University undergraduate student and project lead for Geothink’s Open Data Standards Project. In February, I led a Geothink seminar with city officials to introduce the results of our open data standards project we began approximately one year earlier. The project was started with the objective of assisting municipal publishers of open data … Read More

Geothink Summer Institute to Kick Off May 9, 2016

By Drew Bush Are you curious about the use of open data by municipalities and their citizens? Geothink’s 2016 Summer Institute will kick off May 9 to May 11 at Ryerson University in Toronto and combine practical data handling and communications skills with a unique breadth of critical discussions. “We’re really excited about the structure this year, where students will … Read More

Gethoughts 8: How Technology is Reshaping Citizen Interactions on Climate Change

By Drew Bush We’re very excited to present you with our eighth episode of Geothoughts. You can also subscribe to this Podcast by finding it on iTunes. In this episode, we examine what role Canada’s cities play in international solutions to climate change as well as how new technologies shape interactions in neighbourhoods and between neighbours on environmental issues. In … Read More

Geothoughts Conversations 2: The Nature of Democracy in the Age of Open Data

By Drew Bush The largest grant investigating two-way exchanges of locational information between citizens and their city governments, Geothink makes possible countless collaborations and discussions. This month, Geothoughts Conversations brings you a look at one such conversation that took place this past January on the wintry downtown campus of McGill University in Montreal, QC. We sat down with Geothink head … Read More

Envisioning An Environmentally Sustainable Urban Future Using Clean Digital Technologies

  By Drew Bush Imagine a world where electric taxis crowd Montreal’s downtown streets, green buildings efficiently manage energy consumption for Vancouverites, and Toronto’s city leaders monitor differences in neighbourhood surface heat emissions to best position green roofs. Now imagine the environmental and social impacts of such shifts when scaled-up for all of Canada’s cities. That future—one that makes use … Read More

Bridging Differences in Open Data: Coming up with standards at Open North

By Drew Bush In case you missed either report, over the last year Open North has quietly put out an inventory of open data globally and, in a separate report, recommended baseline international standards for open data catalogs. The first report is entitled Gaps and opportunities for standardization in OGP members’ open data catalogs while the second is entitled Identifying … Read More

Using Data to Revolutionize How We Make Decisions

By Drew Bush The decision support market, a segment of the healthcare industry, made financial headlines when estimation of its global value by 2019 reached USD 239 billion, a jump of almost 38 billion since 2012. According to a new report, major players in the industry have poured money into new technologies that can take advantage of big data. Digital … Read More

The Perils, Pitfalls, and Promise of Open Government – a Geothink Interview with Daniel Paré

By Drew Bush Earlier this month, Public Sector Digest’s first Open Cities Index ranked Canada’s municipalities according to their openness in supplying municipal data online. The index examined the number of data sets available in three areas of accountability (e.g. elections or budget data), innovation (e.g. traffic volume or service requests), and social policy (e.g. crime rates or health performance) … Read More

Four Geothink Partner Cities Named to Top 10 on First Ever Canada Open Cities Index

By Drew Bush Numerous city, state, and provincial governments across North America are finding new ways to share government data online. With more than 60 nations now part of the Open Government Partnership, it’s often difficult to determine which initiatives are simply part of a growing fad instead of being true attempts at more responsive and accountable government. In the … Read More