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

Geothink co-applicant Dr. Teresa Scassa’s address to the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

Geothink co-applicant Dr. Teresa Scassa (University of Ottawa) recently appeared before the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities to speak on issues of data ownership and control, transparency, accountability and privacy in the context of smart cities. Speaking to the committee on 14 February, she emphasised the importance of “ensuring that the development of smart cities … Read More

Geothinkers at the Spatial Knowledge and Information-Canada (SKI) conference in Banff

This year’s Spatial Knowledge and Information – Canada (SKI) conference will be held in Banff, AB on 24-25 February 2017. Several Geothink co-applicants and students will be presenting on their research, ranging from open data for public engagement and police-citizen interaction to the health and wellbeing of the homeless. Geothink Head, Dr. Renee Sieber, will also be making a keynote … Read More

New Ryerson University Class from parternship between Dr. Pamela Robinson and Civic Tech Toronto

Ryerson University has an exciting new class in The Chang School of Continuining Education. Geothink co-applicant Dr. Pamela Robinson (Ryerson University School of Urban and Regional Planning) has partnered with Civic Tech Toronto to create CVUP 110: Digital Government and Civic Tech. This is a non-credit university course aimed specifically at teaching civil servants about digital-driven change in the public … Read More

Augmented Reality in Real Life: Evaluating the Potential of New Digital Tools for Use in Municipal Planning Practice

By: Laura Brown, Natalia Dmuchowska, Brodie Johnson, Teresa Liu, Corinna Prior, Matthew Zentner Pokémon Go was a phenomenon that swept the world this past summer. Cities around the globe experienced an influx of citizens into their public spaces as everyone tried to ‘catch-em-all.’ Crazed Pokémon trainers wandered the city swiping their phones and battling to win gyms, ultimately searching for … Read More

New Geothink graduate: Dr. Harrison Smith

Dr. Harrison Smith recently completed his PhD at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information under the supervision of David J. Phillips and co-supervised by Geothink co-applicant Dr. Leslie Shade (University of Toronto). In this article, he tells us how his research examined the impact of location data in marketing. Dr. Smith’s next endeavour is a post doctoral research position … 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

On the Hunt for Social Justice and Empowerment

By Logan Cochrane, Mark Gill, Jon Corbett The participatory geoweb has the potential to transform relations of power – who contributes and names places, what is excluded and labeled. This transformation can occur through newfound opportunities for engagement and giving voice to spatially relevant issues. In the 1990s, GIScience recognized this potential and made explicit the importance that social issues … Read More

Potentials and Pitfalls of Civic Engagement through Pokémon GO, Augmented Reality, and Gamification

By Peck Sangiambut Media coverage in recent months may be focusing on Niantic’s continuous battle with Pokémon GO exploits and the game’s apparent demise, but here at Geothink we still see great potential in augmented reality (AR) games to promote community engagement. Our research examines communities and citizen-government engagement, particularly through geospatial technologies such as the geoweb. At the height … Read More

Catching up with former Geothink Project Manager, Alex Taciuk

Geothink’s former Project Manager, Alexander Taciuk, has just begun the next step of his career in Vancouver. Geothink caught up with him to find out where he has been and where he is headed. What have you been up to since you left Geothink? I went on a three month trip around the world. Southeast Asia for a couple of … Read More

The State of the Map 2016

Recently graduated Geothink student Julia Conzon (McGill University) has recently returned from the State of the Map conference in Brussels, on a travel grant. Julia was able to meet individuals interested in different social, political, and technical components of OpenStreetMap, which solidified her beliefs that the success of volunteered geographic information relies on both social and technical fields. Julia’s interests … Read More

Notes from the GIScience Conference 2016

Last month, Geothink took part in the GIScience 2016 conference in Montreal, a biennial conference for academics in the field of GIS and geography. Geothink was present as a sponsor. Additionally, multiple Geothink academics were present to engage in academic discussion, and members of Geothink were also involved in the organisation of the conference. One of our volunteers, Lesley Johnson, … Read More

Paulina Marczak – looking back on her co-op at Open North

As she is now embarking on a Master’s degree, I interviewed Paulina Marczak (former Geothink student) to reflect on her four month co-op with Geothink partner, Open North. What have you been up to since your internship at Open North? After Open North, I did another co-op in the fall term with Dr. Derek Robinson under an NSERC USRA [Natural … Read More

The Future of AR: Negotiating Virtual Space Guided Movements

This is a guest post from Geothink student Wei Jiang at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, under the supervision of Professor Teresa Scassa. By Wei Jiang While not everyone is out to catch ‘em all, few people in Canadian cities and in many countries around the world are unaffected by the recent Pokémon Go craze. Alongside the wide … Read More

A Summer Student Exchange to McGill University

This is a guest post from Geothink student Qing Lu (Lucy), University of Waterloo, under Professor Peter Johnson. She writes about her recent experience in a Geothink student exchange. By Qing Lu (Lucy) In the middle of August, I had the opportunity to visit McGill University via the Geothink Summer Exchange Programme. Approaching the completion of my graduation thesis, I … Read More

Geothink Newsletter Issue 11

Issue 11 of the Geothink Newsletter is now available! Inside we provide an update from this summer’s activities, in particular, the Summer Institute 2016. Download Geothink Newsletter Issue 11 If you have feedback or content for the newsletter, please contact the Editor, Peck Sangiambut

Paper Spotlight: Fostering Citizen Trust in Municipal Government

By Drew Bush In a new article, Geothink Co-Applicant Pamela Robinson and her co-author, Dina Graser, posit five steps to foster citizen trust in Canadian municipalities as they attempt to raise funds to cope with almost $400 billion of infrastructure deficit nationwide. Published by the Institute on Municipal Finance and Governance (IMFG) at University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global … 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