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

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

Geothoughts 7: Unpacking the Current and Future Value of Open Civic Data

By Naomi Bloch Geothink co-applicant researcher Peter A. Johnson is an assistant professor of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo. Johnson and his students have been working with Geothink government partners across the country to examine the state of civic open data projects in Canada. In our latest podcast, he discusses how the seemingly desirable ethos of open data … Read More

Geothoughts 1: What’s in a Plan? Innovation at the Cost of Democracy in Canada

By Drew Bush We’re very excited to present you with our first Geothink.ca Podcast in our series, Geothoughts. You can also subscribe to this Podcast by finding it on iTunes. Our first podcast delves deeper into the opinions of Tracey Lauriault, a researcher at The Programmable City project who specializes in open data and open government in Canada. We explore … Read More

Geothink Video Interview 1: Teresa Scassa, University of Ottawa

By Drew Bush This Geothink Video Interview brings us a closeup look at the work and ideas of Teresa Scassa, Canada Research Chair in Information Law at the University of Ottawa. In particular, we talk with her about her views on Canada’s Action Plan for Open Government 2.0, problems with open access under the plan, the idea of making government … Read More

Civic Hackathons: Innovation, Procurement, or Civic Engagement?

By Peter Johnson I’ve recently published a jointly-authored viewpoint piece with Dr. Pamela Robinson from Ryerson University in Review of Policy Research. Titled ‘Civic Hackathons: Innovation, Procurement, or Civic Engagement?‘, we take a critical look at the recent phenomenon of civic hackathons – time limited contests typically run by governments designed to promote use of open data resources, and potentially solve … Read More

Open Everything

Theme 4: Open Everything Hello, I am Dr. Claus Rinner, an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and program director of the Master of Spatial Analysis (MSA) at Ryerson University. My research focuses on the decision support function of maps and geographic information systems (GIS), and the underlying concepts of cartography, geovisualization, public participation, and multi-criteria decision analysis. I … Read More

Mobile Feedback Applications for Base Map Editing

If governments wish to maximize citizen contributions on issues as varied as fixing maps, reporting potholes and commenting on social housing, they likely need easy-to-use tools for citizens to do so. One answer could be on mobile phones. Tool-building is more than a technical issue. Mobile devices have an increasingly central role in our daily activities; they become intermediaries for … Read More