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
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
Geothoughts 12: Can A Game Improve Regional and Urban Planning Processes?
By Drew Bush We’re very excited to present you with our 12th episode of Geothoughts. You can also subscribe to this Podcast by finding it on iTunes. In this episode, we take a look at two Geothink researchers who are investigating how the popular video game Minecraft can be used to improve local and regional planning processes. In particular, we … Read More
Local News Map Will Be First To Highlight Disparities in Coverage Across Canada
By Drew Bush The impact of newsroom cutbacks, consolidations, and closures across Canada will be the focus of a new crowdsourced online geoweb map. The public can contribute to it now—with the full map available online this June. “The idea of the map is it will allow us to gather data that we haven’t been able to gather on our … Read More
Out of the Ivory Tower: Conveying Open Data Research to the General Public – Summer Institute Day 3
By Drew Bush On day three, the students at Geothink’s 2016 Summer Institute shifted gears from working with open data to thinking about the importance of conveying their work to the public. The day alternated between interactive lectures on how to write a strong Op-ed piece for a newspaper and hands-on group work where students tried their own hand at … 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
GIS on Campus: Join Claus Rinner for GIS Day at Ryerson
By Naomi Bloch This Wednesday, November 18, marks the 16th annual GIS Day. Throughout the week, Geothink will present a series of posts looking at some of the ways in which our collaborators, partners, and friends around the world are critically examining and using GIS as a tool for civic engagement and understanding. The community snapshots presented this week highlight diverse perspectives and uses … Read More
Journalism: Storytelling in the Geodata Age
By Noami Bloch The rise of more accessible geospatial web tools along with expanding sources of open data have fostered a potent—if somewhat techno-utopian—civic vision. For those immersed in understanding this new digital landscape, one question often surfaces: who’s truly putting these resources to use? The most reliable answer is perhaps an obvious one. “Journalists are making huge use of … Read More
Crosspost: How is your Toronto neighbourhood portrayed in the news? Check it out using these interactive maps
This post is cross-posted with permission from April Lindgren and Christina Wong at Local News Research Project. By April Lindgren and Christina Wong Introduction Concerns about how neighbourhoods are portrayed in the news have surfaced regularly in the Toronto area over the years. But are those concerns valid? Interactive maps produced by the The Local News Research Project (LNRP) at … Read More
Part 2: Our Project Head on North American Civic Participation and Geothink's Projects
By Drew Bush Part 2 (of 2). This is the second in a two part series with the head of Geothink.ca, Renee Sieber, an associate professor in the Department of Geography and School of Environment at McGill University. In this second part, we pick up the story of how Sieber sees civic participation in North America during an age of … Read More
Is Raw Data Bad For You? Open Data Obligations to Government.
By: Leah Cooke, Stephanie Piper, Alana Kingdon, and Peter Johnson *This blog post was written collaboratively during the springtime Geothink meetup between Ryerson University and University of Waterloo students + faculty. The goals of this meetup were to discuss current and future issues related to Geothink research themes. What strings are attached to governments that provide open data to citizens? … Read More