Administration Efforts to Address Big Data Science and Engineering
October 24, 2012
Suzanne Iacono, deputy assistant director of the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering will be featured on an InformationWeek Government Webcast, “Act on Big Data,” on Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012 at 2 p.m. ET.
Iacono, who also serves as vice chair of the Big Data Senior Steering Group of the interagency Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) Program, will be part of a panel of experts during the webcast. In that role she will provide an update on the Obama administration’s Big Data Initiative.
The National Map Users Conference and the Geospatial Information Science Workshop – Call for Abstracts Extended to Feb 6, 2011 — Federal Geographic Data Committee
The National Map Users Conference and the Geospatial Information Science Workshop
The U.S. Geological Survey has issued a Call for Abstracts to support The National Map (TNM) Users Conference, and the Geographic Information Science Workshop to be held May 10-13, 2011 in Lakewood, Colo. This inaugural event will assemble a wide range of participants including scientists, managers and geospatial professionals from government, industry, academia and other organizations. A goal of TNM UC is to share accomplishments and progress, acknowledge best practices, and exchange innovative ideas concerning The National Map in supporting science initiatives. The role of the GIS Workshop will be learning specific techniques for using GIS in support of science. Interactive dialog will be encouraged through panel and lightning sessions, poster presentations, workshops, and demonstrations.
More information and abstract submission: http://nationalmap.gov/uc
For full text via The National Map Users Conference and the Geospatial Information Science Workshop – Call for Abstracts Extended to Feb 6, 2011 — Federal Geographic Data Committee.
Related Articles
- Mark L. DeMulder – The Digital National Map of the United States of America (itc.conversationsnetwork.org)
Grand Challenges in Geospatial Science Research
The Directorate for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences of the National Science Foundation (NSF/SBE) seeks to frame innovative research for the year 2020 and beyond that enhances fundamental knowledge and benefits society. NSF/SBE invited individuals and groups to contribute white papers in which authors were asked to outline grand challenge questions that are both foundational and transformative. At the conclusion of the submission period on October 15, 2010, 244 unique papers were received covering the full range of the SBE sciences.
The University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) submitted the following white paper on spatial dynamics and CyberGIS. The UCGIS Winter Meeting: Place-Based Geospatial Summit will be held at the Doubletree Hotel in Washington, DC on February 3rd and 4th, 2011. For registration and the agenda, click here.
Spatial Dynamics and CyberGIS for NSF SBE 2020
Lead Author: Yuan, May
Abstract: University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS) advocates that spatial dynamics and cyberGIS be identified as two grand research challenges for SBE 2020. Spatial dynamics and cyberGIS ask fundamental questions about the complexity, dynamics, and synthesis of social, behavioral, and economic systems. Making connections across space and time enables knowledge building beyond disciplinary boundaries to understand how new findings in one discipline relate to another for a holistic understanding of human dimensions. Expanding upon the spatial emphasis in geographic information science research, spatial dynamics research investigates cognitive and methodological advances to conceptualize, represent, analyze, and model the integrative spatiotemporal characteristics and processes of global systems. CyberGIS research enables a synthesis framework leveraging GIS and cyberinfrastructure to build a collaborative cybercommons of distributed benchmark datasets, computational testbeds, and knowledge webs for social, behavioral, and economic sciences. The fact that social network media is expanding rapidly and being accessed by a broad spectrum of society, and new generations of digital natives are stepping up to take center stage, gives unprecedented opportunities to allow real-time or near-real time spatially referenced data for SBE research. Grand research challenges of spatial dynamics and cyberGIS, both individually and more effectively together, are essential to understand spatial connections of activities, events, and processes across scales and dimensions for a cyber SBE knowledge enterprise with capabilities for SBE forecasting and predictions, and even nowcasting enabled by sensor networks, cell phone signals, or twitters.
For full text of the article, click here.
Other geospatial-related white papers submitted to NSF SBE 2020:
- Kasakoff, Alice Bee. Scaling Down: Social and Economic Processes over time at a Local Scale in the US
- Gregory, Ian N. Using Historical GIS to understand space and time in the social, behavioural and economic sciences: A white paper for the NSF
- Yuan, May. Spatial Dynamics and CyberGIS for NSF SBE 2020
- Corrigan, John.The Spatial Humanities: GIS and the future of humanities scholarship
- Lobao, Linda M. Spatial Inequality: A Research Agenda for the Social Sciences
- Owens, J. B. Understanding the impact of nonlinear dynamics on the processes of human systems
User-friendly web mapping: lessons from a citizen science website – International Journal of Geographical Information Science
User-friendly web mapping: lessons from a citizen science website
Authors: Greg Newman; Don Zimmerman; Alycia Crall; Melinda Laituri; Jim Graham; Linda Stapel
International Journal of Geographical Information Science (IJGIS), Vol 24, Issue 12, December 2010, pages 1851-1869
Abstract
Citizen science websites are emerging as a common way for volunteers to collect and report geographic ecological data. Engaging the public in citizen science is challenging and, when involving online participation, data entry, and map use, becomes even more daunting. Given these new challenges, citizen science websites must be easy to use, result in positive overall satisfaction for many different users, support many different tasks, and ensure data quality. To begin reaching these goals, we built a geospatially enabled citizen science website, evaluated its usability, and gained experience by working with and listening to citizens using the website. We sought to determine general perceptions, discover potential problems, and iteratively improve website features. Although the website was rated positively overall, map-based tasks identified a wide range of problems. Given our results, we redesigned the website, improved the content, enhanced the ease of use, simplified the map interface, and added features. We discuss citizen science websites in relation to online Public Participation Geographic Information Systems, examine the role(s) websites may play in the citizen science research model, discuss how citizen science research advances GIScience, and offer guidelines to improve citizen-based web mapping applications.
Keywords: Public Participation GIS; usability; citizen science; Web GIS; Internet GIS
Related Articles
- Citizen Science: No Ph.D. Required (sierraclub.typepad.com)
- Citizen Science, Anarchy Evolution Reviewed, Glen Beck Behaves Badly [Greg Laden’s Blog] (scienceblogs.com)
- Could citizen science projects run out of volunteers? (carolune.org)
- Getting to Know the Mapping Science Committee of the National Research Council (geodatapolicy.wordpress.com)
- Planet Hunters: another citizen-science project (guardian.co.uk)
- Galaxy Zoo shows how well crowdsourced citizen science works (arstechnica.com)