Massey University
Geoinformatics Collaboratory

The inaugural meeting of the Massey Geoinformatics Collaboratory was held on 10 August, 2016 in Palmerston North. The resources from the meeting are pasted below.

Slides from short presentations:

2nd Geoinformatics Collaboratory Meeting

When: 4th November 2016

Where: Building 106, Oteha Rohe campus (Gate 4), Massey University, Auckland.

Inaugural virtual seminar

Evaluating big geodata analytics: From emergency response to environmental monitoring

Presenter: Professor Matt Duckham from Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT)

Seminar Recording

Date and Time: 11am on Wednesday 30 November

Format: 30 min presentation followed by 30 mins for questions and discussion

Location: Zoom
(if you haven’t used zoom before, connect a few minutes early so you can get set up)

Attendees from outside Massey are also welcome, so feel free to pass on the link to potentially interested parties.

Abstract:

Geospatial data has always been "big." But today's big data sources present new challenges for spatial computing and spatial data mining, including the difficultly of evaluating the outputs of analytics based on big geospatial data. Using three case studies---in geospatial web search, emergency response, and environmental monitoring---this invited lecture explores some of the problems and solutions for evaluating spatial data mining and analytics procedures both for crowdsourced and automated big geodata sources.

Presenter’s Bio:

Matt is Professor in geographic information science and Deputy Head (Geospatial Sciences) in the School of Mathematical and Geospatial Sciences. Professor Duckham is also a Visiting Professor at Greenwich University, UK. Before moving to RMIT University in 2015, he was Professor of Geographic Information Science at the University of Melbourne, Australia. From 2010-2014 Professor Duckham was an ARC Future Fellow working in the area of ambient spatial intelligence and geosensor networks. Prior to coming to Australia in 2004 he was a postdoctoral researcher at the NCGIA (National Center for Geographic Information and Analysis) at the University of Maine, USA.

2 PhD Scholarships in Geoinformatics

We have two exciting PhD opportunities within the Massey Geoinformatics Collaboratory at Massey University, in Auckland, New Zealand, working with Dr Kristin Stock on projects funded by Ordnance Survey, UK and Landcare Research, NZ.

Project One: Ordnance Survey

Project One is sponsored by Ordnance Survey , the national mapping agency of Great Britain. The student will be based in Auckland, New Zealand, and will have the opportunity to visit and work at Ordnance Survey in Southampton, UK for a period of 3 months during his or her candidature.

Project Two: Landcare Research

Project Two is sponsored by Landcare Research , Crown Research Institute with the core purpose to drive innovation in New Zealand’s management of terrestrial biodiversity and land resources, to protect and enhance the environment and grow New Zealand’s prosperity. The student will be based in Auckland, New Zealand, and will travel to on occasion to Landcare Research offices in other parts of New Zealand.

More information

Many congratulations to David Aguirre, winner of an Early Career University Research Medal

The medals honour an exceptional body of research carried out by staff over a period of years.

More details here

Virtual Seminar: Professor Muki Haklay from UCL

Crowdsourcing Geospatial Data: Lessons from Citizen Science

Presenter: Professor Muki Haklay

Professor of Geographical Information Science in the Dept of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering at University College London (UCL)

Seminar Recording

Date and Time: 10:30 am on Wednesday 1st February (NZ time)

Location: Zoom

Please note that you will automatically be muted when you join the meeting (in order to avoid noise during the presentation), but can unmute as required.

Abstract:

Professor Haklay’s talk will discuss the recent rise of citizen science, what it is, how and why it has developed and a range of projects that have used it (including those from fields such as ecology, meteorology and astronomy) as well as related approaches including community science, volunteer computing, volunteer thinking, distributed intelligence and passive sensing. He will discuss his work in Extreme Citizen Science (a situated, bottom-up practice that takes into account local needs, practices and culture and works with broad networks of people to design and build new devices and knowledge creation processes that can transform the world). The talk will also explore briefly issues of data quality and use of such information for policy making.

The talk will be accessible to people who are unfamiliar with the area of citizen science and geographical information crowdsourcing, as well as those who have some knowledge of the area. There will be many beautiful maps (but that’s not all…)!

There will be time for questions and discussion following Professor Haklay’s presentation.

Presenter’s Bio:

Muki Haklay started his studies with a BSc Computer Science and Geography (1994, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and continue with an MA in Geography (1997, Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and PhD in Geography (2002, UCL). In 2001 he joined UCL as a lecturer and promoted to a professor in 2011. He is the co-director of ExCiteS and work on a range of research projects that involve participatory mapping and science methods. These include Citizen Cyberlab, exploring learning and creativity in Citizen Science, EveryAware, where participatory urban environmental monitoring is used or Challenging Risk, in which citizen’s involvement in preparedness for earthquake and fire incidents is explored. His research interests include public access to environmental information and the way in which the information is used by a wide range of stakeholders, citizen science and in particular applications that involve community-led investigation, development and use of participatory GIS and mapping, and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) for geospatial technologies.

NZ Emerging Spatial Professionals Group.

Facebook group for Emerging Spatial Professionals

Emerging Spatial Professionals - a group of emerging professionals in the spatial industry where we can network and advance our careers.

Virtual Seminar: Professor Ross Purves from University of Zurich

Delineating and describing landscapes and landform elements: challenges and novel methodological approaches

Presenter: Professor Ross Purves

Head of Geocomputation Unit, Department of Geogrpahy, University of Zurich

Seminar Recording

Date and Time: 9:30am on Wednesday 28th June (NZ time)

Abstract: Representation of landscape in information systems, enabling their analysis and integration in decision making processes, is a basic requirement if political and legal tools such as the European Landscape Convention are to be effective. However, landscape is not directly measureable, and has multiple properties which make its representation challenging. In my talk I will describe some of the limitations of current representations, and compare these to some theoretical notions about landscape drawn from GIScience and linguistics. I will illustrate a number of methods aimed at both delineating and describing landscapes in ways which consider spatial and semantic vagueness, and suggest possible applications of such methods.

Virtual Seminar: Associate Professor Molly Brown from University of Maryland and Dr Jessica McCarty from Miami University.

Is Remote Sensing Useful for Finding and Monitoring Urban Farms: Combining Data Mining and Geospatial Methods for Mapping Peri-Urban Agriculture in Detroit, Harare, Dakar, and Ho Chi Minh City

Presenters: Associate Professor Molly Brown and Dr Jessica McCarty

Seminar Recording

Date and Time: 9:30am on Wednesday 30th August (NZ time)

Abstract: As the world becomes increasingly urbanized, the need for fresh fruits and vegetables in urban areas grows while the difficulty of timely provision of these perishable products also increases. Small-scale agriculture located in urban areas is a highly effective and profitable way to provide fresh produce to communities that are far from extensive commercial agricultural areas. Here we describe how remote sensing can be used with data mining approaches to monitor urban and peri-urban farms within cities in both developed and developing countries. Using very high resolution satellite imagery together with moderate and coarse resolution imagery and information from social media and the web, we analyze the usefulness of different methods to identify farms within urban boundaries in four countries. Data mining techniques were necessary to discover known urban farms within four cities, Detroit, Michigan, USA; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Harare, Zimbabwe; and Dakar, Senegal for use as training sites to compare the remote sensing monitoring and identification methods. Social media platforms included Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, with generic and geographically targeted web scraping techniques to extract business names and locations from existing urban farm websites and online databases. A mixed-method approach was necessary in order to identify where urban farming is occurring and to monitor its change through time. Although remote sensing-based vegetation and water indices were useful, without ancillary data they are not effective at identifying the locations of urban farms. Remote sensing is a good way to monitor vegetation condition in locations where actively managed urban farms, but knowledge of locations of existing peri-urban agriculture is necessary.

Virtual Seminar: Associate Professor Gary Priestnall, School of Geography, University of Nottingham.

Exploring the Capabilities of Projection Augmented Relief Models (PARM)

Presenters: Associate Professor Gary Priestnall

Date and Time: 9am on Wednesday 29th November 2017 (NZ time)

Location: Zoom: https://massey.zoom.us/j/730586658