Report "Improving GIScience in UK Spatial Planning Education"

Richard LeGates (San Francisco State University) and Richard Kingston (The University of Manchester) have just finished a report which looks at “Improving GIScience in UK Spatial Planning Education”.

This SPLINT white paper describes activities of three organizations involved in efforts to strengthen the education of UK urban planners related to spatial thinking and spatial planning: The Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI), The Spatial Literacy in Teaching (SPLINT) Consortium, and the Centre for Education in the Built Environment (CEBE).
The report focuses on the relationship between spatial planning and GIScience and is available to download from [SpatialLiteracy.org]

Some points from the document:

GIScience in planning education

• GIScience is a mature field of study worldwide
• Most urban planning programs in the UK introduce students t GIScience
• The amount and nature of GIScience material taught in UK planning schools varies widely
• This white paper argues
  - That all UK urban planning students should be attain core spatial literacy
  - That ten-weeks of instruction in GIScience is a realistic target and adequate to provide foundation spatial literacy
  - That GIScience instruction for planners should
  -> Be carefully designed with explicit statements of expected learning outcomes, course objectives, required resources, deliver methods, timing, assessment procedures, and evaluation
  -> Stress the science and concepts underlying spatial thinking that will build a foundation for lifelong learning
  -> Emphasizes competencies appropriate t different levels of instruction and urban planning paths
  

Recommendations

• Strengthen collaboration between the RTPI, SPLINT, and CEBE
• Follow a low-budget, bottom up, strategy relying upon the constituencies of each of the three groups to the maximum feasible extent
• Inform GEES, planning practitioners, and spatial planning experts of the collaboration and involve them where appropriate
• Augment the UK GIScience Planning Educators’ GIScience SIG
• Make relations with the RTPI a UK Planning Educators’ GIScience SIG concern
• Continue SPLINT research efforts related to GISscience in urban planning
  o Investigate the current skills gap in planning practitioners GIScience knowledge
  o Identify best practices in current UK GIScience education in urban planning
  o Survey planning practitioners to understand their perception of how GIScience and related spatial information technologies are used and how SPLINT, CEBE, and the RTPI can assist practioners to use them more effectively
• Disseminate material on GIScience education via RTPI’s PERN network
• Encourage the RTPI to set-up a GIScience & ICT network
• Include presentations on GIScience in urban planning education at CHOPS meetings
• Design and implement GIScience short courses and training sessions for planners
• Initiate a process to revise the RTPI Policy on Initial Planning Education related to spatial planning to explicitly recognize the importance of GIScience and spatial information technology
  

Credits: SpatialLiteracy.org

Webcast of Geospatial Web Services workshop available online

Dr.Suchith Anand, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom wrote to us about the live webcasting and podcasting initiative for the Geospatial Web Services workshop at Centre for Geospatial Science, University of Nottingham that took place from June 16-17th,2008.

According to Dr.Suchit, there was excellent response from the GIS community for this initiative as evident from the web stats on June 16th and June 17th. More than 300 viewers watched the workshop online on both days, which he says is really remarkable, especially for a specialist workshop like this.

He adds "I thought to share this information with you as i believe technologies like webcasting and podcasting will help in widening participation of GIS research conferences and events for the benefit of the society at large". I would totally agree up on this, and I request our readers to share such kind of information with us, to further propagate your message - through this blog.

All the workshop presentations have been archived for the benefit of the wider GIS community. You will require either Windows Media Player or Real Player to watch the talks from the Workshop TAB of the website. Currently the Firefox browser is not supported.

For more information visit http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/geography/geowebservices/

Also, we are pleased to inform you that we have Dr.Suchit & Prof. Mike Jackson are a part of the Programme Committee of Geospatial Science Forum. The 2nd Call for papers are issued and you can check this link for the 2nd cfp.

Few pictures of the workshop can be seen below:

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IJGIS:Volume 22 Issue 9 2008

Volume 22 Issue 9 2008 of International Journal of Geographical Information Science(IJGIS) is now available online. Free access to AAG members is still to be available.

The research articles available in the issue are:

• Using neural networks and cellular automata for modelling intra-urban land-use dynamics - C. M. Almeida; J. M. Gleriani; E. F. Castejon; B. S. Soares-Filho
• Generalized network Voronoi diagrams: Concepts, computational methods, and applications - A. Okabe; T. Satoh; T. Furuta; A. Suzuki; K. Okano
• Earthquake-induced landslide hazard monitoring and assessment using SOM and PROMETHEE techniques: A case study at the Chiufenershan area in Central Taiwan - Wen-Tzu Lin
• Exploring spatial data uncertainties in land-use change scenarios - N. Dendoncker; C. Schmit; M. Rounsevell
  

Univ of Zurich: Phd. postions with 'Geographic Information Visualization and Analysis group'

Universität Zürich, Geographisches Institut, Abt. GIVA - Representation of geographic relevance in mobile applications

The Geographic Information Visualization and Analysis group at the University of Zurich invites applications for a doctoral research assistant position in Geographic Information Science/Geovisualization to work on a 3-year project.

The highly motivated, successful applicant will be asked to develop methods for representing geographic relevance, including relevance-based filtering of features in the context of mobile geoservices. The objective is to find appropriate representations and metaphors for the geographic relevance concept and design suitable tests for an evaluation of these developments.

Applicants are required to have successfully completed a Masters degree in a relevant area, e.g., Geography, Geoinformatics /Geographic Information Science, Psychology, Cognitive Science, or Computer Science. You have experience in GIS, spatial data representation and handling as well as quantitative spatio-temporal analysis methodologies. Knowledge of wayfinding, spatial cognition, and decision making would be an asset. You have good programming skills (preferably Java), you are confident in implementing the developed methods in the context of a geoservice framework. You have a proven ability to work independently on guided projects, and are interested in presenting your results orally and in publications for a larger scientific audience. You have a very good standard of written and spoken English and knowledge of German, whilst not required, would be an advantage.

The position, housed in the GIScience Center of the Geography Department, will start in September 2008, or as soon as possible thereafter.
For more background information about the department please visit us on the Web at http://www.geo.uzh.ch/gia/aboutus/ or direct any informal enquiries about the position to the address below.

Send your application (CV, letter of motivation, transcripts, names and email contact of referees) electronically in a single PDF document to:
Dr. Tumasch Reichenbacher,
tumasch[dot]reichenbacher[AT]geo[dot]uzh[dot]ch (subject: PhD Relevance Representation) ,
Ph: +41-44-635-5152,
Fax: +41-44-635-6848.

We will also be happy to answer informal inquiries. Review of applications will begin immediately, and will continue until the position is filled.
Entrance upon September 2008, or as soon as possible thereafter.
Duration of appointment is for 3 years.

Credits: Scholarships information center

IJGIS:Volume 22 Issue 8 2008

Volume 22 Issue 8 2008 of International Journal of Geographical Information Science(IJGIS) is now available online. Informaworld also mentioned in their site that AAG members will soon be able to opt to access IJGIS free of charge.

The research articles available in the issue are:

• Cartographic generalisation of lines based on a B-spline snake model - E. Guilbert; E. Saux
• Image-based quality assessment of road databases - M. Gerke; C. Heipke
• SRTM resample with short distance-low nugget kriging - C. H. Grohmann; S. S. Steiner
• 3D noise mapping in urban areas - Jantien Stoter; Henk de Kluijver; Vinaykumar Kurakula
• Effects of DEM resolution and source on soil erosion modelling: a case study using the WEPP model - Jane Xinxin Zhang; Kang-Tsung Chang; Joan Qiong Wu

Geo-Spatial Information Science:Vol11, No2 now online

Springer has recently made the Geo-Spatial Information Science Journal's Vol11, No2 available online.

The follow is the list of articles covered in this issue:

1. An algorithm for extracting contour lines based on interval tree from grid DEM -Tao Wang
2. An algorithm of neighbor finding on sphere triangular meshes with quaternary code - Wenbin Sun, Xuesheng Zhao
3. Comparison of models for GPS kinematic data processing- Lilong Liu, Hongyan Wen, Bin Liu
4. Earth’s temporal principal moments of inertia and variable rotation,Wenbin Shen, Wei Chen, Rong Sun
5. Error analysis and accuracy assessment of GPS absolute velocity determination without SA,Fuhong Wang, Xiaohong Zhang, Jingsong Huang
6. Exploring the sample quality using rough sets theory for the supervised classification of remotely sensed imagery,Yong Ge, Hexiang Bai, Sanping Li, Deyu Li
7. Fractal features of urban morphology and simulation of urban boundary,Yi Zhang, Jie Yu, Wei Fan
8. GPS-Meteorology network in Wuhan region,Yong Wang, Yanping Liu, Hong Xu, Xiaogang Hu, Lintao Liu, Houze Xu
9. Land degradation due to salinization in arid and semi-arid regions with the aid of geo-information techniques -Mushtak T. Jabbar, Xiaoling Chen
10. Monitoring fog using FY-1D meteorological satellite -Yitong Liang, Xuan Chen, Zhihong Xia
11. Numerical prediction methods for clock deviation based on two-way satellite time and frequency transfer data - Hairong Guo, Yuanxi Yang, Haibo He
12. Ocean loading tides corrections of GPS stations in Antarctica -Youwen Liu, Weiping Jiang, Xiaohui Zhou
13. Remote sensing image classification based on improved fuzzy c -means -Jie Yu, Peihuang Guo, Pinxiang Chen, Zhongshan Zhang, Wenbin Ruan
14. Three-dimensional TIN algorithm for digital terrain modeling -Qing Zhu, Yeting Zhang, Fengchun Li