[Sdi-latinamericacaribbean] up-coming seminar series on Public Participation GIS

[cnaguirre at ipgh.org]

Source: Dave Unwin (WUN)by way of UCGIS list

Public Participation Geographical Information Systems
 
Joint Worldwide Universities Network, RGS(with IBG) Quantitative Methods Research Group & UCGIS e-seminars
Autumn 2007

Introduction: Aims and Objectives
 
The WUN Global GIS Academy's 2007 seminar series is intended to reflect the growing importance of public participation GIS. As usual it will enable participants to access contributions from some of the best-known names in the field, but in addition we hope and expect that provision of an international dimension to the discussions will add greatly to the experience.
 
Following the seminar series should enable participants to:
 
Ø      follow current literature in the field;
Ø      compare and contrast participatory GIS, public participation GIS, Internet GIS and Web GIS information technologies; 
Ø      understand the advantages and disadvantages of different research approaches for assessing PPGIS use.
 
Who can participate
 
The seminar is open to faculty and students in universities that are part of the WUN, together with members of the Quantitative Methods Research and GIScience Research Groups of the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG), Universities in the UCGIS, and other interested parties.  
 
Although the series carries no activities for which a formal assessment is appropriate, our hope is that graduate student classes, in particular, will build on it by creating some formal, assessed activity that enables the series to be 'hard wired' into their research training programmes. Possible activities might be completion of an individual essay based on some or all of the presented materials. A note giving the timetable, suggested reading, and possible student activities, is available by request from Dave Unwin (d.unwin at wun.ac.uk).
 
Seminar Environment
 
Building on its successful use in our 2005 and 2006 seminar series, the seminars will use the Marratech' platform, which is an extended desk top video and audio-conferencing environment (see www.marratech.com for details). This platform enables a moderately sized client to be downloaded and used with Windows', Linux and Mac-OS' systems. Provided broadband access is available, participants can use this system with a simple headset/webcam from home, or via a pre-arranged video suite at the home university, which is what we would recommend for entire classes of graduate students. If you intend to set up such a suite, please note that institutional firewalls can generate problems in using the client, but these are not insurmountable. Dave Unwin has prepared a fairly full guide that details all the wisdom about using this system that we have accumulated over the past two years, available on request from him at d.unwin at wun.ac.uk
 
List of dates & topics
 
All seminars will commence at 1600 UK time, initially BST then GMT. Please check carefully that you have the correct local time.
 
#
Date
Topic
Presenter
Chair
1 Wed. 17th Oct PPGIS: Who are the 'public' and what are they 'participating' in?
Robin Smith (Sheffield) & Richard Kingston (Manchester)
Dave Unwin

2 Wed. 24th Oct
Designing participatory GIS/SDSS
Piotr Jankowski
Robin Smith

3 Wed.  7th Nov
Unpacking the complexities of PPGIS
Rina Ghose (Wisconsin at Milwaukee)
Tim Nyerges

4 Wed. 14th Nov
Critical GIS: Methods for Exploring PGIS and PPGIS Use
Sarah Elwood
TBA

5 Wed. 28th Nov
Quantifying the qualitative: capturing environmentalperception in space/place problems
Steve Carver
David Dibiase (Penn. Stete)

6 Wed.5th Dec
Reflections on and Directions for PPGIS Research
Tim Nyerges
Dave Unwin

To view the seminars in real-time and participate
On the day of the seminar, from 3.45pm (UK local time) or earlier, there are two ways by which the Marratech ' is client software can be accessed:  
Ø      The simplest way is to point your web browser to the URL given for 'Java Webstart', at http://marratech.wun.ac.uk:8000/launch.jsp?sid=10002 Clicking on this link will install some Java based software on your system. The install sequence is obvious and should give you no problems. We recommend you do this well in advance of the seminar;
Ø      Alternatively, you can download a free desktop client (Marratech Pro) from the supplier's website at www.marratech.com/download/.  And the from this point to the slightly different URL at http://marratech.wun.ac.uk:8000/connect.jsp?sid=10002 to direct it to the designated website.
 
The seminars commence at 4pm UK local time. Instructions on how to access them are also available at the website http://www.wun.ac.uk/ggisa/seminars.html. We strongly recommend that you 'enter' the virtual seminar room in good time for the advertised start and hope that you have at least 'played' with the client's interface to understand how the interactions it offers can be used..
 
The archive
 
The 2005 and 2006 seminars, on Hot Topics in GISc, Spatio-temporal modeling in GISc  and  Graduate research in GIS have been archived on the WUN GGISA website at http://www.wun.ac.uk/ggisa/seminars/archive/ . The precise form of any one session archive depends upon what we were able to acquire, ranging from PowerPoint' or PDF files of the materials used through to complete recordings of the session that can be viewed off-line using the Marratech ' client. Instructions on how to do this are on the same website. We hope that you might find them a useful source of materials for your students to browse.
 
 
Dave Unwin (WUN)
Tim Nyerges (University of Washington)