Vespucci Summer Institute on Geographic Information Science 2011 – Volunteered Geographic Information

Young researchers are invited to contemplate and discuss a wide range of VGI-related topics, including but not limited to:

* Trust: metrics of trust for individuals
* Organizational structures: moderators, editors
* Synthesis: techniques for synthesizing disparate VGI
* Issues in time-critical VGI
* Analytic techniques for data of disparate quality
* Long-term maintenence and archiving of VGI
* VGI data types: sources access, mining, etc.
* Analytical tools for very large often fuzzy data sets e.g. in respect to location and semantics
* Appropriate spatio-temporal analytical methods adapted for such data (dynamic data but often small counts making statistical analysis problematic, difficult to estimated expected rates etc.)
* Quality assessment
* Integration with traditional SDI
* Implications for research methods

Course leader

Michael Goodchild, Max Craglia, Michael Gould

Target group

University researchers and faculty at all levels
Project managers and researchers in industry and government
Developers of GIS, LBS, SDI, and e-Government solutions

Course aim

The Summer Institute is aimed at researchers from the university, commercial, and government sectors. It provides an inspiring and productive opportunity for peer-to-peer interaction with leading international experts in the field. Participants will

* Learn the state of the art in the topic areas
* Understand and explore tomorrow's research and market challenges
* Be challenged to think laterally outside their daily work setting
* Present their own work and ideas to receive feedback and advice
* Get one-on-one access to experts in a relaxed and productive setting
* Improve presentation and team work skills
* Return home refreshed and newly motivated

The Summer Institute format is multi-faceted and will include

* Topical presentations and group projects
* Analyses of case studies
* Discussions and critique of methodology
* Skill-development sessions
* Opportunities for working on
o joint publications in international journals
o project proposals to funding agencies or management
o business plans