Workshops 2023
The Geo perspective on Digital Twins: How can GI science advance the value of city-level and nationwide Digital Twins?
Contact persons: Jantien Stoter Claire Ellul, Benedicte Bucher, Lars Harrie, Joep Crompvoets
Description: Digital Twins (DT) are realistic digital representations of physical things with two-way flow of information from the physical to the model and back. DTs underpin areas ranging from urban administration to telecommunications and contribute to local and national Net Zero initiatives. Within the geoscience community, DT concepts are not new; indeed, the location foundations of a DT may seem obvious. However - perhaps due to DT origins in manufacturing - there is as yet a lack of common understanding as to:
- How geoscientists can best support, engage with and benefit from the increasing number of city-wide and national DT initiatives
- What geoscientists can learn from the DT community
Urban places and regions in GIScience – concepts, methods and challenges
Contact persons: Marco Painho, Vicente Tang, Joaquin Huerta, Emmanuel Papadakis, Cristina Costa
Description: City dwellers communicate and reason about the urban space in the form of regions and places. In the context of GIScience and urban studies, these two concepts overlap and represent fundamental units in bottom-up partitions of urban space. Their perceptual and functional dimensions can be retrieved and collected through different methods, such as knowledge-based models or data-driven approaches. Sources of data include collaborative geospatial data (e.g., OSM), online user-generated content (UGC) and from participatory methods such as web surveys and sketch maps. Rendering the boundaries and spatial footprints of places and different types of regions (e.g., neighbourhoods, areas of interest, vernacular/cognitive regions) provides enriched information for those who want to map the city according to its citizens. The goal of this workshop is to bring forth research, initiatives, concepts and methods, as well as issues and limitations on unravelling and arranging the urban space into meaningful territories. In addition, participants will engage in a hands-on exercise. In Jupyter Notebook environments, we will generate shapes of historic neighbourhoods using several sources of UGC data as well as compute agreement boundaries of different types of regions in the city using data collected from a survey developed in the scope of the CityMe project in Lisbon, Portugal ( https://cityme.novaims.unl.pt/).
GeoAI with ArcGIS
Contact persons: Michael Gould (UJI and Esri) and Rami Alouta (Esri, workshop presenter), NOVA-IMS, Lisbon (Prof Marco Painho)
Description: GeoAI within and using ArcGIS has taken advantage of the growing availability of cloud computing, and now is being applied in a wide range of organizations in vaious fields. This is matched by strong growth in the imagery industry including UAVs. In this workshop we demonstrate cloud-based imagery storage and analysis with ArcGIS in sectors like Agriculture, Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Response, Development and Urban planning, and more. We will explore the different products that are GeoAI enabled and will work with the different deep learning resources accessible via the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World. Attendees of this workshop will learn how to go through a deep learning workflow. We will take a close look at creating training data, training new models, fine-tuning existing models and inferencing within ArcGIS. Finally we cover post processing and data sharing workflows within ArcGIS. The software and data are provided.
Women in Copernicus – Equity in Copernicus ecosystem survey results
Contact persons: Aida Monfort Muriach, Barbara Riedler, Nathalie Stephenne, Marie Jagaille, Natassa Antoniou, Grazia Fiore, Kathin Lenvain, Flávia de Souza Mendes
Description: Women are part of the Copernicus experience. They are not always visible but they are present in the production flow of the Copernicus / Earth Observation / GeoInformation (Copernicus /EO/GI) domains. Women in Copernicus aims to give them a voice and a face but also attract girls in STEM careers. Women in Copernicus organized a first survey in 2020 addressed to women working in the sector, which provides us a first insight into a subject that should deserve further consideration in the future. The second survey (end of 2021 and beginning of 2022) was addressed to all European people working or having worked with Copernicus data or in the Copernicus domain of activities. The survey includes 6 sections (demographics, background and career, barriers, facilitators, education choices and gender stereotypes). With this second survey, Women in Copernicus wants to have a better understanding of the ecosystem and a more representative point of view on the gender subject by analysing the results.
Geospatial Education 5.0: New Paradigms for Geospatial Training and Education
Contact persons: Justine Blanford, Mike Gould, Josef Strobl, Carsten Keßler, Albert Remke, Andreas Rienow, Henryk Hodam, Fabian Przybylak, Daniele Cannatella, Claudiu Forgaci, Alexander Wandl
Description: The COVID-19 pandemic forced educational institutes to pivot their F2F learning environments to online learning environments and has subsequently transformed societal expectations about education. Although there are many benefits associated with these changes in education (e.g. multi-dimensional interactions, flexibility and richer/deeper learning) there are still many challenges that can result in poor and often inadequate educational experiences (e.g., lack of real student-student and student-teacher interaction, and effective discussions). Alongside this we have seen a rise in AI technologies and methodologies being used to answer questions via chat bots, create images, enhance our computing capabilities and drive many common household items such as the vacuum cleaner, much of which are using technologies and methods being developed in the geospatial field. These technologies and methods are already very much part of our daily lives. How do we ensure we, as educators are at the forefront of these developments and incorporating these into our curriculums? How do we maintain the geospatial aspects of our curriculums? What resources, skills and communities are needed? Do Open Educational Resources provide a solution? How do we deconstruct and reconstruct our education?
25th ICA Workshop on Map Generalisation and Multiple Representation
Contact persons: Guillaume Touya, Martijn Meijers, Paulo Raposo, Pia Bereuter
Description: Though cartography has drastically changed in the past years with online interactive maps quickly replacing paper maps at one single scale, the need for map generalisation has not disappeared with the possibility to zoom in maps. Some old challenges stand still while others emerge, or become prominent. We want this workshop to be the meeting point of the traditional map generalisation practitioners and academics, as well as researchers interested in the abstraction and the multi-scale interactive visualisation of various types of spatial data. The 25th ICA Workshop on Map Generalisation and Multiple Representation will be held prior to the AGILE 2023 conference. Participants of the workshop are invited to submit papers on ongoing research or position papers. Papers relating map generalisation or multiple representations to the theme of the AGILE conference, i.e. “spatial data for design” are highly encouraged.
Digital Serious Games: Toward a Design Framework
Contact persons: Alexander Klippel, Jiayan Zhao, Gamze Dane, Maryam Ghodsvali
Description: Digital serious games (DSGs) are great assets to different disciplinary domains of learning and decision-making. In the field of urban planning and design, as more and more data will become open for all, this is a timely workshop to discuss the capacity of DSGs that deal with the complexity of cities, to gain the most out of these data, and to advance the identification of future applications. Currently, the multiplicity of DSGs resulted in fragmentation of efforts, limited knowledge exchange and lack of standardizations. To reduce the fragmentation and propose a way forward, synergies are required to interconnect existing competences, usually technical, and enable DSGs to be designed efficiently and to be repurposed for future applications. This workshop aims to start a discussion toward a design framework for DSGs by gathering a scientific community that can provide feedback on data usability, visualisation techniques, the quality of digital environment and a possible open platform for the reusability of DSGs. The outcome of the workshop will be a journal paper that combines the results of the discussions. All contributors will be invited to be co-authors.
Workshops 2022
GeoData and Tools for Education and Research
Contact persons: Bénédicte Bucher (
Description: Geographical data and analyses are a key asset in different application/disciplinary domains of education, from primary school to high education and life-long learning, and of research like geography, history, urbanism or environmental science, among others. In the specific context of Europe, as more and more data will become open for all, this is a timely workshop to study the users’ capacity to make the most of the wealth of these data, to improve current solutions and also to advance the identification of future products. In order to achieve this, more synergies are needed to interconnect existing approaches, usually national, and achieve cross-national solutions, in Europe and beyond. The education community can give relevant feedback on the data usability and needs from their pedagogical perspectives. Scientific users can comment on quality documentation as they need to adopt a critical perspective on results obtained with data and students learn to use such complex data before they go into the workforce where they may promote their usage. All in all, these users can help data providers as well as relevant communities to further investigate the design of new products as a response to the emerging needs.
Replication in geospatial research
Contact persons: Frank Ostermann, Markus Konkol, and Carlos Granell
Description: Replicating prior research based on a newly collected dataset or newly implemented analysis with different methods is important for verifying and advancing robust scientific knowledge. However, replicating research is currently not encouraged or rewarded since it rarely matches a journal’s scope or a funder’s call for projects. Further, there are epistemological and methodological challenges to replicability in geospatial research, such as the spatio-temporal non-stationarity of quantitative data and the context and subjectivity in qualitative research. This workshop aims to address and discuss these issues by asking participants to attempt a replication of a published study of their choice prior to the workshop and to report on this replication attempt during the workshop by using a short report template. This template will ask for feedback on challenges and an interpretation of the results. These reports are then presented briefly, followed by the main activity of the workshop: plenary and group discussions on (a) obstacles to replication and ways to overcome or work around them, and (b) what constitutes success or failure in a geospatial replication study. After the workshop, at the minimum the reports and outcomes of the discussion are going to be integrated into a full journal paper with all contributors as co-authors. Depending on interest by selected journals and the authors, another option is a special issue where the replication reports are expanded into full articles.
CYBERCARTOGRAPHY 2022: A beyond state-of-the-art role of geovisualization in the understanding of the world
Contact persons: Marinos Kavouras, Margarita Kokla, and Fotis Liarokapis
Description: Maps are not just lines, points, and symbols assembled as pictures. Maps constitute one of the most powerful cognitive vehicles to explore and describe the world, but also to express ourselves metaphorically. The world of ubiquitous computing is now full of enthusiastic “cartographers”. The way people interact with technology, the shift from the “god’s eye view” to any perspective in viewing space, and the necessity of employing cartographic means to make sense out of big data, have introduced the need to shift the paradigm of cartography and geovisualization to cybercartography. This involves the development of an innovative cartographic language, multisensory representations, multimodal interaction, and tools that enhance spatial literacy and develop truly map-minded spatial citizens. Following last year’s CYBERCARTOGRAPHY 2021 Workshop, the 2022 Workshop aims at bringing together scientists to present innovative approaches, existing projects, technological tools, and to discuss emerging research questions related to Cybercartography. This year, the Workshop also endorses an independent but complementary activity - the CYBERCARTOGRAPHY COMPETITION 2022: DEVELOPING EXEMPLARY CYBERCARTOGRAPHIC REPRESENTATIONS. The Competition is running in spring 2022 and its progress and results will be presented at the Workshop. The Workshop is co-organized & supported by: (a) The Association of Geographic Information Laboratories in Europe (AGILE) - National Technical University of Athens, CYBERCARTO Project, (b) The International Cartographic Association (ICA), and (c) The International Society for Photogrammetry & Remote Sensing (ISPRS).
Geospatial Education – Transitioning from emergency online to a new normal (Erasmus+)
Contact persons: Justine Blanford, Mike Gould, and Josef Strobl
Description: COVID-19 has led to the rapid transformation and digitalisation of education around the world. Since the pandemic all aspects of education have been affected. Over the past 2 years many education staff have been required to react to the ongoing uncertainties and adapt materials quickly, learn new technologies with little or no time for reflection, upskilling, planning and designing of courses for delivering education in multi-modal learning environments. Our goal is to bring together geospatial educators in higher education and provide an opportunity to reflect on education in the past two years, share experiences and discuss what is needed next with education. We would like to hear more from GiScience educators to identify what is required for implementing resilient GIScience Education and what is the best way forward. More information about the context and Erasmus+ project related to this workshop can be found at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeyYFxd_NJsWC8mbvY2F0zySy5OIa1UhSYu_mzfJKnU53pVSA/viewform https://www.globalgiscienceeducation.org/
Workshops 2021
Working with Discrete Global Grid Systems
Contact persons: Alexander Kmoch, University of Tartu, Estonia (UT),
Description: The main objective this workshop is introducing the attendees to the theoretical background of Discrete Global Grid Systems (DGGS), current real-world implementations with exemplary use cases. In subsequent discussion, we aim for an interactive exploration of additional use cases and the convergence of DGGS with traditional GIS and Spatial Analysis methods for non-expert impactful adoption of DGGS.
CYBERCARTOGRAPHY: A beyond state-of-the-art role of geovisualization in the understanding of the world
Contact persons: Marinos Kavouras, National Technical University of Athens,
Description: The increased availability of geographic data (often in massive volumes) together with the advances in spatiotemporal data management, integration, analysis and visualization present an emerging need and opportunity: how to transform these massive volumes of geographic data into meaningful information about places, events, activities, and interrelations. Maps are a fundamental means for understanding the world and interpreting complex data and phenomena in space and time. The last decades have been characterized by a radical change in how we make and use maps. New technologies and mapping approaches have been introduced: interactive visual interfaces and geovisual analytics tools, multimodal and multisensory representations, story maps and cybercartographic atlases, 3D representations of complex data, virtual, augmented, and extended realities. Furthermore, the integration of geovisualization with knowledge representation structures may provide the basis to infuse data with meaning and deepen our understanding of natural and social systems and intricate interactions in space and time. Five invited speakers will address the major challenges of cybercartography and stimulate discussions/ initiate dialogue among participants. The event aims to provide a forum for fruitful interactions and for joining forces among three major geospatial communities: the Association of Geographic Information Laboratories in Europe (AGILE), the International Cartographic Association (ICA) and the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS).
Living structure as organized complexity for planning livable urban environment
Contact persons: Bin Jiang, http://giscience.hig.se/binjiang/ –
Description: In the seminal last chapter of her classic book “The Death and Life of Great American Cities”, Jane Jacobs raises a profound question “the kind of problem a city is” and argues that cities are neither the problems of simplicity nor those of disorganized complexity but the problems of organized complexity. In his life’s work “The Nature of Order”, Christopher Alexander argues that order in buildings and cities is essentially the same as that in nature, and the kind of order or complexity can be characterized by living structure. Living structure is defined as a physical and mathematical structure that consists of far more small substructures than large ones. This workshop will provide a structural perspective on goodness of space (both large- and small-scale) to bridge together space and place through the very concept of wholeness or living structure. A space is good–genuinely and objectively–if its adjacent spaces are good, the larger space to which it belongs is good, and what is contained in the space is also good. Eventually, goodness of space is considered a matter of fact under the third or organic view of space: space is neither lifeless nor neutral but a living structure capable of being more living or less living. The major theme of the workshop is not only about understanding space (spatial structure and dynamics) but also–maybe more importantly–about creating good space, with which people have a good sense of feelings such as pride, belonging, well-being, and healing. We will together review a series of novel concepts that are to fill the gap between the understanding and creation of space. The concepts include for example three fundamental issues of geography about space: how it looks, how it works, and what it ought to be, and the two fundamental laws of geography: scaling law, and Tobler’s law. The workshop will combine with lectures, demos, hands-on exercises, and discussions.
Bodies of Knowledge - Using concept maps for teaching and knowledge sharing in Geo-information and Earth Observation with innovative web tools.
Contact persons: Rob Lemmens, Ellen-Wien Augustijn, Justine Blanford, Mohamed Ez-zaouia, Marie-Jose Verkroost, University of Twente (ITC),
Description: To introduce participants to the methodology of using concept maps, the EO4GEO Body of Knowledge (BoK) is demonstrated. In the workshop we will show and discuss the wide range of BoK-related applications, enabling and enhancing spatial-visual-conceptual navigation and learning from BoK content. We also invite participants as experts to improve the concepts in the BoK. The participants will learn to create their own concept area and reuse existing concepts. In addition, they will learn how to use the concepts in an ecosystem of web-based tools. The workshop will also be used to (1) show concept-based teaching and (2) to discuss potential applications of the BoK, beyond profile, job and curriculum development, (e.g., in research and project applications) and (3) to explore different concept map visualisations. For more information please visit the following link: https://www.itc.nl/bodiesofknowledge/
1st International Workshop on Spatial HCI and Geographic-Aware Technologies (SPAGAT’21)
Contact persons: Prof. Dr. Ioannis Giannopoulos, TU Wien,
Description: In recent years, the AGILE conference has attracted scientists working in areas such as Spatial Human-Computer Interaction (Spatial HCI) and Geographic-Aware Technologies. The primary objective of this workshop is, therefore, to build a tighter coupled research community around these areas, with a focus on, but not restricted to Virtual and Augmented reality. Based on major research topics identified by participants during the workshop a second objective will be to foster international collaboration between AGILE members who are interested in these domains with respect to grant proposals at the cross-country level.
Geospatial Education – teaching through a pandemic and beyond
Contact persons: Justine Blanford, ITC-University of Twente,
Description: The purpose of this workshop is to bring GiScience educators to take forward the momentum generated by the Global GiScience Education Conversations, assess progress that has been made since the start of COVID and what this means for the future of GiScience Education. a. What does the future of GiScience Education look like? b. How do we prepare currently and moving forward into the future? c. What are the challenges? d. What are the solutions?
Open SDI Education: Active Methods and Good Practices
Contact persons: Ali Mansourian, Lund University,
Description: The aim of this workshop is to present the outcomes of the SPIDER project (open SPatial data Infrastructure eDucation nEtwork) and brainstorm”active” teaching and learning methods (both for on-campus and for online teaching), which can be beneficial for Open SDI Education. It include:
- Review of active teaching and learning methods
- Mapping between different active teaching methods and learning level, based on Bloom’s Taxonomy,
- Presentation of the results of Good Practices in Active Teaching and Learning for GI courses
- Brain storming to suggest new active teaching and learning methods for Open SDI Education
Workshops 2020
Introduction to reproducible research by means of the new AGILE Reproducible Paper Guidelines
Contact persons: Daniel Nüst,
Reproducible research in practice: the AGILE Reproducible Paper Guidelines in action
Contact persons: Daniel Nüst,
Artificial Intelligence for spatial data (AI4SD)
Contact persons: Rohit Singh, Esri Inc.,
EO4GEO BoK-a-thon – Hacking and using concept maps in the Geo-information and Earth Observation Body of Knowledge with innovative web tools.
Contact persons: Rob Lemmens,
Geo-Information and Society: From Interaction to Integration (GIS II)
Contact persons: Dr. Tessio Novack, Heidelberg University,
Living structure as organized complexity for identifing and planning sustainable built environments
Contact persons: Bin Jiang – http://giscience.hig.se/binjiang/ –
1st International Workshop on Spatial HCI and Geographic-Aware Technologies (SPAGAT’20)
Contact persons: rof. Dr. Ioannis Giannopoulos, TU Wien, Geoinformation Research Group
Workshops 2019
Towards Open Spatial Data Infrastructures
Contact persons: Bastiaan van Loenen (Delft University of Technology), Ulrike Klein (Bochum University of Applied Sciences), Ali Mansourian (Lund University), Drazen Tutic (University of Zagreb)
Description:In the search for the ideal spatial data infrastructure a common ground has been established for the development of open spatial data infrastructures. Starting from confidential, highly restricted data with use limited to particular public sector users, SDIs across Europe have developed towards a wider focus, civil society oriented infrastructure enabling a multitude of users to access, share, use and re-use datasets and services from a wide variety of domains both nationally and internationally. Especially in recent years, several countries and public administrations started to make a shift towards the establishment of an open spatial data infrastructures (SDIs), in which also businesses, citizens and non-governmental actors were considered as key stake-holders of the infrastructure. The concept of Open SDI is gaining importance since European Commission, European Parliament and European Council have reached an agreement on a revised directive that will facilitate the availability and re-use of public sector data. The new directive on Open Data and Public Sector Information will rule that all public sector content that can be accessed under national access to documents rules is in principle freely available for re-use. In addition, high-value datasets such as geospatial data will have to be made available as open data via Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). In this workshop, the concept of Open SDI is introduced to describe characterize the development and implementation of more open spatial data infrastructures. During the workshop the ‘Map of Open SDI in Europe’ will be presented, showing the results of three years of exploration of the openness of NSDI implementation in Europe. This ‘Map of Open SDI in Europe’ is developed to provide SDI decision makers, practitioners and researchers with a more comprehensive understanding of the openness of spatial data infrastructures in Europe. During the workshop, several brainstorm sessions will be organized on each of the key dimensions of Open SDIs. The aim of these brainstorm sessions is to develop the concept of Open SDI further especially in the context of the new EU Directive on Open Data and Public Sector Information and its impact on the openness of SDIs across Europe.
Reproducible Research (RR@AGILE)
Contact persons: Daniel Nüst (Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Münster), Frank Ostermann (Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC), University of Twente), Barbara Hofer (Interfaculty Department of Geoinformatics – Z_GIS, University of Salzburg), Rusne Sileryte (OTB - Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies, TechnicalOTB - Research Institute for Housing, Urban and Mobility Studies, TechnicalUniversity of Delft), Carlos Granell (Department of Information Systems, University of Jaume I)
Description: Reproducibility, replicability, and transparency are widely recognised as crucial topics forReproducibility, replicability, and transparency are widely recognised as crucial topics forscholarly research. This full-day workshop is the 3rd in a series of pre-conference workshops at AGILE teaching participants concepts and best practices for reproducible research (RR). The workshop prepares participants for the future of research publications by:
- introducing concepts and workflows for RR,
- providing hands-on training on tools for RR using prepared examples of data & codeas well as published research articles,
- demonstrating the levels and aspects of particular publications’ reproducibility suchas licensing or privacy,
- providing literature and educational resources for application and teaching in ownlab,
- teaching skills which increase the quality of scholarly publications and the potentialto collaborate,
- introducing a proposal for author and reviewer guidelines at AGILE conferences, and
- building participants’ confidence in their skills and knowledge to contribute to thediscourse about transparency and openness in science and to achieve newbreakthroughs in science in a reproducible way.
Lean more about the RR@AGILE workshop series at https://o2r.info/reproducible-agile/2019/ , as well as you may learn more for the RR initiative at https://o2r.info/reproducible-agile/initiative/
GeoCultGIS - GEOgraphical and CULTural aspects of Geo-data: Issues and Solutions
Contact persons: Dr.-Ing. Tessio Novack (GIScience, Heidelberg University), Dr. A. Yair Grinberger (GIScience, Heidelberg University), Dr. Michael Schultz (GIScience, Heidelberg University), Prof. Dr. Alexander Zipf (GIScience, Heidelberg University), Dr. Peter Mooney (Department of Computer Science, Maynooth University)
Description: While some geo-datasets offer global coverage and spatial methods attempt to be generic, applications frequently are of local nature. Local geographic and social-cultural idiosyncrasies lead to heterogeneity in data production practices and in interpretations of abstract geographical concepts. This, in its turn, limits the transferability of methods and theoretical approaches. In this workshop, the challenges involved and the general conceptual, methodological, technical, and empirical approaches for tackling such issues will be discussed. This workshop will thus contribute to the strengthening and networking of a community of geo-information researchers and practitioners facing and attending to these issues. We encourage participants to submit conceptual, methodological, and/or empirical short papers discussing subjects such as:
- The effects of data production practices and of geographical peculiarities (e.g. urban structures) on data accuracies and representations, and approaches for treating related biases;
- Novel and integrative (i.e. multi-perspective) representations of geographical realities and objects;
- Developments and studies considering contextual dependencies in the perception and usage of geographical concepts and categories (e.g. land use nomenclatures, identification and interpretation of boundaries);
- The effects of geographical and cultural diversities on the transferability and application of data processing methods, and context-sensitive methodological developments;
- GIScience research front and agendas in attending to geo-cultural dependencies.
For submission guidelines and additional information, please visit the workshop's website: http://www.cs.nuim.ie/~pmooney/GeoCultGIS/
R for geovisualization, geoprocessing and geoanalytics
Contact persons: Lex Comber (School of Geography, University of Leeds), Phaedon Kyriakidis (Dept. of Civil Engineering and Geomatics, Cyprus University of Technology), Dimitris Kavroudakis (Dept. of Geography, University of the Aegean)
Description: Geospatial analytics (a modern term for spatial analysis) has been increasingly gainingGeospatial analytics (a modern term for spatial analysis) has been increasingly gainingmomentum within GIScience, particularly with the recent surge of (geospatial) data scienceand machine learning. Methods and techniques in spatial analysis, once only available inproprietary and rather expensive software, are now within every researcher’s andpractitioner’s reach via open-source, public-domain software. A solid understanding of thebasic concepts of spatial analysis, as well as the ability to implement relevant workflowsthrough specialised software can be a powerful tool for research and education within thecontext of “Geospatial Technologies for Local and Regional Development”. The proposed hands-on workshop will provide the opportunity to participants to acquire aworking knowledge of methods and techniques in spatial analysis. More importantly,through the use of real-world case studies and open-source software (R programminglanguage), participants will develop practical skills and the ability to communicate analysisresults using specialised tools. Workshop URL: https://eclass.aegean.gr/courses/GEO234/
Workshops 2018
Map Generalisation Practice with Volunteered Geographic Information
Contact persons: Guillaume Touya (IGN France, LaSTIG), Pia Bereuter (FHNW University of Applied Sciences of Northwestern Switzerland, Switzerland), Paulo Raposo (University of Tennessee Knoxville, USA), Cyril de Runz (Université de Reims, France)
Description: Map generalisation research mostly focused on the needs of national mapping agencies (NMAs): making maps at small scales from high resolution geographic databases. Given the popularity of independent Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) platforms such as OpenStreetMap, as well as the use of crowdsourced data within NMAs, a focus on the generalisation of VGI is needed. Unlike NMA datasets, VGI can be very diverse and heterogeneous, and thus poses real, novel challenges for data management and processing.
This will be a hackathon-like workshop: two datasets from OSM and FlickR will be provided, and participants will be asked to submit how they successfully (or unsuccessfully) generalise part of (or the whole) dataset.
Research Data Management and Reference Datasets for the Environmental Sciences
Contact persons:Stephan Mäs, Daniel Henzen, Lars Bernard (all TU Dresden, Germany), Ivo Senner (Fraunhofer IGD, Germany), Simon Jirka (52°North, Germany)
Description:To make scientific work more transparent and in the optimal case even reproducible, the improvement of research documentation is a clear goal in most of the scientific domains and in particular in the data driven environmental sciences. Several national, European and international initiatives and activities evolved to tackle issues in research data management, several of them started quite recently (e.g. GO-FAIR, European Open Science Cloud, Research Data Alliance). Nowadays, research-funding agencies very often demand project proposals to define a data management plan that includes strategies for data description and publication. To support this, a number of research data infrastructures have been implemented at national and international level (for example: www.pangaea.de). However, most of them focus only on the publication of scientific data that is seen an additional or supplemental output to the published publications. A real data management that also supports the daily work of the researchers is usually not offered. Further, to improve comparability among the different research results the availability of reference datasets that serve as harmonized data input or as a mean of reference or comparison do hardly exist. As a next step towards research transparency these things are clearly demanded.
This workshop provides an opportunity for interested researchers to share experiences and discuss requirements on reference datasets and tools and platforms for research data management.
Reproducible Research Publications At AGILE (RR@AGILE)
Contact persons:Daniel Nüst, Markus Konkol (all University of Münster, Germany), Frank Ostermann, Valentina Cerutti (all ITC, University of Twente, The Netherlands), Barbara Hofer (University of Salzburg, Austria), Rusne Sileryte (TU Delft, The Netherlands), Carlos Granell (University of Jaume I, Spain)
Description:Reproducibility and replicability of research gains more attention each year across many domains, but at AGILE conferences the topic is underrepresented. This half-day workshop introduces interested scientists to reproducible research and gives hands-on guidance on how to increase reproducibility of their work.
Modelling Urban Dynamics
Contact persons:Arend Ligtenberg, Erika Speelman (all Wageningen University, The Netherlands, and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS)), Judith Verstegen, Gabriele Filomena (all University of Münster, Germany)
Description:It is expected that in 2030 about 5 billion people will live in cities as compared to the 3.6 billion now. This massive growth challenges the liveability of the urban environment. To design cities that offer a pleasant home to its citizens, are attractive to visitors, industry and commercial organisations, and are as well sustainable, it is crucial to understand urban dynamics, and the effects of human behaviour on the city and vice-versa.
Various ideas on how cities work as well as methods to simulate and analyse spatial-temporal and social processes have been developed past decades. The work of, amongst others, Lynch, Hillier, Hägerstrand, and Batty offer basic concepts and methods to represent, simulate, and understand urban systems. Currently cities are increasingly recognised as Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS). Myriad entities, processes, and feedbacks lead to non-linear and often unexpected outcomes complicating the development of urban policies and design. Agent Based Modelling (ABM), Cellular Automata (CA), and participatory modelling offer the tools and bottom-up techniques that can deal with this complexity.
This workshop aims to discuss novel concepts and methods to simulate spatial-temporal dynamics of cities from the bottom-up. Contributions on both fundamental issues as well as applications are welcome. Focus is on models of interactions between humans and the city Examples include, but are not limited to, human movement behaviour, tourism, urban development and expansion, participatory modelling for city development, gentrification and segregation, housing, and urban health.
A selection of the work presented will be published in a special issue of CEUS.
2nd AGILE Workshop Open Data for Open Cities - OD4OC: The reuse of open data through spatial analysis
Contact persons:Adeoluwa Akande, Marco Painho, Pedro Cabral, Fernando Santa (all Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal), Joaquin Huerta, Mike Gould, Fernando Benitez (all Universitat Jaume I, Spain)
Description:Cities are the hubs of innovation driving the economic development of the world. The explosive growth of cities and the rapid expansion of broadband and data are intersecting at a time when the world faces serious challenges to achieving more sustainable development. Cities now have an essential role to play in national and local open data initiatives. However, are cities ready to move forward regarding open data? Are user requirements taken into consideration in open data strategy? How are open data being used to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable? Which are the best practice examples to follow?
This second edition of the OD4OC workshop has a broad agenda that will guide you in how to use open geospatial data, organized around policy goals to design data-driven initiatives in communities. The workshop features two key speakers, Cosmina Radu from the European Data Portal, who will present insights from recent reports on the future of open data portals, economic benefits and entrepreneurship of open data; and Andrew Turner from Esri’s development center in Washington DC, who will show examples of open data portals built to meet the needs of citizens.
Four short-papers will be selected from those submitted, to be presented in the workshop. Authors of all accepted workshop papers will be invited to submit full papers to a special issue of the Journal /Information/ of MDPI with a submission deadline of 1st September 2018. Finally, one portion of the workshop will be dedicated to lead a brief discussion over the reusability of open geographic data, and some examples of the applicability of spatial analysis using open data from Eurostat to develop indicators to measure sustainability of cities in Europe.
This workshop is a part of the GEO-C (Enabling Open Cities) project which is a joint European project between three universities: NOVA Information Management School in Portugal, Universitat Jaume I in Spain, and the Institute for Geoinformatics in Münster, Germany.
Making Salience Personal (PerSal ’18)
Contact persons:Markus Kattenbeck , Bernd Ludwig (all Universität Regensburg), Sabine Timpf, Eva Nuhn (all Augsburg University)
Description:
Contact persons:
Description:Determining the salience of environmental objects for specific travellers remains a challenge in wayfinding research. This interactive workshop, which includes an experiment during the afternoon, is dedicated to the question, which personal dimensions (e.g. familiarity with an environment or level of interest in a particular topic of an observer) influence the salience of an object. There is also a need to discuss empirical methods for the acquisition of these dimensions and how these can be integrated into existing salience models.
Relevant topics include but are not restricted to: Evidence for the need of personal salience, The role of familiarity and personal interests in estimating personal salience, Methods to acquire the familiarity and the level of interest in a topic, Empirical attempts to measure salience
Participants are expected to submit a paper (max. 4 pages) according to the guidelines lined out on the conference website, which will be reviewed by an international panel of experts. Special attention will be paid to those papers stimulating discussion on the topics above. Based on this discussion, all attendees of the workshop will collect data about landmarks in Lund through an in-situ experiment during the afternoon. A final discussion after collecting landmarks will be used to share experience and further thoughts.
SDI Research and Strategies towards 2030: Renewing the SDI Research Agenda
Contact persons:Glenn Vancauwenberghe, Bastiaan van Loenen (all TU Delft, The Netherlands), Joep Crompvoets (KU Leuven, Belgium), Lars Bodum (Aalborg University, Denmark), Ali Mansourian (Lund University, Sweden)
Description:The central aim of this workshop is to initiate the definition of a renewed Spatial Data Infrastructure Research Agenda for ‘SDI Research and Strategies towards 2030’, incorporating both technical and non-technical perspectives and research challenges.
SDI research has always been an important driver and enabler for the development and implementation of Spatial Data Infrastructures. Researchers across the world have been exploring various issues around the development and implementation of SDIs. The ‘SDI Research and Strategies for 2030’ workshop offers SDI researchers an opportunity to share their research and formulate the SDI research agenda. The workshop will build further on the work done in past initiatives to promote knowledge sharing and collaboration among SDI researchers.
The ‘SDI Research and Strategies for 2030’ workshop has three objectives:1. To provide an overview of recent and ongoing research on SDI and related topics, 2. To identify gaps and challenges in existing SDI research and define a research agenda for future SDI research, 3. To (re-)establish a research community for SDI research that promotes and enables active collaboration and engagement across multiple disciplines and regions
A Workshop on Big Data Analytics: Topological and Scaling Perspective for Better Understanding and Making Sustainable Cities
Contact persons:Bin Jiang (University of Gävle, Sweden)
Description:There are three fundamental issues about geographic space or the Earth’s surface: How it looks, how it works, and what it ought to be. In terms of how it looks and works, there are two laws governing geographic forms and processes or urban structure and dynamics in particular: scaling law and Tobler’s law. Scaling law is available across all scales ranging from the smallest to largest, and it states that there are far more small things than large ones in geographic space. For example, there are far more small mountains than big ones; far more low elevations than high ones; far more short rivers than long ones; far more small cities than big ones; far more less-connected streets than well-connected ones; and far more meaningless locations than meaningful ones. Tobler’s law is available at one scale, and it states that more or less similar things tend to be nearby or related. For example, your housing price is more similar to those of your neighbors than to those of your neighbors’ neighbors; two elevations one meter away are more similar than two that are 10 meters away; and today’s weather is more similar to that of yesterday than to that of the day before yesterday. These two laws, complementary each other and recurring at different levels of scale, well characterize the Earth’s surface. Geographic forms or urban structure change nonlinearly, so geographic processes or urban dynamics are essentially unpredictable. In terms of what it ought to be, there are two design principles that help make better built environment: differentiation and adaptation, in line respectively with the scaling law and Tobler’s law. In this workshop, I will use two concepts of natural cities and natural streets to demonstrate the ubiquity of scaling law, and further argue how to make built environment more living or more sustainable based on the two design principles. Some hands-on will be carried out with two tools: Axwoman and head/tail breaks.
VGI-ALIVE - AnaLysis, Integration, Vision, Engagement
Contact persons:Peter Mooney (Maynooth University), Franz-Benjamin Mocnik, Alexander Zipf (all University of Heidelberg, Germany), Jamal Jokar Arsanjani (Aalborg University Copenhagen, Denmark), Hartwig H. Hochmair (University of Florida, United States), Kiran Zahra (University of Zurich, Switzerland)
Description:Since over a decade ago or so crowd-sourced data, such as Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and social media, have gained increasing interest in the GI research arena and found their way to numerous everyday applications, such as tourist recommendation systems, event detection methods, route planning, and location based services. New data sharing and social media platforms are on the rise, novel contribution patterns across different platforms (e.g. Yelp and Pokémon Go) can be observed, and more contributors than ever share their data on these platforms. This advancement on the application side leads to new, advanced analysis methods of user contribution patterns, ongoing challenges in data fusion, and provides also new opportunities for rapid data analysis for event detection and VGI data quality assessment. With the steady increase of shared data platforms and data sharing activities over the past decade, new questions arise concerning the future of VGI and social media platforms. These questions include the prospect of continued user growth, engagement of new user groups, further expansion of VGI to educational activities, or closing data gaps in geographically underrepresented areas.
This workshop covers a wide range of VGI and social/media research topics and provides an opportunity for workshop participants to share ideas and findings on cross-platform data contributions, innovative analysis approaches, current data fusion methods, real-world applications, and the use of VGI and social media use in education. The event offers also a platform to discuss future challenges of VGI and social media, may it be on the legal or technical side, to formulate a vision for VGI and social media usage and analysis for the near future, and to live demonstrate analysis workflows and VGI applications. One portion of the workshop is dedicated to a collaborative session, where break-out groups will discuss various timely VGI/social media research topics, such as VGI and mobility, data fusion, interoperability, and education, potentially leading to a joint paper contribution for a special issue of the Geo-spatial Information Science journal.
Teaching Geospatial Technologies to All
Contact persons: Thomas Hervey, Werner Kuhn, Sara Lafia, Thomas Hervey, Behzad Vahedi, Jingyi Xiao (all Department of Geography, University of California, Santa Barbara, USA), Karen kemp (Spatial Sciences Institute, University of Southern California, USA)
Description:This workshop will explore how certain concepts guide the choice of spatial computations to answer domain questions, similar to how measurement scales (nominal, ordinal, interval, ratio) guide the choice of statistical computations to answer primarily non-spatial domain questions. This link between concepts and the choice of software commands is the key innovation to be pursued in the workshop.
The workshop emphasizes the teaching of geospatial technologies to all, regardless of the learners’ disciplinary backgrounds. Participants will be challenged to consider what conceptual basis could guide user choices of specific spatial computations - and consequently should be taught in introductory courses on GIS and geospatial technologies.
Introduction to OSGeo and Python programming using PyQGIS
Contact persons:Perola Olsson (Lund University, Sweden), Fredrik Lindberg (University of Gothenburg, Sweden), Barend Köbben (ITC–University of Twente, the Netherlands)
Description:The aim of this workshop is to get an overview of Open Source (OS) GIS programmes and OSGeo, as well as practical experience of developing programs in an OS environment. Getting started with programming and automated geoprocessing could be a challenge due to a steep learning curve. This workshop will help you to overpass these challenges by introducing python programming on examples on how to perform automated processing within a GIS focusing on the use of open source products. The workshop will mainly include hands-on activities on how to set up a good IDE using OSGeo and other open source products as well as making scripts making possible to automating part of your GIS activities.
Workshops 2017
Coping with systemic changes in environmental modelling
Contact persons: Judith Verstegen (Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Münster, Germany), Derek Karssenberg, Oliver Schmitz (Faculty of Geosciences, Utrecht University, the Netherlands), Mohammad Mehdi Moradi (Department of Information Systems, University of Jaume I, Spain)
Description: Most environmental modellers are familiar with the concept of critical transitions: abrupt changes in the system state as a result of a change in the system drivers. Less attention has been given to the concept of systemic changes: abrupt changes not (or not only) in the system state, but in the whole structure or behaviour of the system. Whereas critical transitions can, at least in theory, be reproduced by simulation models, systemic changes cannot, because the change in the system behaviour makes a previously valid simulation model structure invalid. Thereby, its projections can become invalid too. In this workshop, we facilitate a dialogue on differences between critical transitions and systemic changes, we consider methods to identify past systemic changes, and we explore how to cope with systemic changes in modelling. We hope to initiate collaborative research, and plan to write a joint paper.
Successfully publishing high-impact GIScience journal papers, examples from IJGIS
Contact persons: Sytze de Bruin (Wageningen University, Laboratory of Geographical Information Science and Remote Sensing, Wageningen, The Netherlands), Robert Weibel (University of Zurich, Department of Geography, Zurich, Switzerland), May Yuan, (Professor of Geospatial Information Sciences in the School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas, USA)
Description: Scientific impact —as measured by the number of references to a published paper— may be conceived as a proxy for potential societal impact. Metrics such as the h-index are used for judging the scientific impact of authors and its score may have important implications for academic career opportunities. Based on experiences made in the International Journal of Geographical Information Science (IJGIS), this half-day workshop aims to discuss ideas and guidelines, particularly useful for young scientists, to publish a highly cited paper in a GIScience journal of their choice. Experienced GIScientists and IJGIS editors will share their perspectives on scientific publications. Prior to the workshop, participants will be offered copies of selected successful IJGIS publications. At the workshop, invited authors of these papers will then present their work as well as their view on what made their paper stand out. Next, participants are divided into small groups to discuss factors positively influencing the impact of their forthcoming GIScience papers. In a subsequent plenary session the results of the group discussions are reflected upon. Finally, we have a conversation among authors, reviewers, readers and editors to discuss the IJGIS submission and review processes, do’s, don’ts, concerns and suggestions.
Bridging space, time, and semantics in GIScience Updated
Contact persons: Margarita Kokla (School of Rural and Surveying Engineering, National Technical University of Athens), Christos Chalkias (Department of Geography, Harokopio University)
Description:The increased availability of geographic data (often in massive volumes) together with the advances in spatiotemporal data management, integration, analysis, and visualization present an emerging need and opportunity: how to transform these massive volumes of geographic data into meaningful information about places, events, activities, and interrelations. The integration of space, time, and semantics may provide the basis to infuse data with meaning and deepen our knowledge of elaborate natural and social systems and intricate interactions in space and time. This key research issue is also relevant to other cutting edge research themes such as Volunteered Geographic Information, Geospatial Semantic Web, semantic sensor networks, big data, linked data, etc. Context and granularity (spatial, temporal, and semantic) constitute additional dimensions of geographic data that are not fully explored and may provide valuable insights into this issue.
Reproducible Computational Geosciences
Contact persons: Daniel Nüst (Institute for Geoinformatics (ifgi), University of Münster), Frank Ostermann (Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) of the University of Twente)
Description: Reproducible research (RR) gains more attention each year with prominent papers, editorials and blog posts as journals, researchers and funders drive forward the agenda on open science. But still the majority of papers analysing data, including diverse and often unique spatio-temporal observations, are not accompanied by complete materials (data, code/methods, complete results) so that anyone can reproduce the findings. In this workshop we want to discuss in an informal setting if and how RR is relevant for the AGILE organization as well as conference. Questions to get our discussion started are: How many papers at AGILE use computational methods or analyse datasets? Which AGILE member labs have reproducibility on their teaching agendas and practice it in their research? Will the AGILE conference prevail without reproducibility studies and special credit for replications, open science, open code, open data, and RR? The workshop's goal is to create an outline for a position paper "Reproducible Research for the future of AGILE" to be submitted to AGILE 2018.
Quality assessment of geospatial data: does it fit your needs?
Contact persons: Jandirk Bulens, Wies Vullings, Frans Rip, (Wageningen-UR), Joep Crompvoets (KU Leuven)
Description:In this workshop we present an overview of dataqulity and recent developments worldwide, The keynote speaker Robert Jeansoulin (Université de Paris-Est - Marne-la-Vallée), co-author of “Fundamentals of spatial data quality" [Devillers et al; 2006] will elaborate on Essentials of Data Quality and Fitness for Use (still to be confirmed). Next we will present the current geospatial data quality framework developed for communication and assessing spatial data quality at the expertise centre for geospatial data quality at Wageningen-UR [Vullings et al, 2015; Meijer et al, 2015]. It is based on the principle of ‘fitness for use’ [report geospatial data quality NCG workshop 26 June 2014 (in Dutch)] and is applicable to all kinds of geospatial data varying from closed to open data, big data and sensor data, to name a few.
VGI-Analytics - Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI): Integration, ANALYsis, and applICationS
Contact persons: Peter Mooney (Maynooth University, Ireland), Alexander Zipf (University of Heidelberg, Germany), Jamal Jokar (Aalborg University Copenhagen, Denmark), Hartwig H. Hochmair (University of Florida, United States).
Description: Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and social media data have become part of our everyday lives over the past few years. Whereas in the early beginnings of crowd-sourced data the data collection took place primarily on isolated VGI and social media platforms, contribution patterns are beginning to be more intertwined between different platforms. This means that crowd-sourcing applications begin to offer opportunities to share data between them during data collection and contribution, for example, by tweeting an Instagram image or by viewing a Mapillary image layer while editing OpenStreetMap data. Recent data contribution trends show also that geographic data are beginning to be linked across different VGI and social media platforms. As an example, users started to cross-link OSM point of interests (POIs) and street features (e.g. street lamps, sidewalk information) based on Mapillary photographs. This cross-linkage of data between different platforms brings new opportunities and challenges, including questions of data quality and the formation of user communities across platforms. It can also be observed that the number of VGI and social media platforms is continuously growing, providing new data sets to be analyzed. All these changes in the VGI world bring new opportunities and challenges, including questions of data quality and the formation of user communities across platforms. This workshop provides an opportunity for interested researchers to share ideas and findings on cross-platform data contributions, innovative analysis approaches, current data fusion methods, real-world applications using cross-linked data, and novel crowd-sourcing and social media platforms. The workshop offers two formats for paper submission. Accepted short papers will be published on the workshop Website. Full paper submissions will be reviewed and considered for inclusion in a special issue of the journal Geo-spatial Information Science (GSIS) (http://explore.tandfonline.com/cfp/est/gsis) to appear in late 2017.
Open Data for Open Cities: Re-use and discovery level applied to the spatial point analysis process on linear networks.
Contact persons: Joaquin Huerta, Fernando Benitez, Mohammad Mehdi Moradi , Jorge Mateu, Pau Aragó (Institute of new imaging technology, Universitat Jaume I, Spain), Marco Painho (NOVA IMS - Nova Information Management School, Universidade Nova de Lisboa), Guiying Du (Institute for Geoinformatics, University of Muenster).
Description: According to opendatasoft.org, there are currently more than 2.000 open data portals which can be used by data users. Nevertheless, authorities around the world discuss on the way to engage their users with their own open data portals and also they want to know how to improve re-usability of available information through those portals. Moreover, a lot of cities have their own open data portal which provide geographic data that can be used even by citizens. For a long time one of the main authorities’ concern was to set up and populate open data portals with web services. In a few cases data quality is not taken into account for open data initiatives. Very often data quality is set as a main concern with large data catalogues that follow most of the current standards. However, the current challenge is not just data download or published web services, but it is about data consumer requirements, their needs, engagement and about finding the way to involve them to be a part of the data selection process.
4th AGILE Workshop on Geogames and Geoplay
Contact persons: Christoph Schlieder (Research Group on Computing in the Cultural Sciences, University of Bamberg, Germany), Mike Gould, Diego Pajarito (GEOTEC Research Group, University Jaume I, Castellon, Spain), Peter Kiefer (Geoinformation Engineering, ETH Zürich, Switzerland)
Description: Geogames are playful activities in which the analysis and the creation of geodata constitute a core element of the game mechanics. The technological approaches adopted by Geogames are as diverse as the possible usage scenarios. Geogames have been realized as console games, browser games or mobile location-based games and make use of GI technologies such as virtual environments or simulations. Application scenarios include environmental education, cultural tourism, and Geodesign. Geospatial gamification approaches are especially challenging when they address social or political issues within the context of Open Smart Cities. This research field constitutes the thematic focus of the 2017 workshop. Contributions may, however, cover a broader range of topics (see 2.1). The full-day workshop brings together researchers and GIS professionals interested in creating and using Geogames. It serves as a venue for sharing experiences and discussing technological challenges and solutions.
Event-based Dissemination and Processing of Geospatial Information
Contact persons: Christoph Stasch, Simon Jirka, Matthes Rieke, (52°North GmbH), Andreas Wytzisk (University of Applied Sciences Bochum).
Description: Event-based architectures are more and more used in various mainstream IT applications including the financial sector or large scale IoT applications. However, the geospatial domain, especially spatial data infrastructures, often rely on the traditional Web Service pattern (request/response pattern). This workshop aims to discuss the potential of event-based architectures in geospatial applications (e.g. disaster management, environmental monitoring, or public security) and to set up a corresponding research agenda. Therefore, the first part of the workshop will consist of invited expert talks on event-based technologies and applications. Based on these inputs, several topics of interest will be identified and discussed in break-out groups in the afternoon. In a final session, the results of the break-out groups will be gathered and discussed to serve as input for a summarizing report. d using Geogames. It serves as a venue for sharing experiences and discussing technological challenges and solutions.
Workshops 2016
Automated generalisation for ondemand mapping
Contact persons: Dirk Burghardt (TU Dresden), Cécile Duchêne (COGIT, IGN France)
Description: The workshop will explore new challenges and solutions in the domain of automated generalisation for on demand mapping and the changing context of map use. Many tasks require us to visualise geographic information at a number of different scales, in a variety of environments, over different devices. Therefore research is concerned with automated methods that enable the creation and display of such geographic information at multiple levels of detail, across a range of technologies. The challenges of this research draws upon researchers and practitioners alike, working in the fields of on-demand mapping, multiple representations, data integration and generalisation of geographic information.
CCM2 River and Catchment Database for Europe ‐ Applications
Contact persons: Alfred de Jager (JRC)
Description: The pre-conference workshops organized on 14th of June are a complementary forum to the main conference, encouraging the presentation and discussion of work in progress, and facilitating a dialogue in small groups. The main goal of this workshop is to exchange experiences and to discuss the use of intelligent hydrographic data sets such as the CCM2 River and Catchment data set. The workshop can also be a forum to discuss the needs and possibilities for extending the spatial domain of CCM2, exploring both the organizational as well as the technical challenges to reach such a goal.
Link‐VGI: LINKing and analyzing Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) across different platforms
Contact persons: Alexander Zipf (University of Heidelberg)
Description: The number of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) and social media platforms is continuously growing, providing massive datasets of georeferenced content that is either actively contributed (e.g. adding data to OSM, Mapillary, or Flickr) or collected through more passive modes (e.g. enabling geolocation in Twitter feeds). Whereas contribution behavior for individual crowdsourcing applications has already been extensively analyzed in the literature, it is less understood if and how users participate in several crowd sourcing activities. Hence several research questions relevant to a better understanding of community involvement in data contributions have evolved. These include for example, whether activity spaces in different sources are spatially co-located or spatially distinct for individual contributors, or whether contributor communities evolve across platforms. As an example, users started to cross-link data from different platforms, e.g. by mapping OSM point of interests (POIs) and street features (e.g. street lamps, sidewalk information) based on Mapillary photographs, or by tagging Flickr pictures with OSM tags. This workshop provides an opportunity for interested researchers to share ideas and findings on cross-platform data contributions. One portion in the workshop is dedicated to a hands-on session. In this session, basics of spatial data access through selected APIs and the extraction of summary statistics of the results will be illustrated.
Code Loves Maps: Cartographically Oriented Programming Environments
Contact persons: Pyry Kettunen (FGI)
Description: Maps in digital age build on program code. This program code ranges from low level infrastructural code of operating systems to high level abstract code of applications, the latter of which is brought to users in visual cartographic form by compilers and interpreters in operating systems and web browsers. Since program code is a means to most powerful expression of ideas for user interfaces, innovative cartographic development requires cartographically oriented programming environments. Learning curves and ease of use in this kind of coding environments vary in large measure, which causes varied potential for cartographers to practice their discipline with these libraries. In the spirit of the International Map Year of the International Cartographic Association and of the cooperation between ICA and AGILE, this full day workshop of the Commission on Maps and the Internet will study, discuss and sample cartographically oriented programming environments.
3rd AGILE Workshop on Geogames and Geoplay
Contact persons: Christoph Schlieder (University of Bamberg)
Description: Geogames are playful activities in which the analysis and the creation of geodata constitute a core element of the game mechanics. The technological approaches adopted by Geogames are as diverse as the possible usage scenarios. Geogames have been realized as console games, browser games or mobile location-based games and make use of GI technologies such as virtual environments or simulations. Application scenarios include environmental education, cultural tourism, and Geodesign. Geogames currently attract considerable interest from researchers and GI professionals. This is reflected by recent developments on the GI market such as Google’s announcement to deploy in 2016 - two years after the Ingress game - a second massively multiplayer Geogame. At the same time, Geogames raise a number of challenging geospatial research issues, e.g. the spatio-temporal balancing of the game flow or the creation of virtual game .
GIS with NoSQL
Contact persons: Wolfgang Reinhardt (University of the Bundeswehr, Munich)
Description: The growing amount of geodata, for example OSM and other VGI data could lead to the adaption of NoSQL-technology in the field of geoinformation. This raises several research questions on which this workshop focuses:
- Are these new types of databases applicable in the GIS field?
- Do they meet the special requirements of handling spatial data?
- Is it worthwhile to use such databases with spatial data?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of NoSQL for GIS?
- In which use-cases is NoSQL better than other data storage options?
- Which GIS applications use NoSQL-technology already as their data storage?
- What are the user’s experiences with the use on NoSQL-technology?
This workshop attempts to answer these questions through a series of presentations from experts who have experience with NoSQL technology. In the second part there will be hands-on sessions where the participants create a simple map application with a NoSQL technology (MongoDB) as backend storage.
Visually‐Supported Computational Movement Analysis
Contact persons: Robert Weibel (University of Zurich)
Description: The past decade has seen a dramatic improvement of positioning technologies which led to massive volumes of tracking data about virtually any object that moves, in a multitude of application domains. Consequently, many new methods for these data have been developed, and computational movement analysis has evolved as an important stream of research within GIScience. However, many challenges remain, including context-aware analysis, multi-sensor data integration, scale-adaptive analysis, integration of analytical and visual methods, etc. This one-day workshop calls for recent advances in movement analysis. First, we call for submissions in any application area using any movement data type on: new computational methods of movement analysis and new visually-supported methods, as well as empirical evaluations and applications of existing methods. Second, we are organising a data challenge using open GPS seabird tracking data and call for both purely analytical and visually-supported solutions to address ecological research questions. Participation in data challenge is encouraged, but not required for workshop attendance.
GI-N2K Workshop and plugfest: Back-to-back @AGILE-2016
Contact persons: Danny Vandenbroucke (KU Leuven)
Description: The GI-N2K project aims to align the education and vocational training system in the domain of Geographic Information Science & Technology (GI S&T) with the actual requirements in the job market. GI-N2K builds upon the existing Body of Knowledge (BoK) for GI S&T that was developed by the American University Consortium for Geographic Information Science (UCGIS, 2006). A consortium of 31 partners from 25 countries has updated the GI S&T BoK, brought it in line with recent technological developments and added the European perspective in this field (e.g. importance of INSPIRE). The renewed GI S&T BoK applies an ontological approach and takes the form of a dynamic e-platform including tools to use and explore the BoK (e.g. curricula design). Now the time has come to extensively explore and test the new GI S&T BoK and its tools. This will be done during 8 workshops/plugfests organised in 7 countries based a series of real-world use cases.
Workshops 2015
Geoprocessing on the Web - science-driven and community-driven
Contact persons: Johannes Brauner (Geoinformatics, TU Dresden), Barbara Hofer (ZGIS, Salzburg)
Description: Online geoprocessing is about executing spatial analyses over the web, which is a recent trend in communities dealing with spatial data. The purposes of providing analysis functionality as services can be manifold: allowing reuse of functionality for frequently performed tasks, assuring the use of up-to-date data, documenting and sharing workflows etc. Such geoprocessing services are generally available, yet their discovery and usability is hampered by missing platforms promoting and facilitating an easy usage, especially for novice users. The workshop shall bring together current and future developers and users of online geoprocessing technology for demonstrating solutions and providing best practice examples. These best practice examples may eventually provide the starting point for a community platform for online geoprocessing. Further requirements (e.g. technical, community-oriented, discovery) for such a platform will be established by i.a. collecting and analysing contributions and statements during the workshop.
RICH-VGI: enRICHment of volunteered geographic information (VGI): Techniques, practices and current state of knowledge
Contact persons: Alexander Zipf (University of Heidelberg)
Description: In recent years we have witnessed the rapid emergence of Volunteered Geographical Information (VGI) projects. VGI is being applied more and more for research and applications. Nevertheless, VGI is often denounced due to its heterogenities in quality, completeness and redundancy. However, these can be improved by applying spatial analysis and data mining techniques. These approaches utilize the relationship between the data from a VGI platform itself and/or cross-utilization of data from other sources, including other VGI platforms or authoritative sources. The purpose of this workshop is to intensively discuss the possibilities of data derivation, knowledge propagation and quality improvement for VGI and VGI analysis.
Geospatial Thinking: Research, educational and societal aspects
Contact persons: Marinos Kavouras (National Technical University of Athens)
Description: What is common in tasks such as reading a map, finding your way in a shopping mall, interpreting a diagram, and understanding the spatial distribution of a phenomenon or the association of places and events? They are all tasks that rely on a mental skill called spatial or geospatial thinking, an important ability for sciences and everyday life. The goal of this workshop is to promote the value of spatial thinking and suggest ways to enhance it. We envision that this workshop will provide insights on the research questions that relate to geospatial skills, how geospatial thinking can be integrated in education and to what extent the level of spatial awareness influences societal activities.
Assessing the fitness of citizens observatories for land cover / land use mapping and validation purposes
Contact persons: Jamal Jokar Arsanjani (University of Heidelberg)
Description: The area of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is developing at an amazing speed, producing large amounts of data on many subjects, which may be valuable for a variety of applications, some of which were not the primary aim of the projects’ founders. One of these applications is the extraction of land cover/use information, which may be useful for training classifiers and therefore assist in the creation of land cover/use maps, or for their validation. However, the quality and consistency of the information provided by different potential sources of VGI may be different and therefore needs to be compared. The aim of this workshop is to provide hands-on training in working with different sources of VGI (OpenStreetMap, Geo-Wiki, Degrees of Confluence Project and Panoramio) in order to compare the quality and consistency of the resulting land cover information. The workshop will lead to a peer-reviewed publication summarizing the results and provide recommendations for the use of VGI for Land Cover purposes. A special issue containing the presented works is planned as well.
2nd AGILE Workshop an Geogames and Geoplay
Contact persons: Christoph Schlieder (University of Bamberg)
Description: Geogames are playful activities in which the analysis and the creation of geodata constitute a core element of the game mechanics. The technological approaches adopted by Geogames are as diverse as the possible usage scenarios. Geogames have been realized as console games, browser games or mobile location-based games and make use of GI technologies such as virtual environments, simulations and sensors. Application scenarios include environmental education, cultural tourism, and Geodesign. Geospatial gamification approaches have been especially successful where user motivation is a core concern such as with collaboratively created geodata. The full-day workshop brings together researchers and GIS professionals interested in creating and using Geogames. It serves as a venue for sharing experiences and discussing technological challenges and solutions
Workshops 2014
Valarm-Esri ad-hoc, real-time mobile sensor networks in the cloud
Contact persons: Edward Pultar (Valarm), Frank Holsmuller (Esri), Francisco J. Lopez Pellicer (Universidad de Zaragoza)
Description: More and more mobile devices enter the world every day with the majority aimed for consumer use, however there is a growing potential for commodity mobile devices (phones, tablets, mini-PCs, etc.) to be used in combination with internal and external sensors (via Bluetooth and USB) to create sensor networks and perform remote environmental monitoring>, mobile data acquisition, asset tracking, and other applications around the globe. Yesterday’s as well as today’s mobile devices are powerful, mobile computers with GPS that are able send data to the internet from the field in real-time from countries around the world via 3G/4G cell networks, Ethernet, and WiFi. Hence Valarm has shown that mobile devices, as well as other widely available connector hardware, are quite capable for monitoring, measuring, and responding to environmental factors like air quality, humidity,gases, pressure, and temperature. We also show how this set of services utilizes the Esri platform on the cloud to build its business and to connect sensors to the world of geoprocessing. This workshop elaborated on the possibilities of using geospatial information and processing across multiple sectors, and thereby implementing Digital Earth applications, i.e. applications of next-generation GIS and SDI.
Digital Earth: What the hack?
Contact persons: Rob Lemmens (ITC, University of Twente), Sven Schade (European Commission, Joint Research Centre) Florian Hillen (Universität Osnabrück Institut für Geoinformatik und Fernerkundung), Bernhard Höfle (Universität Heidelberg), Yola Georgiadou (ITC, University of Twente), Christine Richter (University of Amsterdam)
Description: For more than five years, hackathons, hack days, hackfests and the like revolutionise software development all across our planet. Examples included many North American and European cities, but also emerged within developing countries in Latin America and Africa. Crowd sourcing and other co-creation processes repeatedly result in unexpected Applications/Apps solving societal challenges. Hackathons succeed if they are well prepared, i.e. if they have a well-defined focus - including available data sets, programming language and operating system to be used, challenge to be addressed, etc.
Geoprocessing on the Web
Contact persons: Matthias Müller (TU Dresden), Lars Bernard (TU Dresden), Albert Remke (52°North), Bénédicte Bucher (IGN France), Javier Abadía (Esri España)
Description: Today the Web serves as a universal information and communication infrastructure. We are able to share data, documents, maps and apps based on web technologies The efficient use of geoprocessing functionality for data analysis and presentation on the Web is an active topic in GIS science and application. The massive rise in available spatial data from mapping communities, sensor operators and public bodies has also spurred the demand by lay users and experts for readily available analysis and data processing tools. While Desktop and Workstation GIS are still widely used, there is also a trend towards sharing and reusing data processing and analysis workflows on the Web. This workshop attempted to link the different geoprocessing activities in the AGILE and the EuroSDR community. Depending on the interest among the participants, ideas and findings will be collected in a research agenda to foster further collaboration.
Geogames and geoplay
Contact persons: Eduardo Dias (Geodan), Maurice Hendrix (University of Northampton), Joaquin Huerta (University Jaume I, Castellon), Peter Kiefer (ETH Zürich), Panagiotis Petridis (Coventry University), Christoph Schlieder (University of Bamberg), Olga Yanenko (University of Bamberg)
Description: Geogames are playful activities in which the analysis and the creation of geodata constitute a core element of the game mechanics. The technological approaches adopted by Geogames are as diverse as the possible usage scenarios. Geogames have been realized as console games, browser games or mobile location-based games and make use of GI technologies such as virtual environments or simulations. Application scenarios include environmental education, cultural tourism, and Geodesign. Gamification approaches have been especially successful where user motivation is a core concern such as with collaboratively created geodata.
Development Augmented Reality Applications for Google GLASS
Contact persons: Luis Enrique Rodriguez (University Jaume I, Castellon), Álvaro Arranz (U-TAD University)
Description: This workshop was centred on showing how wearable technology, such as Google GLASS, can improve the user experience for GIS applications, e.g. indoor localization. Displaying understandable geographic information easily to the user has traditionally been a challenge for GIS application developers. Wearable technology has recently showed up as a solution for dramatically improving the user experience for a variety of technologies, and geographic information will, very likely, be having an important role. In the first section of the workshop, the Google GLASS user experience was presented. Timeline, cards, immersions and input technology were explained. Then, an introduction to the GDK was given from a developer point of view. Basic concepts for jumping from Android SDK to GDK were outlined. Finally, the speakers showed how an indoor localization application can be programmed for GLASS.
COBWEB: Citizen Science, Quality and Standards
Contact persons: Mike Jackson (University of Nottingham), Lars Bernard (TU Dresden), Bart De Lathouwer (OGC)
Description: COBWEB will leverage the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves (WNBR). Concentrating initially on the Welsh Dyfi Biosphere Reserve, we will develop a citizens’ observatory framework, and then validate the work within the context of the UK National Spatial Data Infrastructure (SDI) and internationally, within the WNBR; specifically, within Greek and German Reserves. The infrastructure we develop will exploit technological developments in ubiquitous mobile devices, crowdsourcing of geographic information and the operationalizing of standards based SDI such as the UK Location Information Infrastructure. It will enable citizens living within Biosphere Reserves to collect environmental information on a range of parameters including species distribution, flooding and land cover/use. A main driver will be the opportunity to participate in environmental governance. Data quality issues will be addressed by using networks of “people as sensors” and by analysing observations and measurements in real-time combination with authoritative models and datasets. The citizen’s observatory framework will integrate with evolving INSPIRE compliant national SDIs and allow the fusion of citizen sourced data with reference data from public authorities in support of policy objectives. To maximize impact, COBWEB will work within the processes of the standards defining organisations. Specifically, we will aim to improve the usability of Sensor Web Enablement standards with mobile devices, develop widespread acceptance of the data quality measures we develop and maximize the commercial appeal of COBWEB outputs. The end result we are aiming for is a toolkit and a set of models that demonstrably works in different European countries and which is accepted as a core information system component of the WNBR. Implementations of COBWEB will act as models for how technology may be used to empower citizen associations in environmental decision making.
Workshops 2013
Analysing spatio-temporal data with R
Contact persons: Edzer Pebesma (University of Muenster, Germany)
Description: Since 2005, R has become a key tool for spatial statistics. In the R project, the group dealing with spatial data is one of the largest of all domain-specific special interest groups. A large number of CRAN packages offer basic and advanced methods for spatial statistics. Packages for handling and analyzing spatio-temporal data have strongly developed over the last 2 years. The workshop presented the state of the art in using R for spatio-temporal statistics.
Web Cartography for National SDIs
Contact persons: Barend Köbben (ITC - University of Twente, The Netherlands), Lars Harrie (Lund University, Sweden)
Description: The availability of huge amounts of geo-information via the Internet has led to many advantages for the users as well as for the producers of data. It is easier to deliver up to data information, to combine data from different sources, to enable collaborative mapping, to hyperlink between geodata and other information on the web, and to facilitate more personalised maps. At the same time there are remaining and new challenges related to reliability, quality, copyright, privacy, visualisation, etc. The workshop focussed on the visualisation issues and especially on issues related to combination of different web services.
Analysing eye-tracking data in real, virtual and mixed environments
Contact persons: Thérèse Steenberghen (KU Leuven, Belgium), Peter Kiefer (ETH Zurich, Switzerland)
Description: This workshop focussed on eye-tracking for environmental studies. How do people interact with spatial information? Real spatial information (the environment), virtual spatial information (augmented reality, maps, GIS, etc.) or a mixed form (way finding). Eye tracking technology (static and mobile) contains promising characteristics to study these interactions but encounters some boundaries both on the analyzing and interpretation side. By bringing together environmental researchers, engineers and psychological researcher, who all use eye-tracking for environmental studies, this workshop opened some of these boundaries and worked around some concrete examples such as: What are the problems researchers encounter with working and analyzing eye-tracking data in environmental/spatial studies?
Integrating 4D, GIS and Cultural Heritage
Contact persons: Prof. Dr. Philippe De Maeyer (CartoGIS cluster, Ghent University, Belgium) Prof. Dr. Roland Billen (University of Liege, Belgium), Eric Desjardin (University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne), Berdien De Roo (Ghent University, Belgium)
Description:Abundant use of GIS in the archaeological field is challenged by the perspective of GIS as a time consuming, non-standardized tool. The standardization available in geoscience research, with the effort of the Open Geospatial consortium (OGC), is currently lacking in archaeology. Archaeological standardization is up to this point defined by local organizations and rather consists of formats than real standards. There is not such a thing as a single GIS available that can store and analyze the diversity of data archaeologists often have to deal with. Also, time aspects, uncertainty, multi-dimensionality, multivocality and subjectivity are not or not sufficiently supported by current systems to be easily accessible and understandable. As such, the tools to be developed should be adapted to the data available.
3D urban modelling with Esri City Engine
Contact persons: Michael Gould (ESRI), Joaquin Huerta (Univ Jaume I, Spain), Gert van Maren (Esri Development Center Zurich, Switzerland)
Description: The workshop was a hands-on workshop exploring City Engine 3D urban modelling software. It focussed on data import, analysis, integration with ArcGIS, and web publishing.
Action and Interaction in Volunteered Geographic Information (ACTIVITY)
Contact persons: Dr. Peter Mooney (NUI Maynooth, Ireland), Prof. Alexander Zipf (University of Heidelberg, Germany), Prof. Georg Gartner (Technical University of Vienna, Austria), Dr. Karl Rehrl (Salzburg Research, Austria), Prof. Hartwig Hochmair (University of Florida), Dr. Padraig Corcoran (University College Dublin, Ireland), Dr. Marcus Goetz (University of Heidelberg, Germany)
Description: The amount and variety of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is growing rapidly. There are many different VGI sources (e.g. OpenStreetMap, Wikimapia, Panoramio, GeoNames) addressing different types of spatially-explicit as well as spatially-implicit content, being collected by voluntary people. Some of these sources involve active participation (e.g. editing map features in OSM) while others require more passive modes of participation (e.g. enabling geolocation in Twitter feeds). The growing trend to ubiquitous data collection results in massive datasets, waiting to get leveraged by a continuously growing number of emerging applications such as wildfire tracking, volunteer response coordination during natural disasters or road navigation. The collective intelligence formed by the collaboration or competition among its individual members of VGI communities is unique. Analysing VGI datasets is one of the domain's currently hottest research topics. Only a small amount of research has been carried out into the behaviour of VGI communities. How do such communities evolve? What are their patterns of contribution? Are such communities a single large collaborating ecosystem of data and information generators or are communities acting within smaller networks or cliques of groups working collectively? How do contribution patterns influence the outcome? This workshop brought together leading researchers in this domain to discuss relevant questions in the context of action and interaction of VGI communities. It is directed at social and information scientists by addressing behavioural as well as technical questions.
Understanding Urban Cycling: A data challenge (CDC2013)
Contact persons: Nico Van de Weghe (Ghent University, Belgium), Seraphim Alvanides (Northumbria University, UK), Stefan van der Spek (TU Delft, The Netherlands), Godwin Yeboah (Northumbria University, UK)
Description: As cycling in British cities increases, so do conflicts between cyclists and other road users, as well as debates with city planners who are trying to balance cities’ transport infrastructures in the face of public spending cuts. In the Tyneside conurbation (North East England), incremental steps are taken by the local authorities to provide cycling infrastructure, albeit at a slow rate compared to the uptake of cycling in the commuting area. This cycling data challenge (in short CDC2013) entails detailed survey of 79 commuter cyclists, while cycling in the area around the Tyneside conurbation. Data collection methods involved day-long GPS tracking alongside diaries for trip clarification and classification, over a period of 7 days. The purpose of this research is to provide evidence on the use of the area’s cycling infrastructure by experienced commuter cyclists, by estimating the cycle-miles on the cycling network as a percentage of the total, for the given sample. The main research is an integral part of Godwin Yeboah’s PhD research with Dr. Seraphim Alvanides as the principal academic supervisor; all at Northumbria University at Newcastle upon Tyne in the United Kingdom
The Data Complexity Challenge – New Approaches to Data Harmonisation
Contact persons: Dr. Eva Klien (Fraunhofer IGD, Germany), Thorsten Reitz (ESRI, Germany), Dominique Laurent (IGN France, France), Just van den Broecke (JustObjects), Andreas Donaubauer (TU München, Germany), Simon Templer (ZGDV)
Description:"Big Data" is a central aspect for research and development projects. But it is not just data volume that is growing; it’s the number of potential data sources as well as the individual complexity of these data sources. The availability of such large, complex data provides a unique opportunity for gaining new knowledge from the combination of data from heterogeneous sources into consistent and unambiguous information products. This remains a core challenge both in research and application.
Workshops 2012
Testing Geospatial Web Services - Scientific SDIs
Contact persons: Stephan Schmid (University of the Bundeswehr, Germany), Johannes Brauner (Technische Universität Dresden, Germany), Bastian Schäffer (52° North Initiative for Geospatial Open Source Software GmbH, Germany), Stephan Mäs (Technische Universität Dresden, Germany)
Description: The workshop is continuing a series of workshops that has been successfully held in conjunction with the last three AGILE conferences. This year the main topics of interoperability and testing of open-source and proprietary Geo Web Service and the Persistent SDI Testbed (PTB) are extended towards Scientific SDIs. Therewith, the question of what distinguishes Scientific SDIs from others and how such Scientific SDIs can be established in the European Community shall be addressed as an additional topic. The workshop aims to outline the state of the art and the technical and scientific issues related to Geo Web Services, its testing and Scientific SDIs and to discuss best practice examples. Further goals are the development of consistent testing strategies and the support of geospatial research in major EU programs, science and education. All presentations and paper abstracts will be published on the PTB website.
Creating campus applications using free Esri resources (CampusMaps)
Contact persons: Michael Gould (ESRI, USA), Frank Holsmuller (ESRI, USA)
Description: This hands-on workshop demonstrates how to create a large scale campus map using ArcGIS Desktop and ESRI's free Campus Basemap Template. Students will also learn how to use their basemap to create web applications using ArcGIS Online data and services. Participants get a feel for the new web tools that are becoming available as an addition to the ESRI desktop GIS software many AGILE members already have, and they also learn how their organizations can participate in ESRI's Community Maps program, which can facilitate and accelerate collaboration within the organization and beyond. The workshop exercises allow users to take advantage of ArcGIS Server without the need to install and maintain such a server, as everything runs in the cloud. These tools make it simpler to spread geographic information across the campus, well beyond the small group of GIS experts, and this includes getting administrators involved. Mark Stewart from ESRI will be the instructor.
3D web visualization
Contact persons: Jorge Gustavo Rocha, (Univ. Minho, Portugal), Alexander Zipf (University of Heidelberg, Germany)
Description: Geospatial 3D web visualization is almost a reality. It will be a reality, when we accomplish a webbased 3D visualization, as smooth as the navigation in 2D. Extensive research has been done recently towards efficient visualization, either on the geospatial 3D data (improvements were done in the generalization of 3D objects; texture compression; efficient management of different LODs, etc.) and on the 3D web visualization (WebGL support in browsers). Since there are different approaches and different groups working towards geospatial 3D visualization, this workshop aims to join all interested researchers, involved in 3D research issues such as 3D GIS, Web and mobile 3D visualization, interaction and analysis, Geospatial 3D application areas.
Complex Data Mining in a GeoSpatial Context
Contact persons: Cyril de Runz (Univ. Reims, France), Thomas Devogele (Univ. Tours, France), Julien Perret (IGN, France)
Description: This workshop would be a framework for collaboration between researchers/industrialists in order to share their practices in the field of complex data mining for geoapplications. For instance, complex data in a geospatial context may be non-structured data such as web data about location. In many fields, such as geodatabases, geographical web semantic, and of course in GIS, the amount of available data grows larger every day. Therefore, this often leads us to handle data (i) from multiple sources such as sensors, or web research and survey; (ii) representing the same information (location, territory, land) at different dates (periods of time); (iii) grouping information of different types (images, texts, coordinates, shapes,...) or of different nature (web, ontology, text mining,...), etc. In the geospatial context, the complexity may concern the processes (data acquisition, data structuring, knowledge discovery) or the actual data (lack of information, uncertain data, serial data, etc.). Therefore, complex data mining in a geospatial context should first structure complex data before extracting geopatterns. The consideration of the data mining step from the preprocessing to the utility of the extracted geopatterns is the main goal of the workshop. The workshop will consist of several submitted papers and the program is available online.
Complexity Modeling for Urban Structure and Dynamics
Contact persons: Bin Jiang (University of Gävle, Sweden), Itzhak Benenson (Tel-Aviv University, Israel)
Description: This workshop focus on issues related to modeling the complexity of urban structure and dynamics. It will consist of several submitted papers that deal with complex systems tools such as cellular automata, complex networks, agent-based modeling, and scaling/hierarchy. Of special interest to the group are issues related to the development of models that involve BIG arrays of data that is geospatial data at fine resolution such as digital traces of human activities and others.
Geographic Information Retrieval Tutorial
Contact persons: Ross Purves, (University of Zurich, Switzerland), Mauro Gaio (Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, France), Bénédicte Bucher, (IGN, France)
Description: Geographic Information Retrieval is a hot topic. The realization that considerable geographic information is contained in unstructured textual documents has resulted in extensive research in both the GIScience and Information Science communities. In parallel, methods based around notions of a semantic web which attempt to explicitly encapsulate geographic and other information contained in documents have also been developed, and links between the two areas of research, for example in the development of geographic ontologies, have started to form. However, the field is a relatively young one, and to date has not fully demonstrated its potential. The Geographic Information Retrieval Tutorial at AGILE will seek to capitalize on the strong roots of the GIR community in Europe, by bringing together a set of active academics in the field to deliver a tutorial aimed at all of those interested in the area from both GIScience and Information Science. It will open with a talk on a state of the art GIR project, before a brief discussion of a shared vocabulary for the day. It will then take the form of a tutorial, focusing on 4 topics central to geographic information retrieval: Toponym grounding and footprint definition, Ranking in GIR, Evaluation strategies The day will close with a panel discussion on future challenges in GIR. More information on this workshop and past GIR workshops is available at the website the GIR group maintains.
Hands-on "Open Source GIS & WebMapping"
Contact persons: Barend Köbben (ITC - University of Twente, The Netherlands) (organizer and workshop lecturer).
Description: This workshop will be a hands-on practical workshop, intended to introduce the possibilities and pitfalls of using Open Source applications for GIS and web mapping to people who are interested in this technology, but that do not yet have much experience in the actual practical use of OSGEO applications. This workshop has a half day duration, scheduled for the afternoon from 14:00 -18:00. The workshop will start with a short introduction of Open Source GIS and web mapping technology, followed by practical guidance on how to actually do it. Participants are asked to bring their own laptops, we will provide the theory, the software and guidance! We have a set of exercises that guide the participants in setting up a web mapping site using OpenStreetMap data, adding their own data using the desktop QGIS application, serving that data as a Web Map Service and finally bringing it all together on a interactive “slippy map” website using OpenLayers. The workshop is supported by the ICA Commission on Open Source Geospatial Technologies and software donation from OSGEO (Open Source Geospatial Foundation Live DVD).
MECHANICITY and GeoDiverCity
Contact persons: Mike Batty (UCL, UK), Denise Pumain, (Géographie-cités, France)
Description: The objective of the workshop is to bring together teams working on two projects funded by the European Research Council (ERC) to discuss aims, methods and possible complementarities. The MECHANICITY project is concerned with morphology, energy and climate change in the city, whereas the GeoDiverCity project deals with the analysis and modeling the geographical diversity of cities and city systems. Short presentation of scholars involved in each project will be followed by extensive discussions from both groups. As the workshop is organized by two research teams wanting to compare their experiences, the workshop is not open to other presentations, but of course attendance is open to anybody interested on these projects. We hope to get reactions and suggestions from the audience as well.
Views on the Body of Knowledge (VoB)
Contact persons: Frans Rip (U. of Wageningen, Netherlands), Marinus de Bakker (U. of Groningen, Netherlands), Marco Painho (New University of Lisbon, Portugal)
Description: The GI Body of Knowledge was published in 2006 by the Association of American Geographers as a description of the GI domain. The question is “how do cartographers, remote sensing users, GIS analysts, surveyors and programmers look at it today”? The workshop will include several short presentations on issues related to the Body of Knowledge book and how it could be used for teaching GIS. It will also include presentations providing a feedback on GI-BoK from the GIS domains /Geomatics, cartography and remote sensing).
Workshops 2011
Co-op Strategy Workshop / BoK2
Contact persons: Frans Rip (Wageningen, Netherlands), Marinus de Bakker (Groningen, Netherlands), Marco Painho (Lisbon, Portugal)
Description: Topic: towards a strategy for collaboration. A conceptual foundation for the co-operation is the GI Body of Knowledge ('BoK'; DiBiase 2006). It could be used to describe both GI teaching and GI jobs. Using BoK in that way could also provide feedback to the makers of BoK2. This feedback would include European viewpoints on BoK, to supplement its exclusively American perspective so far. Another area for feedback and supplementation of BoK with specifics from, for instance, the Cartography and the Remote Sensing domains.
Cartographic Support for early Warning and Crisis Management
Contact persons: Milan Konecny, e-mail:
Description: Goal & Topics: The main goal is to compare the state of the art and trends of the cartographic support in Early Warning and Crises Management and to identify issues for future research. There exists significant public demand for integrated participation of several scientific disciplines in provision of crisis management and early warning. Up-to-date information, their suitable structuring, and easy access to them are necessary for supporting timely and correct decision-making in emergency/crisis situations. Cartographic visualization plays an important role for user’s orientation. Visualization is not an isolated element of the information transfer process; it depends on the status of source databases, decision-supporting models, and behaviour of different kind of users. Both public and private institutions gradually shift their focus from collection of data to their use in various applications. Use of existing data, verification of their quality, analyses of their qualitative features, interpretation, presentation and implementation of their accessibility to users – these are currently the key requirements of public and private institutions that maintain the databases.This workshop will deal with the process of transfer of geoinformation to the user. Complex approach to the topic covers geoinformation, geostatistic, cartographic, environmental, psychological, and other aspects. Planned outcome: Potential participants are invited to submit extended abstracts (app. 400 words) addressing some of the above mentioned topics. Abstracts will be reviewed and eight will be selected for a paper presentation during the workshop. Contributions are welcomed both from senior researchers and PhD students. Selected papers will be published in the Advances in Military Technology (AiMT) Journal issued in the University of Defence, the Czech Republic which is listed in the SCOPUS database (ISSN 1802-2308, http://aimt.unob.cz/default.ht).
Higher-dimensional GIS, introducing PC Raster 3
Contact persons: Derek Karssenberg (Utrecht, Netherlands), Kor de Jong (Utrecht, Netherlands + ESRI), Willem van Deursen (PC Raster Team)
Description: Most GIS software packages are built around the concept of attribute information in two spatial dimensions. To represent time series of data and forward simulations in GIS it is needed to represent the time dimension in data and functions. Moreover, for dealing with uncertainty in spatial data, it is required to add a fourth dimension representing stochastic attributes. Although conceptual models for multi dimensional GIS have been extensively described, the number of tools that can deal with multiple dimensions is still limited. In this workshop we address this need and will introducé the recently released PCRaster Version 3 software1-7 that incorporates data structures, data analysis functions and visualization routines for 5 dimensions, i.e. for stochastic spatio-temporal data. The workshop will include a number of short presentations dealing with concepts and theory combined with short computer labs to introduce you to the software. The objectives are to discuss recent developments and research needs in the field of higher-dimensional GIS and to get a quick practical introduction to the PCRaster Version 3 software. Case studies will include examples from human and physical geography. With this workshop we hope to contribute to dissemination of research results in higher dimensional GIS. The workshop may result in a joint research paper with workshop participants.
Integrating Sensor-Web and Web-based Geoprocessing
Contact persons: Theodor Foerster (Muenster, Germany), Arne Broering (52North), Bastian Baranskli, Benjamin Pross, Christoph Statch, Thomas Everding (all Muenster, Germany), Stephan Mas (Dresden, Germany)
Description: The ISW workshop seeks for research presentations on the cross-road of Sensor Web and Geoprocessing. Geoprocessing is the application of functionality representing real-world processes (e.g. hydrological runoff models) or processing of geodata (e.g. generalization, (coordinate) transformation). Providing these models and functionality on the web is a relevant topic in research and industry, as it allows users to generate web-based information to support decision making. The Sensor Web evolves to enable discovery and tasking of sensors as well as interoperable access to their gathered data through common interfaces over the Web. Web-based geoprocessing can use data published through the Sensor Web as inputs to realize live decision support and vice versa. Such integration of the two technologies is an evolving field of research. Related applications are for example environmental monitoring (e.g. air quality, noise, water quality), health monitoring and risk management (e.g. forest fire). The website url : http://purl.net/ifgi/isw2011. The presentations held at the workshop will be based on extended abstracts, submitted by potential participants. After the workshop, the participants are invited to submit full papers to a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
Testbed research: Testing Geospatial and Services/Persisted Testbed
Contact persons: Stephan Schmid (Munich, Germany), Johannes Brauner (Dresden, Germany), Bastian Schaffer (52North)
Description: The workshop is held to improve interoperability of open-source and proprietary Geo Web Service software components. Therefore it is important to outline the present state of the art of technical and to identify scientific issues related to the field of Geo Web Services. Further goals are the development of testing strategies/procedures and the support of geospatial research in major EU programs and education. The full day workshop will be held in context of the 14th AGILE International Conference on Geographic Information Science in Utrecht, The Netherlands, on 18th April 2011. As the AGILE/EuroSDR/OGC Persistent SDI Testbed for Research and Teaching in Europe (PTB, http://sdi-testbed.eu) is co-organizing the workshop, it will be shown how different Testbed Collaboration could mutually benefit, how to develop synergies and how to improve the sustainability of running demonstrators for further work or research. Future strategies for testing Geo Web Services will also be developed and discussed The workshop consists of invited talks and presentations selected from this call as well as of panel discussions about future testing strategies and testbed development (including discussions about strategies and testbed advances of the PTB). Please submit a short abstract of your presentation (max 300 words) before 1st March. Based on this abstracts the presentations will be selected through the organizing committee. Presentations will be between 20 and 30 minutes (including discussions). The deadline for the notification of acceptance is the15th March 2011. All presentations and abstracts will be published on the PTB website (http://sdi-testbed.eu).
Multi- and Interdisciplinary Research on Spatial Knowledge in the light of SII
Contact persons: Javier Martinez (Enschede, Netherlands), Karin Pfeffer (Amsterdam, Netherlands), Danny Vandenbroucke (Leuven, Belgium)
Description: The ways in which spatialized knowledge sources are being produced, exchanged and used is becoming a prominent research theme in various disciplines, and in particular in the social sciences. The objective of the workshop is to explore different aspects and research approaches of spatial knowledge management. PhD students and other researchers from a Dutch and a Belgium research program present findings from their programs, which focused on spatial information infrastructures in two very different geographical and cultural contexts: Belgium and India. Particular emphasis is put on the generation and utilization of official databases including the digitizing and harmonization of local spatial knowledge; the implications of knowledge production for inclusion and exclusion; accountability and citizenship (through participatory GIS), considering spatial knowledge as mediator to complement existing knowledge. Expected audience: PhD students and other researchers of both research programs and of similar projects, international experts in the field of SII and spatial knowledge management, active AGILE members in the field of SII and spatial knowledge management. Participants are invited to submit extended abstracts (≅ 400 words) addressing some of the questions posted by this workshop (see extended workshop description). Abstracts will be selected for presentation according to a number of criteria and available time for presentations. From those that will present, a number will be asked to prepare a book chapter that will be reviewed by 1) a review committee of the organizers of the workshop, and 2) a review from the editor. Contributions are welcomed both from senior researchers and PhD students.
Spatial Thinking
Contact persons: Claire Jarvis (Leicester, United Kingdom), Diana Sinton (Redlands, United States)
Description: Spatial literacy, and associated ideas such as spatial thinking and spatial cognition, have been the focus of several recent and distinctive academic initiatives and programs around the globe (e.g. LENS, CSISS, SPLINT). Shared goals include a better understanding of the ways in which we think and learn spatially, and an application of that knowledge to educational domains. This understanding has implications for the ways in which we teach and learn GIS and the utility of GIS as a tool for addressing spatially-based problems in the world. The public’s use of maps, through programs of citizen science, volunteered geographic information (VGI), GPS use for personal navigation, access of location-based services (LBS) via hand-held devices, and other neo-geography mapping applications all include expectations for people to use spatial modes of thinking and make decisions involving spatial information. Thus our understanding of how we develop and encourage good spatial practice is even more important. Additionally, participants will be provided ahead of time with an annotated bibliography of published literature on the topic of spatial thinking, especially as it pertains to matters of maps and representations, mapping, and navigation. This collection reflects the most current and relevant research by an international group of geographers, geoscientists, and cognitive and developmental psychologist who are studying these topics, and will inform our discussion.
GI Research and instruction mixing commercial and Open Source Tools
Contact persons: Andreas Wytzisk (52North), Michael Gould, Frank Holsmuller (both ESRI)
Description: The workshop presents the new reality of mixed source deployments of geospatial technology, not only in industry but in GI research and instruction as well. The 52 North initiative has been practicing this mixed source development for some time now, and lately Esri has become a stronger partner in these developments and has announced new open APIs, open source software, and a non-profit organization program. This opens new possibilities for collaboration among AGILE members, NGOs, and industry. 52 North will show the fruits of mixed source development including recent open source extensions built on the ArcGIS platform, in the areas of Sensor Web Enablement and Web Processing Services (WPS). Esri can show the newly open-sourced Geospatial portal extension, the Open Street Map editor, and discuss future plans. Ample time is to be made available for group discussion, Q and A, and plans for future collaboration.
Workshops 2010
Workshop on Geospatial Visual Analytics: Focus on Time
Contact persons: Gennady Andrienko,
Description: The theme for the workshop and this special issue of International Journal of Geographical Information Science is the use of GeoVisual Analytics approaches for exploring and analysing large data sets with both spatial and temporal components. Original papers are solicited in this area. In particular, we encourage innovative papers detailing tight integration of visualization, data mining, database processing, optimization and other computational processing. The workshop will provide participants with the possibility to present ongoing and developing work without committing to a full journal paper. The journal special issue will provide participants with the opportunity of reporting their work in a refereed journal. Example topics include, but are not limited to, the visualization and interactive analysis of large data sets representing:
Persistent Testbed (PTB) Workshop
Contact persons: Johannes Braune
Description: The goal of the AGILE/OGC/EuroSDR initiative is to develop a European interest to advance a persistent testbed (PTB) capability to improve availability of interoperability development, testing, and implementation resources in support of geospatial research and major EU programs. The full-day workshop should keep the interested European GI Community informed about ongoing testbed activities and show how they could benefit from participating. Future strategies should be developed and discussed.
Workshop on Movement Research: Are you in the flow?
Contact persons: Monica Wachowicz
Description: This is a discussion oriented workshop that will emphasise an in depth multidisciplinary discussions on the latest research and new experimental approaches aimed at addressing the current gaps in knowledge in the field of movement analysis.
Workshop on GI-Education Mapping
Contact persons: Frans Rip
Description: At the AGILE 2009 preconference workshop on EQF, it was concluded that a first step should be made in mapping GI education in Europe. The challenge is to find a way to link both the multitude of descriptions and the organisational variety of GI education possibilities to both the content description approach of UCGIS Body of Knowledge and the learning level structure of the European Qualification Framework. In the proposed workshop first results will be presented. Participants could map their own curricula during a practical. A first evaluation of the proposed method, and the question 'what to do next?', shall be elements of the afternoon session.
Workshops 2009
Grid Technologies for Geospatial Applications
Contact persons: Patrick Maué and Dr. Christian Kiehle
The European Qualification Framework applicable to the GI domain?
Contact persons: Frans I. Rip and Marco Painho
Cross Atlantic Workshop on Economic Value of GeoInformation
Contact person: Alenka Krek, Stéphane Roche and Max Craglia
GI@EarlyWarning
Contact persons: Martin Breunig and Wolfgang Reinhardt
Adaptation in Spatial Communication
Contact persons: Martin Tomko and Kai-Florian Richter
AGILE/EuroSDR/OGC Persistent Testbed for Research and Teaching in Europe
Contact persons: Johannes Brauner, Chris Higgins, Mike Jackson, Ulf Sandgren and Lars Bernard
Challenges in Geospatial Data Harmonisation
Contact persons: Eva Klien, Sisi Zlatanova, Christine Giger and Astrid Fichtinger