Saturday, 30 November 2019

NASA International Space Apps Challenge 2019 Hackathon organized in Tartu

International Space Apps Tartu 2019

International Space Apps Challenge 2019 in Tartu

The University of Tartu - with its Department of Geography, Institute of Computer Science and Tartu Observatory - and the Tartu Science Park invite you and all interested citizens, students, staff and researchers from all disciplines, developers, hackers, designers, and Earth and Space data enthusiasts to the Tartu-hosted hackathon event as part of the 2019 International SpaceApps Challenge. Be part of a global hackathon movement to turn data into stories and propose solutions.

 

International Space Apps Tartu 2019: https://spaceapps2019.ut.ee/

The report has been archived in the University of Tartu DSpace repository and can be referenced/cited/linked via: http://hdl.handle.net/10062/66925

Monday, 30 September 2019

Notes to myself: Internet and social media for research and education outreach


Use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, follow other researchers, leaders in the field, science & technology institutions and pages, reshare interesting posts

Write a blog, Wordpress, Blogger etc. do it yourself with Hugo, Jekyll or similar. Write about your research, interesting activities, how you solved problems, challenges you face, and of course about your published journal articles. Share these on your social media accounts.

Follow feeds (i.e. RSS) from your favourite journals, science & tech blogs, ideally in a feed app like Inoreader or Feedly. Reshare interesting articles on your social media accounts.

Measure your impact, that means, try to measure or otherwise quantify how many people you reach, what audience you have, how and how often your outreach activities are shared in the networks.

Managing outreach activities like that can become time-consuming. Yet, it is one of the important parts of research (and education) that we are able to effectively communicate (and therefore educate about) what we are doing and why. At the end of the day, most of our research is funded more or less directly through the public, i.e. tax payers. I believe it is really a good way to connect and give back.

Now, to lift these activities to the next level, you could use ("some more") tools.



Self-promotion (e.g. PhD student)/small team:

https://www.contentcal.io/
https://hootsuite.com/
https://buffer.com/

https://www.kontentino.com/
https://www.socialchamp.io/
https://mavsocial.com/

Workgroup/department level:

https://www.sendible.com/
https://www.socialpilot.co/
https://meetedgar.com/
https://www.agorapulse.com/
https://sproutsocial.com/

Connect workflows via: Zapier.com

Wednesday, 25 September 2019

A review of selected latest journal articles in the field of Geoinformatics



I spontaneously filled an open slot for our regular PhD seminar in the Chair of Geoinformatics. As I described in an earlier blog post, I occasionally browse through latest published articles like scanning for headlines in the daily news. And with an app like Feedly or Inoreader you can tag interesting articles for later and group them. Now was the chance to re-iterate through some of the latest articles - literally aiming for only few months old to a maximum of 1-2 years old. I initially came up with a group of ca 30-35 articles, which was still too much for a single seminar.

GIScience is not a homogenous and strictly defined discipline, and there is no consensus among GIScience researchers about the relevant publication outlets.
Filip Biljecki (2016) “A scientometric analysis of selected GIScience journals”, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 30:7, 1302-1335, DOI: 10.1080/13658816.2015.1130831

The original idea was to cover a few different topics that are also relevant for the teaching and research we do in the department, such as:

- cloud processing and Google Earth engine
- machine learning and GIS (statistical modelling)
- at least like European level/scale modelling
- some modern cartography/visualization topics
- terrain modelling

I'd then give a short overview of journals, and the selected papers hand out copies one each. 5 minutes reading/skimming and then one circulation, and another 5 minutes, and then discussion. The timing turned out to be too optimistic and we spent more time discussion the papers and interesting facts the participants found for themselves.




  • Comparison of FOSS4G Supported Equal-Area Projections Using Discrete Distortion Indicatrices, ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2019, 8(8), 351; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi8080351
  • Performance Testing on Marker Clustering and Heatmap Visualization Techniques: A Comparative Study on JavaScript Mapping Libraries, ISPRS Int. J. Geo-Inf. 2019, 8(8), 348; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijgi8080348
  • Examining the sensitivity of spatial scale in cellular automata Markov chain simulation of land use change, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 33:5, 1040-1061, DOI: 10.1080/13658816.2019.1568441
  • The scale effects of the spatial autocorrelation measurement: aggregation level and spatial resolution, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 33:5, 945-966, DOI: 10.1080/13658816.2018.1564316
  • Comparative usability of an augmented reality sandtable and 3D GIS for education, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, DOI: 10.1080/13658816.2019.1656810
  • Deeply integrating Linked Data with Geographic Information Systems, Transactions in GIS 2019 https://doi.org/10.1111/tgis.12538
  • GIS&T pedagogies and instructional challenges in higher education: A survey of educators, Transactions in GIS 2019 https://doi.org/10.1111/tgis.12534
  • The spatial allocation of population: a review of large-scale gridded population data products and their fitness for use, Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 11, 1385–1409, https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-11-1385-2019
  • Google Earth Engine: Planetary-scale geospatial analysis for everyone, 2017, Remote Sensing of Environment, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2017.06.031
  • Big spatial vector data management: a review, Big Earth Data, 2:1, 108-129, DOI: 10.1080/20964471.2018.1432115
  • Contemporary American cartographic research: a review and prospective, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, 46:3, 196-209, DOI: 10.1080/15230406.2019.1571441
  • Automated and semi-automated map georeferencing, Cartography and Geographic Information Science, DOI: 10.1080/15230406.2019.1604161

Monday, 6 May 2019

SpaceTech and EO data hackathon at Tartu Observatory - short notes

 
https://www.facebook.com/events/616218285490869/

Pre-Event talk about sharing free geodata and where to get it and what to do with it: https://kodu.ut.ee/~kmoch/SpaceTech_2019_open_geodata/
 

https://kaugseire.ee/ligip%C3%A4%C3%A4s-andmetele



https://github.com/allixender/meetup-notes/tree/master/2019-05-spacetech-geodata

- Team Stargazing

- Team Peatlog

Geoserver WMS dataset support for Leaflet web map

Great team with Garage48 and Tartu Science Park

SpaceTech and EO data hackathon at Tartu Observatory