Blog

Research project: Localizing Content Governance

This project is led by Dr Scott Rodgers (PI) in collaboration with Dr Susan Moore (Co-I) and Dr Andrea Ballatore (Co-I), funded by a grant from Facebook Research (USD 70,000). Localizing Content Governance in Place-named Facebook Groups (2020/21) is a systematic study into how Administrators and Moderators govern contributions in Facebook Groups relating to named … Continue reading Research project: Localizing Content Governance →

Research project: Searching for Unique Places

PI: Andrea Ballatore, Birkbeck, University of London, funded by Ordnance Survey (ÂŁ40,000), 2019-20 Summary. This project will develop a framework for the search and recommendation of places. Unlike entities with clear boundaries, places such as neighbourhoods and towns are configurations of geo-located objects with fuzzy and arbitrary borders. Existing similarity search approaches have been optimised … Continue reading Research project: Searching for Unique Places →

Web scraping is legal (for UK researchers)

TL;DR: In the UK, it is mostly legal to scrape data for non-commercial research. Great for doing research from home. Much research data nowadays is sourced directly from the Web, either from traditional websites or from social media platforms. Economists, sociologists, and geographers often rely on web scraping to collect large datasets about the behaviour … Continue reading Web scraping is legal (for UK researchers) →

[CfP] GIScience 2021 workshop: Three cultures

Because of Covid, GIScience 2020 has been postponed to 2021. We will communicate the new deadline for this workshop as soon as possible. GIScience 2020 2021 Workshop The social, the science and the humanities: Bridging three cultures of geographic information in the pandemic Workshop date & location: September 15, 2020 -- PoznaĹ„, Poland Submission deadline: … Continue reading [CfP] GIScience 2021 workshop: Three cultures →

Mapping Museums 1960–2020: A report on the data

Despite the Covid crisis, which is having a huge impact on the museum sector too, academic life somehow goes on. I'm pleased to share this new report [pdf] about the findings of the Mapping Museums project. This report is the result of a lot of hard work to tease out key trends from data about … Continue reading Mapping Museums 1960–2020: A report on the data →

Urban Consumption Patterns: OpenStreetMap and the Social Sciences

Here is a new conference paper with my colleagues Hamidreza Rabiei Dastjerdi and Gavin McArdle on the use of crowdsourced geospatial data for social science research at GISTAM 2020. Abstract. Citizen consumption refers to the goods and services which citizens utilise. This includes time spent on leisure and cultural activities as well as the consumption … Continue reading Urban Consumption Patterns: OpenStreetMap and the Social Sciences →

Presenting your research for the first time: A few tips for students

Having seen many student presentations in recent years, I collected a few tips that might be useful to people who are about to give their first research talk to an audience. Presenting scientific work has elements of storytelling and rhetoric. Your presentation must appear like a coherent story with an opening, where you set the scene and you explain the background, a development, … Continue reading Presenting your research for the first time: A few tips for students →

UBEL Scholarships 2020 – Human Geography

UBEL funding is now open: https://ubel-dtp.ac.uk/eligibility/pathways/human-geography. A few notes for applicants: Check eligibility: "ESRC studentships are open to all UK applicants. Applicants are also eligible for a studentship if they have been an ordinary resident in the UK for three years prior to the start of the studentship grant. For instance, if the applicant applies … Continue reading UBEL Scholarships 2020 – Human Geography →