Crowd Sourced City 2011 Projects
Sarah Williams, Director of the Spatial Information Design Lab, has recently been funded by Navteq/Nokia to teach a workshop course that looks at how data collected by cell phones and social media websites can be analyzed to understand and inform city processes.
The workshop, called Crowd Sourced City, is open to all GSAPP students.
Social media networks, crowd sourcing, cell phone applications all allow us to see and understand cities and our role within them using a new lens. This workshop class investigates social media and its use for planning purposes. In particular, students investigate models of crowd sourced geographical data collection, with a specific focus on how public participation in the collection process can be incentivized. The main objectives of the course is to 1) gain a solid background in how social media and crowd sourcing are currently being used for urban planning. 2) gain hands on experience with organizations that might be able to use geo-locative data for their planning purposes. 3) critic current and develop new applications for data collection 4) help planning organizations use the information they collect to advocate for their needs.
Students work with one of four organizations to identify how using cell phones to geo-reference place might help them with their planning process. These organization include Transportation Alternatives (Bike Advocacy), Brownsville Partnership, the Design Trust for Public Space, Participatory Budgetting, and Middle School 328. Students have chosen the organization they are most interested in working with.
Each one of these organizations has a particular “data” interest, and the students work with each organization to determine the best method to acquire the data they want. Students will then develop a collection strategy. They will implement their strategy and assist the organization in interpreting the data. Students will then critic their methods. The course allows students to develop their own strategies for CROWD SOURCING THE CITY.