Introducing a Property Tax in Ireland - how the Irish Revenue are using GI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u09PnnEfRUA

The Irish Revenue are using Google and Street View to check whether homes are undervalued for a new Property Tax.  Property tax is just being introduced in Ireland and is currently self assessed (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_property_tax_(Ireland)).  Geographic Information is playing a key (if somewhat Big Brother role) in checking this self assessment.

Mapping Wellington Public Transport

Check out: https://vimeo.com/album/2763946

Richard Law, MGIS student, has created a neat visualization of Wellington's Public Transport network for different days.  Richard uses Google Transit Data Feed to nab the data and some code to automatically generate the different geovisualizations.  Keep an eye on his Vimeo channel to see updated geoviz.

Kaikoura Fieldtrip MGIS/PGDipGIS 2014

Last day of the 2014 Kaikoura fieldtrip!  We've a full house with 22 students - the VUW cohort is 4.  This is also the first year of AUT's involvement on the trip.  So pleased to welcome AUT, Barbara Breen and her students on board (not least because of the tasty, tasty banana bread Barbara whipped up yesterday!).  So far we've seen whales and seals, used multiple types of data collection techniques (included an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle and different GPS units), gone swimming, hosted an open street map mapping party, run a cartography, competition, cooked some fantastic food, learnt some interesting things about crowd sourcing research, semantics, spatial analysis, metadata (no really, its true!) and remote sensing.

Its been a really good week - and this coming year should be filled with a lot of interesting, exciting and fun courses.

Dr Barbara Breen, GIS lecturer and banana bread maker extraordinaire!

Congratulations Richard

MGIS student Richard Law has just been awarded a Chartered Institute for Logistics and Transport (CILT) grant to support his transportation GIS (Geographic Information Science) thesis project.  Richard is also funded by a VUW Master's by thesis scholarship. His work will look at the effect of measures of waiting times on public transportation modelling for Wellington City.  Richard will be working with Dr Mairead de Roiste (SGEES), Dr Yigit Saglam (School of Economics and Finance) and Dr Toby Daglish (Research Director of the Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation).  The project will form part of a wider spatial econometric model (SEM) of transportation, commuting and housing within the Greater Wellington Region.

Congratulations Richard!

Staying Relevant as a GIS Professional

According to James Fee (http://geospatial.blogs.com/geospatial/2013/10/james-fee-on-remaining-relevant-as-a-gis-professional.html)

"What should a GIS professional do to stay relevant ?  James asserted that if you

• Put points on a map and throw up a scale bar
• Perform geoprocessing without Python or Model Builder
• Have a job description of “Plotter Operator”
• Have no idea what “fuzzy tolerance” is

you will soon be out of a job.  On the other hand if you

• Embrace Python as your GIS tool of choice.
• Use Model Builder to automate your work flows.
• Learn new tools such as TileMill/Mapnik/PostGIS ...your future is bright."

Encouraging Quant methods in Geography

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/256191493_Quantitative_Methods_in_Geography_Making_the_Connections_between_Schools_Universities_and_Employers

paper by the Royal Geographical Society

Abstract:
A report into the nature of and attitudes towards quantitative methods teaching in geography, with recommendations for how the benchmark statement might be changed.

mapping update

http://www.humanosphere.org/2013/08/a-history-of-protests-mapped-1979-to-today/

Great use of animation - Where have there been protests since 1979?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/08/27/the-one-map-that-shows-why-syria-is-so-complicated/

The one map that shows why Syria is so complicated - Not great to look at but interesting subject

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-08/05/slum-mapping-google-maps-cartography
Interesting article on google's stance for a perfect world map - nice to see agendas questioned