Projects
New Maps is currently affiliated with the following projects:
| Participatory GIS: Geographic information technologies continue to drive the representation and management of complex as well as everyday spatial information. As a result, increasing numbers of for-profit and non-profit organizations have recognized the need to transform their information into a spatial format. Participatory GIS is central to New Maps efforts to use these technologies to support the community. In this project, students work with community partners to design and build participatory GIS and mapping tools and products. See the criticalgis blog for more information. |  |
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Exploring User Generated Geodata: There is an increasing amount of data on the Internet (much of it user generated) that is geo-coded to a particular spot on the earth. This has huge implications for how we interact with our surroundings and each other. This new cloud of user generated data acts as a cyberscape which provides an additional layer for human interaction. Moreover, since a large amount of this information is created by users we are no longer limited to the stale monotony (or security) of business directories or phonebooks. People can document their memories, feelings, biases and reactions to places and share them with the world. For more information see the floatingsheep research blog. |
| DIY GIS / Citizen Science: Drawing on the recent energies in volunteered geographic information and neogeography, more broadly, New Maps is actively designing curricula and community-based projects that encourage participation from citizens in the production of scientific knowledge, including do-it-yourself aerial image capture using helium balloons and kites. |  |
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Open Data in Local Government: This project, a partnership between the University of Kentucky College of Arts & Sciences, Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government, and Open Lexington, works to leverage the resources of the College to support data transparency in municipal government. New Maps is working to facilitate this collaborative effort. |
| Mapping and the digital humanities: In alignment with existing efforts at the University of Kentucky, New Maps is partnering with The Digital Distillery, a collective of digital humanists and other scholars committed to public scholarship, and the Collaboratory for Research in Computing for Humanities to host a number of projects that bring digital mapping to storytelling, historical reconstruction, and other mappings of place. |  |
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Spatial interpolation and mapping of natural resources: Application of geospatial techniques to natural resource management has been a rapidly growing field of geography. It is quite common in nature that any biotic or abiotic factor is spatially autocorrelated, thereby violating the sample independence assumption of traditional statistics. This project takes into account such spatial dependence inherent in geographical data to better understand the nature of physical processes on earth and the resultant spatial patterns. |
| Geospatial Science and Technology (GST): Members of New Maps are proud to be part of a campus-wide working group committed to the development of GST curriculum and other campus wide GIS projects at the University of Kentucky. |
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