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Neogeography, Autumn 2008
Neogeography has come to consist of a set of techniques and tools that fall outside the realm of traditional GIS and geography. Essentially, it is about people using and creating their own maps, on their own terms, by combining elements of an existing toolset. Neogeographers use mapping API like Google Maps, talk about GPX versus KML, and ‘geotag’ their photos. The term arose with Web 2.0 and the increased public appeal of mapping and geospatial technologies that occurred with the release of Google Maps, the decreased cost of GPS, and increased ubiquity of mobile devices. However, in its original formulation it was wider than this, and included work in fields as diverse as art, programming, literature, and leisure. Almost all of this has evolved outside of what we usually think of as geography, yet it presents a variety of technical, societal and academic challenges to traditional academic views and practices. The series will attempt to explore these challenges.
You are encouraged to integrate these presentations by experts in the field with your own teaching at advanced undergraduate or post-graduate level. Just as we have had to learn entirely new protocols for use in the presentations, so we are gaining experience in how best to undertake this integration into regular teaching.
Following the seminar series should enable participants to:
- follow current literature in the field;
- compare and contrast ‘neo’ geography with older concerns in the discipline;
- understand the interplay between neogeography and society at large;
- develop a view on aspects of quality and accuracy in neogeography;
- understand the potentials of user-contributed spatial data for research in geography and other disciplines.
Although the series carries no activities for which a formal assessment is appropriate, our hope is that graduate student classes, in particular, will build on it by creating some formal, assessed activity that enables the series to be ‘hard wired’ into their research training programmes. Possible activities might be completion of an individual essay based on some or all of the presented materials, additional local seminars, web site construction, or even local participatory work in the community.
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