學術活動

Geographic information science (GIScience) is considered as a spatial science. It therefore has focused on handling spatial data without giving much attention to time and people. Our world however is more complex than static snapshots of various spatial distribution patterns. Things change over time and people play a critical role in this world. Enabled by modern information and communication technologies (ICT) such as the Internet and mobile phones, human activities and interactions have been expanding increasingly into virtual space that introduces many changes to how we carry out our activities. It is no longer sufficient to study human activities and interactions in physical space only if we want to gain a comprehensive understanding of modern world. With today’s location-aware and tracking technologies, many human activities and interactions in both physical and virtual spaces are being collected by various public agencies and private companies. This presentation discusses the opportunities and challenges of using big individual tracking data to gain insights of human dynamics. It also uses several examples to illustrate why we need to develop space, time and person-based geographic information science to facilitate studies of human dynamics.

Professor Shih-Lung Shaw

Alvin and Sally Beaman Professor, Arts and Sciences Excellence Professor Department of Geography, Director of Confucius Institute Center for International Education University of Tennessee Knoxville.