The Social Analytics Strategic Network (SASNet), a joint proposal by UBDC (Glasgow) and BLG DRC (Essex) focussing on capacity-building in Big Data.
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Glasgow
Department Name: School of Social & Political Sciences
Abstract
The proposed capacity-building activities will take the form of a Data Analytics Network run jointly by Glasgow and Essex. The Network will develop programmes for policy and business managers, focused on "data-driven" approaches, as well as high-end quantitative training in urban informatics for urban researchers, analysts and planners. The network would be open to researchers and practitioners who could both contribute towards and benefit from involvement. It will be both multidisciplinary and international, open to academics from a wide range of disciplines including urban studies, social policy, business and organisation studies, engineering, computer science etc. who see the network as an opportunity to draw together expertise on data analytics focused on business and cities and share it, through a set of managed activities. It will include the junior and early career researchers, as well as PhD students. Where appropriate we would liaise with the Doctoral Training Centres to develop engagement and participation in our network.
The recruitment for our set of activities will be based on the following approach:
Academic training: we will target disciplines which can benefit from exposure to Social Analytics and that suffer from lack of skills in this area. These include social policy, business studies, urban studies etc. but we will consult with the DTC to identify these areas more precisely.
Business and policy training: we will target sectors that have access to data but lack the capacity in Social Analytics to fully benefit from it. We will consult with organisations like city and central governments and ICAEW, CBI and Insitute of Directors to identify the specific companies that can benefit from training.
Visiting scholars: our objective is to improve foster collaboration between the UK academic community and academic centres which are the forefront of research in Social Analytics. We will then reach out to academics from other UK institutions and overseas partners to develop new research and knowledge exchange relationships.
Three strands of activity are envisaged:
a) a set of user-focused seminars offered by a mix of academic and non-academic experts, the main objectives of which are to improve organisations' understanding of techniques for the analysis of a variety of historical and real-time data, to share the best practice around analytics and to develop collaborative links between major users and university researchers.
b) the development of a training programme arranged into three different tracks, tailored to the requirement of different sectors, but allowing significant crossover. The tracks will fully utilise the business analytics and urban analytics research agenda of BLGDRC and UBDC
c) a programme of visiting fellowships which could be held either by external academic, including overseas, experts or by senior/middle managers of user organisations. Fellows will be tasked with the development or implementation of analytical techniques involving the use of real-time data in combination with other types of data, using the resources of the Centres
The recruitment for our set of activities will be based on the following approach:
Academic training: we will target disciplines which can benefit from exposure to Social Analytics and that suffer from lack of skills in this area. These include social policy, business studies, urban studies etc. but we will consult with the DTC to identify these areas more precisely.
Business and policy training: we will target sectors that have access to data but lack the capacity in Social Analytics to fully benefit from it. We will consult with organisations like city and central governments and ICAEW, CBI and Insitute of Directors to identify the specific companies that can benefit from training.
Visiting scholars: our objective is to improve foster collaboration between the UK academic community and academic centres which are the forefront of research in Social Analytics. We will then reach out to academics from other UK institutions and overseas partners to develop new research and knowledge exchange relationships.
Three strands of activity are envisaged:
a) a set of user-focused seminars offered by a mix of academic and non-academic experts, the main objectives of which are to improve organisations' understanding of techniques for the analysis of a variety of historical and real-time data, to share the best practice around analytics and to develop collaborative links between major users and university researchers.
b) the development of a training programme arranged into three different tracks, tailored to the requirement of different sectors, but allowing significant crossover. The tracks will fully utilise the business analytics and urban analytics research agenda of BLGDRC and UBDC
c) a programme of visiting fellowships which could be held either by external academic, including overseas, experts or by senior/middle managers of user organisations. Fellows will be tasked with the development or implementation of analytical techniques involving the use of real-time data in combination with other types of data, using the resources of the Centres
Planned Impact
This section describes the approach the network will adopt to maximise the impact generated by its activities among beneficiaries, users and stakeholders over the lifetime of the award. In particular, the strategy will enable the network to accelerate the impact of its main streams of activities via a range of mechanisms centred on the exchange of ideas, individuals and knowledge with user and stakeholder communities.
The objectives of the Impact strategy are the following:
1) to increase our key stakeholders' awareness of the Centre's activities as well as build their support into its fabric.
2) to ensure that the results of our research are instrumental in driving positive changes in the behaviour of the beneficiaries of the Centre's activities.
3) to ensure that impacts from the Centre's activities are captured and communicated to external partners, stakeholders and the general public.
The impact strategy the Centre will deliver is composed of the following four areas of activity:
1) Communicate and engage with a diverse group of users, stakeholders and general public.
2) Grow the network of influence and relationships through our Knowledge Exchange activities.
3) Build on the network of data providers and users to generate impact.
4) Develop a new and dynamic model of two-way dialogue with users and stakeholders.
Non-academic beneficiaries of the Centre include a range of organisations and individuals, operating at several levels.
Key beneficiaries include:
1) Businesses will benefit by having access to training activities, which will build their capacity in big data analytics to support their decision-making.
2) Local government researchers and policy makers will benefit as both data owners and data producers. The network will demonstrate how they can use social analytics in a novel way and extract new information to support their policy-making processes and service delivery.
3) Government department researchers and policy makers. The methodological developments and training activities will provide a model of relevance for all areas of the UK. The likely impact is significant as new ways of utilising big data are developed.
4) Practitioners such as urban planners and city managers will have access to training activities and the visiting scholar programme, as well as specialist expertise and novel methods in data analytics.
5) Citizen scientists with a keen interest in data and social analytics will be able to enhance their knowledge and capacity through public seminars and training activities.
6) General public. The general public will benefit through more informed policy-making and an awareness of the benefits Social Analytics provides including public engagement around the re-use of data for social research. We expect findings to be reported in news media and to stimulate public debate.
Direct impacts on beneficiaries in knowledge exchange and capacity-building will be evident in the development of the strategic network and delivery of the training and outreach activities. Impacts on policy debates will be evident through the use of the network's expertise, publications and white papers. The indirect impacts on society as a whole (via the effect of research influence on policy and practice) are more difficult to specify but we anticipate the BOK we create will be widely used.
The objectives of the Impact strategy are the following:
1) to increase our key stakeholders' awareness of the Centre's activities as well as build their support into its fabric.
2) to ensure that the results of our research are instrumental in driving positive changes in the behaviour of the beneficiaries of the Centre's activities.
3) to ensure that impacts from the Centre's activities are captured and communicated to external partners, stakeholders and the general public.
The impact strategy the Centre will deliver is composed of the following four areas of activity:
1) Communicate and engage with a diverse group of users, stakeholders and general public.
2) Grow the network of influence and relationships through our Knowledge Exchange activities.
3) Build on the network of data providers and users to generate impact.
4) Develop a new and dynamic model of two-way dialogue with users and stakeholders.
Non-academic beneficiaries of the Centre include a range of organisations and individuals, operating at several levels.
Key beneficiaries include:
1) Businesses will benefit by having access to training activities, which will build their capacity in big data analytics to support their decision-making.
2) Local government researchers and policy makers will benefit as both data owners and data producers. The network will demonstrate how they can use social analytics in a novel way and extract new information to support their policy-making processes and service delivery.
3) Government department researchers and policy makers. The methodological developments and training activities will provide a model of relevance for all areas of the UK. The likely impact is significant as new ways of utilising big data are developed.
4) Practitioners such as urban planners and city managers will have access to training activities and the visiting scholar programme, as well as specialist expertise and novel methods in data analytics.
5) Citizen scientists with a keen interest in data and social analytics will be able to enhance their knowledge and capacity through public seminars and training activities.
6) General public. The general public will benefit through more informed policy-making and an awareness of the benefits Social Analytics provides including public engagement around the re-use of data for social research. We expect findings to be reported in news media and to stimulate public debate.
Direct impacts on beneficiaries in knowledge exchange and capacity-building will be evident in the development of the strategic network and delivery of the training and outreach activities. Impacts on policy debates will be evident through the use of the network's expertise, publications and white papers. The indirect impacts on society as a whole (via the effect of research influence on policy and practice) are more difficult to specify but we anticipate the BOK we create will be widely used.
Organisations
- University of Glasgow (Lead Research Organisation)
- IBM (Collaboration)
- Iowa State University (Collaboration)
- World Meteorological Organization (Collaboration)
- New University of Lisbon (Collaboration)
- Ohio State University (Collaboration)
- University of Wroclaw (Collaboration)
- Charles III University of Madrid (Collaboration)
- UNIVERSITY OF WESTMINSTER (Collaboration)
- Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (Collaboration)
- Sustrans (Collaboration)
- British Standards Institute (BSI Group) (Collaboration)
- Statistics Netherlands (Collaboration)
- Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences (Collaboration)
Publications
| Description | The SASNet project allowed the partnership between Glasgow and Essex to deliver a cohesive capacity-building programme focused on big data analysis and applications for business process management and urban planning and informatics. As part of our SASNet work, we have scoped the demand for data science and analytics among local government agencies, SMEs and industries, particularly in the areas of transport, smart cities, public health and active travel, and micro-firms working in traditional services and generated insights and further activity in the areas of big data, predictive analytics, automation, AI and smart urban futures. We found that strong differences exist between the level of the technical skills needed for many private sector activities in the transport and smart cities sector, and in the skill levels and ability of the public sector and local governments to use or adapt emerging forms of data and technology. Training in the government, SME and voluntary sectors in the transport and smart cities space can be helpful in efficient and equitable deployment of such technologies. There is a need for advanced training in these areas among postgraduate students, particularly in the areas of information management, automation, machine learning and transport and urban modelling and simulations. We additionally targeted micro-firms working in traditional services (representative of the population of firm in the East of England) and SMEs from industries that are moving towards automation of their operations. Through this scoping exercise, we have been able to link the poor performance (financial and in terms of labour productivity) of these companies to the lack of expertise in data science and modelling. In other words, we have discovered efficiency can substantially increase if their data needs and modelling demands are properly supported by training and workshop activities. Logistics is the most interesting case: it is an industry dominated by large companies (all automated) with a number of SMEs which have problems at catching up with the new technology. Additionally, middle and senior management in SMEs play a key role in the deployment of data-driven management techniques in a company. We have discovered that while there is a common understanding that new analytics and modelling can help improve productivity of operations, lack of training and general support to the middle management may limit their capability to support these changes. As a result, training needs to be shaped around the needs of this group of managers which vary by industry and size of the company. We also found that innovative new curricula are required covering a range of analytics, information management and theoretical topics so that there is a fusion of domain knowledge as well as expertise on analysing new forms of data and on information management. As trends in AI, automation and big data continue unabated, it is essential to examine the epistemological and conceptual underpinnings of these developments for governance of smart and intelligent futures from a social science perspective, while developing robust practices and applications processes, drawing from examples of the sectors examined in SASNet. A key impact of the SASNet project has been on official statistical agencies. The PI gave a training course to data scientists of Eurostat. The PI and UBDC staff also worked with the Center for Big Data Statistics on outreach and dissemination. Finally, the PI is a member of the Advisory Board of the Data Science campus of ONS, bringing in key findings on data to official statistics in the UK. More recently, the PI has supported The National Science Foundation in its activities related to cyberinfrastructure systems. |
| Exploitation Route | We targeted companies and agencies working in the interrelated areas of transport, smart cities, public health and active travel, and micro-firms working in traditional services. Through interactions with agencies and firms in these sectors, and with academics whose research touches on knowledge impacting these sectors, our work has generated insights and further activity in the areas of big data, predictive analytics, automation, AI and smart urban futures. Our work will be taken forward by SMEs, local governments and other industries for improvements in transport, smart cities, public health and active travel, and micro-firms working in traditional services, for improved autonomous transport, active travel strategies including bicycling and pedestrian design and programmes, supply chain management and a variety of production and management processes in smart cities. Our work will also inform the training and capacity needs that are arising in local governments and small businesses as well as in lifelong learning for older adults and senior managers. |
| Sectors | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Environment,Healthcare,Government, Democracy and Justice,Transport |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/sasnet/ |
| Description | Key Findings for SASNet The SASNet project allowed the partnership between the Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC) in Glasgow and the Business and Local Government Data Research Centre (BLGDRC) in Essex to exploit the full potential of our Centres' expertise and research communities, by delivering a cohesive capacity-building programme focused on big data analysis and applications for business process management and urban planning and informatics. The SASNet project maximised the work of our Centres through this activity, helping to strengthen our ties with government, industry, and civil society organisations, with the objective of helping understand the potential uses of big data and the skills needed in order to use big data effectively. Further, the project served as a conduit for stakeholders in other sectors to discuss their data challenges with our staff, which will in turn increased the activities, relevancy and impact of our Centres' existing work and remit as part of the Big Data Network Phase 2. The core work of the SASNet project was to deliver training courses and workshops well as high-end quantitative training in urban informatics for urban analysts and planners. In particular, the project had three core objectives: (a) building a strategic network with key users which focuses on Big Data and analytics needed to work with such data as emerging areas of intellectual urgency and strategic importance to the UK, raises awareness of the potential uses of analytical techniques and helps identify the skills needed for social science researchers, and middle level and senior public and private managers; (b) developing a cohesive capacity-building programme focused on Big Data analysis and applications for business process management and urban planning - introducing researchers to novel sources of data and related methods for their research, and for public and business organisations to develop an internal strategy around analytics that improves their decision-making; and (c) consolidating a Body of Knowledge which draws on the strength of existing ESRC centres and enriches the data infrastructure of the centres by using data for real-world teaching and workforce development. Our main findings on these three objectives are: Building a strategic network with key users: As part of our SASNet work, we have scoped the demand for data science and analytics among local government agencies, SMEs and industries. We targeted companies and agencies working in the interrelated areas of transport, smart cities, public health and active travel, and micro-firms working in traditional services. Through interactions with agencies and firms in these sectors, and with academics whose research touches on knowledge impacting these sectors, our work has generated insights and further activity in the areas of big data, predictive analytics, automation, AI and smart urban futures. The key finding from this line of work relating to the network-building objective is first, that strong differences exist between the level of the technical skills needed for many private sector activities in the transport and smart cities sector, and in the skill levels and ability of the public sector and local governments to use or adapt emerging forms of data and technology. Training in the government, SME and voluntary sectors in the transport and smart cities space can be helpful in efficient and equitable deployment of such technologies. Another key finding is the need for advanced training in these areas among postgraduate students, particularly in the areas of information management, automation, machine learning and transport and urban modelling and simulations. We additionally targeted micro-firms working in traditional services (representative of the population of firm in the East of England) and SMES from industries that are moving towards automation of their operations. Through this scoping exercise, we have been able to link the poor performance (financial and in terms of labour productivity) of these companies to the lack of expertise in data science and modelling. At the same time, we have been able to ascertain that training and action learning can help firms to improve their understanding of analytics as well as its deployment in the company. In other words, we have discovered efficiency can substantially increase if their data needs and modelling demands are properly supported by training and workshop activities. Logistics is the most interesting case: it is an industry dominated by large companies (all automated) with a number of SMEs which have problems at catching up with the new technology. Training targeted at these companies can lead to a major improvement in the management of the supply chain. Another key finding from our SASnet activities is that middle and senior management in SMEs play a key role in the deployment of data-driven management techniques in a company. We have discovered that while there is a common understanding that new analytics and modelling can help improve productivity of operations, lack of training and general support to the middle management may limit their capability to support these changes. As a result, training needs to be shaped around the needs of this group of managers which vary by industry and size of the company. Developing a cohesive capacity-building programme around big data and social and urban informatics: The SASNet training and capacity-building programmes have been attended by large number of academic researchers, industry analysts and representatives from a range of government agencies and public service providers. Attendees were postgraduate students, industry analysts, local government analysts and voluntary sector representatives. Public sector has been another key audience for our SASnet activities. Training for the public sectors has allowed to improve our understanding of how they use social analytics (mostly for analytics, transport and urban information management and local planning) and has led to the development of a variety of collaborations with Glasgow City Council, Transport Scotland, NHS-Scotland, and in the East of England namely with Cambridge City Council, Colchester Borough Council and Medway council. One area where we have started to use analytics is to model homelessness in towns and cities so to provide solutions to this major social problem to cash-strapped councils. A presentation "Transport Data Modelling, Simulation and Big Data" in Glasgow by the PTV Group led to this company being a core partner in a newly funded ESRC study on the social and economic implications of transport sharing and automation. SASNet delivered basic to more advanced knowledge on statistical programming and data analytics, Geographic Information Systems and spatial analysis, visualisation, and more specialist topics such as Measuring Segregation and Scale in R, "Beyond Excel": PostgreSQL for Data Management, New Mobility Perspectives in the era of Wearable Sensors. UBDC, partially under the SASNet banner, facilitated a network around standards for city data, and together with the British Standards Institute delivered a successful event in 2017 exploring the role of standards in implementing future cities. This event facilitated discussions on the topic by representatives from FlyingBinary, Open University, Opportunity Peterborough, Space Syntax, Austin Lord-Smith, Urban Tide, Statistics Netherlands, City of Eindhoven and City of Helsinki, leading to new understanding on metadata standards, interoperability and certification and aligning standards to existing city indicators. By doing so, the project contributed to Industrial Strategy and enhanced the value to be generated from data. The key finding here is that innovative new curriculum are required covering a range of analytics, information management and theoretical topics so that there is a fusion of domain knowledge as well as expertise on analysing new forms of data and on information management. Consolidating a Body of Knowledge: The SASNet project highlighted that new ways of being and increasing digitalisation of our daily lives as well as in urban and business management have implications for future society and economy, and for the use of resources, ways of learning and education, social and political behaviours, and other aspects with implications for planning and policy. However, at the same time, there many issues to address to have socially-just virtual urban futures, and to address the benefits and risks of neoliberal policies. A far from complete list includes privacy-by-design and information security, data standards and issues of interoperability and open and re-use of data, captology and persuasive technology and the ethics of behavioural designs, understanding and engaging with new power structures associated with holding information, and algorithmic regulation and transparency and guarding against discrimination by algorithmic design and AI, while addressing how such technologies can be utilised to improve productivity and reduce inequalities. The study of these topics are now in vastly different disciplines. A key finding of the SASNet project is that as trends in AI, automation and big data continue unabated, it is essential to examine the epistemological and conceptual underpinnings of these developments for governance of smart and intelligent futures from a social science perspective, while developing robust practices and applications processes, drawing from examples of the sectors examined in SASNet. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2016 |
| Sector | Communities and Social Services/Policy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Healthcare,Transport |
| Impact Types | Societal,Economic,Policy & public services |
| Description | "Beyond Excel": PostgreSQL for Data Management |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The purpose of this half-day training course was to aid data analysts working with very large datasets that would be difficult to analyse using spreadsheet applications such as Excel. The course was delivered by UBDC's Scientific Officer Rod Walpole who demonstrated how to conduct basic database operations using PostgreSQL, an open-source system capable of handling 'Big' Data (datasets with hundreds of millions of rows and individual tables of multiple TB in size), and the common data types for working at that scale. The course was attended by information analysts and data researchers from academia as well as public and private sector organisations. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/beyond-exce... |
| Description | Data Management for Urban Transport Operations |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The Urban Big Data Centre in conjunction with SASNet delivered this free training workshop on Data Management for Urban Transport Operations. The half-day workshop introduced data management methods and modelling for urban transport planning, using specific case studies to illustrate the use of sensors and high performance computing. The workshop was delivered by renowned leaders in the field of urban informatics, in two focused sessions: - Macroscopic traffic flow modelling and control of heterogeneous cities with mult-sensor data - Traffic Management Enabled By High Performance Computing The free workshop was attended by postgraduate students, early career researchers, and anyone with an interest in urban data management, especially as it relates to transportation, including transportation government operators and private companies. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2016/data-manage... |
| Description | Getting Started with Data Management |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | This course was designed to guide those with limited or no experience of using data-supported research methods through the fundamental processes from acquiring data through to best practices in data management. The need to up-skill in this area was identified by UBDC's data services team, who delivered the course, as it became clear that researchers from different disciplines needed guidance in the preparation and organisation of the data they were requesting to ensure accuracy and efficiency within the usage terms. The course explained the basic principles of data management and then introduced R as a recommended platform to perform basic data operations such as loading, merging and naming. This course equipped users of UBDC's data service as well as attendees from the Scottish Government, local councils and a private company with these necessary skills for handling their data. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/getting-sta... |
| Description | Introduction to ArcGIS |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | IT Lab-based summer training course designed to familiarise participants with what a geographic information system is and the potential for it to be used for informed decision-making using the industry-standard ArcGIS software. The course was attended by people from local authorities, NHS, National Records of Scotland and university researchers and students from numerous disciplines. It can therefore be inferred that the upskilling of individuals in these influential roles to make more effective use of their data using ArcGIS software would give them a better understanding of the spatial dimension of their data and therefore the locations that their data apply to. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/introductio... |
| Description | Introduction to ArcGIS |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | IT Lab-based training event open to people working in the public and private sectors as well as academics and private individuals. This event was attended by people from local authorities, a charitable organisation, the Scottish Government and university researchers and students. It can therefore be inferred that the upskilling of individuals in these influential roles to make more effective use of their data using ArcGIS software would give them a better understanding of the spatial dimension of their data and therefore the locations that their data.apply to. |
| Description | Introduction to Areal Data Modelling using R |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | This short training course demonstrated advanced statistical measures in R to visualise spatial dependencies characterised by different areal units. The course was attended by land registry and local council data analysts and senior academic researchers who reported improvements in their ability to understand the statistical concepts and practical implementations, aided by the variety of examples brought about by the diversity in course participants. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/introductio... |
| Description | Introduction to Network Analysis in ArcGIS |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | This half day training course was designed to build on existing GIS knowledge with a focus on network analysis for understanding transport network data and making informed, data-driven decisions that can be applied to urban planning and policymaking. The course was attended by Service Developers from Glasgow City Council, health researchers and PhD students from across the UK. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/introductio... |
| Description | Introduction to QGIS |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | IT Lab-based training event open to people working in the public and private sectors as well as academics and private individuals. This event was attended by people from local authorities, NHS Scotland Health Information professionals and university researchers and students. This course shared similarities with UBDC's introductory ArcGIS course but used the free open source software QGIS which many participants found to be more easily obtainable. It can therefore be inferred that the upskilling of individuals in these influential roles to make more effective use of their data to give them a better understanding of the spatial dimension of their data and therefore the locations that their data.apply to. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2016/introductio... |
| Description | Introduction to QGIS |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | This short course provided attendees with the foundations of geospatial data and GIS theory using the open source software QGIS. Delegates from the Scottish Government, the Land Registry and researchers in a variety of disciplines to visualize, manage and analyse geospatial data. Time was provided at the end of the session for the course attendees to practice using examples of their own spatial data with the software. Fran Hogg, a SASNet fellow at UBDC attended the course and was able to put her learning into immediate practice on her project analysing geospatial data for school cycle routes. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/introductio... |
| Description | Introduction to R |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | IT Lab-based training event open to people working in the public and private sectors as well as academics and private individuals. This event was attended by people from the Scottish Government, NHS Scotland Health Information professionals and university researchers and students. This course taught the skills required to perform basic analysis of a variety of data types using the free open source software R. It can therefore be inferred that the upskilling of individuals in these influential roles to make more effective use of their data by using R's powerful analytical and visualisation functions. |
| Description | Introduction to R |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | IT Lab-based training event open to people working in the public and private sectors as well as academics and private individuals. This event was attended by statisticians from the Scottish Government, as well as people from Glasgow City Council. Policy Scotland and university researchers and students. This course taught the skills required to perform basic analysis of a variety of data types using the free open source software R. It can therefore be inferred that the upskilling of individuals in these influential roles to make more effective use of their data by using R's powerful analytical and visualisation functions. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/introductio... |
| Description | Introduction to R for NHS Services Scotland |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | IT Lab-based data skills training. This course was booked out by a cohort of statisticians and healthcare analysts from NHS Services Scotland who were taught the skills required to perform basic analysis of a variety of data types using the free open source software R. It can therefore be inferred that the upskilling of individuals in these public healthcare roles will enable more effective use of their data by using R's powerful analytical and visualisation functions. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/ubdc-traini... |
| Description | Introduction to Scientific Computing with Python |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The course aimed to equip data scientists from academia, local councils and statistical departments within the Scottish Government with data analysis skills in Python using high-level libraries such as managing data using NumPy, performing mathematical SciPy algorithms, managing numerical tables in Pandas and plotting figures in Matplotlib. The course was designed to develop knowledge and experiences of scripting in Python according to the attendees' specific data analysis requirements and prepare them for future learning around the wider ranges of Python libraries. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/introductio... |
| Description | Measuring Segregation and Scale in R |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | This hands-on half-day course delivered by guest presenter Professor Richard Harris, University of Bristol, demonstrated the MLID package in R, which offers tools and functions for studying ethnic and social segregation with a multilevel index of dissimilarity. The course was attended by a largely academic audience with analysts from The Registers of Scotland, interested in hazard/risk mapping also in attendance. They reported very positive learning outcomes and an undaunting use of the R environment to work through the practical exercises. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/measuring-s... |
| Description | Multilevel Modelling |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | This advanced lecture-style interactive training session was attended by university researchers and students and a banking data consultant. The skills and better understanding of complex hierarchical data acquired from this course would improve the academic research and data analysis work of those who attended the course. |
| Description | Principles of Visualising Data with R and ggplot |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | This short course built on the basics of R to explore its powerful and versatile open-source visualisation packages. The primary purpose of the course was to make the underlying principles of tidy data and ggplot as clear as possible to allow the course attendees to make more informed decisions on how to visualise their data. The varied group of attendees ranging from university to researchers to public health analysts and economists reported very satisfactory outcomes and returned for further related courses in the programme. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/principles-... |
| Description | The BLG Summer School in Data Analytics: Effective Tools and Techniques |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | This was a 5-day summer school with each day dedicated to a different topic relating to Data Analytics. It was open to academics an people from business and the public sector to attend any or all of the sessions and attracted an average of 30 attendees per session. Days were divided by a morning lecture covering the subject theory and then lab-based practical sessions in the afternoon. The topics were: Agent-based Modelling, Social Networks, Supply Chain Modelling, Evaluation of Policy and a General Introduction to Analytics. |
| Description | Using ArcGIS: Network Analysis |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | IT Lab-based training event open to people working in the public and private sectors as well as academics and private individuals. This event was a follow-up to the introductory ArcGIS course with focus on applying the skills to analysing networks e.g. transportation networks. It was attended by people from the Scottish Government, an environmental organisation and university researchers and students. It can therefore be inferred that the upskilling of individuals in these influential roles to make more effective use of their data using ArcGIS software would give them a better understanding of the spatial dimension of their data and therefore the locations that their data.apply to. |
| Description | Using R: Mapping Spatial Data |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | The purpose of this course was to introduce some common functions in R in relation to spatial data visualisation and mapping, ranging from basic data manipulation to choropleth mapping. By the end of the course, the large, mixed group of attendees (Developers and GIS analysts from Scottish Government, a cycling data charity and the land registry) were able to load geographic data into R and manipulate those data to generate a variety of maps and visualisations. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/using-r-map... |
| Description | Using R: statistical analysis |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | IT Lab-based training event open to people working in the public and private sectors as well as academics and private individuals. This event was attended by people from the Scottish Government's statistical and accountancy departments, NHS Scotland Health Information professionals and university researchers and students. This course followed on from the introductory R course with detailed focus on applying more advanced statistical techniques in data analysis using this open source software. It can therefore be inferred that the upskilling of individuals in these influential roles to better analyse their data using this free statistical software package. |
| Description | Working with Administrative Data: From Ideas to Research (Manchester) |
| Geographic Reach | Local/Municipal/Regional |
| Policy Influence Type | Influenced training of practitioners or researchers |
| Impact | UBDC / SASNet event - UBDC Data Scientist Dr Mirjam Allik led this training session for 20 researchers in Manchester. Topic: Leading urban and social science increasingly use individual level data collected by public bodies, companies or other organisations for research purposes. This is a seminar on accessing these types of administrative data for research. |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/working-wit... |
| Description | British Standards Institution (BSI Group) |
| Organisation | British Standards Institute (BSI Group) |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | UBDC is supporting BSI in understanding, developing and capacity building around international data standards for urban big data. The SASNet project provided the resources for UBDC to host an event in collaboration with the BSI to highlight how data standards can support the widespread adoption of common approaches to the implementation of products and services in future cities. This successful event helped to cement UBDC's relationship with the BSI - Andrew McHugh, UBDC's Data Services Manager is now a member of two BSI Committees: BSI Committee SDS/2, Smart and sustainable cities and communities and Committee MBD/1, Big data, specifically working on MBD/001/0-/03 Project Communications. As of May 2018 Centre is working with BSI to develop a partnership aimed at producing, piloting and validating an international data management standard, in collaboration with the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city and UK partners including the City Standards Institute and the City of York. |
| Collaborator Contribution | BSI will work with UBDC to extend the impact of our data standards work within the UK and internationally. Collaboration with BSI ensures that UBDC remain in the forefront of discussions and advancements relating to data standardisation, particularly in relation to Smart cities and Big Data. Through shared knowledge via events and committee meetings, UBDC can gain valuable insights into: • the transparency of data activities • engagement with data users, including templates for communication (and 'reasonable expectation') • communications frameworks around data breach and remedies (linking to GDPR requirements) • success stories (benefits) of using data • guidance on providing contextual use of data ("your data will be used for XX"). All of these issues and considerations are vital to be continually up to date when providing a sustainable data service. |
| Impact | Presentations from the data standards event are downloadable from the news story on the UBDC website (and also the Urban Transformations website). The BSI committees are formed of multidisciplinary members and therefore will cover broadly-ranging data standards issues. Membership of BSI Committee SDS/2, Smart and sustainable cities and communities and MBD/1, Big data, specifically working on MBD/001/0-/03 Project Communications, a group working on a standard covering: • transparency of data activities • engagement with data users, including templates for communication (and 'reasonable expectation') • communications frameworks around data breach and remedies (linking to GDPR requirements) • success stories (benefits) of using data • guidance on providing contextual use of data UBDC and BSI delivered a successful event in 2017 exploring the role of standards in implementing future cities, attended by city representatives (national and international), architects and spatial planners and representatives from national statistics institutions including Statistics Netherlands (recorded under Engagement). |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | SASNet Fellowship Programme: Appolo Thankeh, IBM |
| Organisation | IBM |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Private |
| PI Contribution | Apollo Thankeh, Lead Data Scientist from IBM's New York-based Client Financing department, visited BLG for a week in 2017. During this time the research and administrative team at BLG organised two seminars to be presented to faculty and student audiences. Further to this we arranged individual and group meetings for him, offered access to the centre's facilities for him to work with BLG's data scientists and made the necessary logistical arrangements for his trip. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Apollo Thankeh wrote two separate seminars, one geared towards the academic faculty and another at a more introductory level that was presented to students at the business school. In addition, he worked throughout the week with BLG's data scientists where he demonstrated a valuable method for reducing dimensions within a large dataset via a data-reduction algorithm as used at IBM. |
| Impact | This week-long visit sparked interest from researchers and students on the subject of competitive cash flow and provided BLG's team of data scientists with valuable skills in data processing. As a result of the visit, he was invited to return to give a keynote speech at a forthcoming conference on analytics which has the potential to reach big industry figures and see a wider resultant impact. Plans were made for future collaboration with the centre to work on a paper on productivity and artificial intelligence. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | SASNet Fellowship Programme: Carla Bailo, Ohio State University |
| Organisation | Ohio State University |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The SASNet fellowship scheme not only provides a resource to allow the Urban Big Data Centre to offer a range of training and capacity-building events to our networks and wider community of social scientists, it also provides time for the fellow to engage and interact more closely with the centre's research and services. During Carla Bailo's 3-day visit in March, we made arrangements for Carla to meet with UBDC's research and Data Services teams as well as with our stakeholders with interests in smart city innovation. Further to this, a training workshop was arranged titled 'Smart Mobility and Smart Cities - Access & Opportunities' which was attended by a large audience of around 60 people including transport planners, telecommunications consultants and academics from public policy and business (http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/smart-mobility-and-smart-cities-access-opportunities). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Separate meetings with Carla Bailo were set up with several group within UBDC and our local partners and collaborators. A top-level meeting with UBDC management and senior researchers saw discussion on common research aims and how respective research centres are structured. She met with a smaller UBDC research group comprising postdocs and PhD students to share ideas in work relating to Smart Mobility and future transport solutions. Further to this she met Iain Docherty, Professor of Public Policy and Governance from Glasgow's Business School who is leading ongoing development work on the University's Smart Campus. |
| Impact | As indicated above, interest in Smart Technologies span a broad range of disciplines, many of which were reached during Carla Bailo's outreach activities. In addition to the workshop and individual meetings, the visit brought about continues discussion via our social media channels and the presentation has been made available to download via the UBDC website. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | SASNet Fellowship Programme: Dr Anuj Sharma, Iowa State University |
| Organisation | Iowa State University |
| Department | Institute for Transportation |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The SASNet fellowship scheme not only provides a resource to allow the Urban Big Data Centre to offer a range of training and capacity-building events to our networks and wider community of social scientists, it also provides time for the fellow to engage and interact more closely with the centre's research and services. During Dr Sharma's visit, we made several arrangements for him to meet various members of the centre and some key stakeholders to discuss his transport research and aspects of his data management infrastructure. Additionally, we arranged and advertised a training workshop for him to deliver. The workshop was titled 'Data Management for Urban Transport Operations' and attended by approx. 30 people from transport industry and research backgrounds (http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2016/data-management-for-urban-transport-operations/). |
| Collaborator Contribution | During Dr Sharma's 4 day fellowship in Glasgow, he met with 5 different groups, arranged according to their research and data management interests. Future collaborative projects were discussed and knowledge and advice was exchanged. Following the training, Dr Sharma provided a training resource for publicly available download from the UBDC website. |
| Impact | The outcome from this collaboration to date has been in the form of improved capacity within the field of data analytics covered in the training. Additionally, through meetings and networking opportunities that were provided across disciplines including physics, engineering and social sciences, more tangible outputs would be expected in the fullness of time. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | SASNet Fellowship Programme: Dr Jan Kazak, Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences |
| Organisation | University of Wroclaw |
| Country | Poland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | This fellowship was arranged as a result of a successful application to UBDC's SASNet Fellowship Programme (terms described here: http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/sasnet/fellowship-programme/). Jan Kazak, a researcher from the Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences in Poland, worked with our iMCD Household Survey and Travel Diary data on a short project to study aspects of urban design - land use, accessibility of services and facilities and neighbourhood attributes - and the relationship of these aspects to the lifestyles of elderly people. Travel, accommodation and office space was arranged for Jan for his 4-week visit. Members of UBDC's iMCD project oversaw Jan's data analysis work. The UBDC data service team also helped refine Jan's research questions and guided him through the process of gaining access this secure data via eDRIS. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Jan Kazak's work with the iMCD data provided evidence of another interesting use case for this unique data collection. As part of his visit, Jan also ran a half-day workshop titled 'Decision Support Systems in Urban Planning' that demonstrated the application of decision support software models in urban planning and shared the materials via the UBDC website resources page. It was attended by a mixed group of around 25 urban planners, councillors and academics (http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/decision-support-systems-in-urban-planning) |
| Impact | Jan wrote a blog for the UBDC website (as per the link above) to describe the process of working on the project and the support provided by UBDC. He has recently presented this project work at an event at the University of Bristol, 'Health: the Design, Planning and Politics of How and Where We Live' (Jan 25-26), and has a paper based on this submitted for publication to a scientific journal. He continues to expand on this strand of research in collaboration with UBDC. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | SASNet Fellowship Programme: Dr Mirela Causevic, Center for Big Data Statistics (CBDS) |
| Organisation | Statistics Netherlands |
| Country | Netherlands |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | This fellowship was arranged as a result of a successful application to UBDC's SASNet Fellowship Programme (terms described here: http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/sasnet/fellowship-programme/). Mirela Causevic, a data scientist from the Center for Big Data Statistics (CBDS) in the Netherlands, joined UBDC for on a three-week visit in which she engaged with UBDC researchers and data service providers in an exploratory project leading to comparisons of UBDC's UK-based travel and mobility data with official statistics and data resources available to CBDS in the Netherlands. Travel, accommodation and office space was arranged for Mirela and meetings were scheduled throughout her stay with UBDC researchers and the data team. Mirela was given access to a number of UBDC transport and mobility datasets. |
| Collaborator Contribution | As the purpose of Mirela's visit was to help strengthen ties between the two Big Data research centres, her project and subsequent presentation provided a valuable insight into each centre respective areas of expertise and ideas of projects that could benefit from both. CBS' international leadership and inspiring innovation around data makes them a valued partner and UBDC is learning a great deal about priorities and gaps facing evidence-based decision making and about where our Centre's contributions may fit in in a global context. |
| Impact | Following on from Mirela's presentation, she provided the collaborating centres with a summary document detailing common research areas and possible research questions to collaborate on in the future. UBDC and CBS have established a positive working relationship and collaborations such as Mirela's fellowship visit offer further opportunities to share insights, best practice and data. Outputs from Mirela's fellowship visit - and further collaboration with CBS etc - will be detailed on the Partnerships page of the new UBDC website when it launches. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | SASNet Fellowship Programme: Francesca Hogg, Sustrans |
| Organisation | Sustrans |
| Department | Research and Monitoring Unit |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Charity/Non Profit |
| PI Contribution | This fellowship was arranged as a result of a successful application to UBDC's SASNet Fellowship Programme (terms described here: http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/sasnet/fellowship-programme/). It was agreed that Francesca Hogg, an Evaluation Officer at Sustrans' Newcastle office, would work on a 2-month project under the advisement of Mark Livingston (Research Associate, UBDC) to assess the impact on Sustrans' work on school cycling intervention schemes in Scotland. This involved the arrangement of several Skype meetings, visits to the UBDC, access to data, assistance with data linkage and modelling work, use of UBDC equipment and training in mapping software QGIS during UBDC's summer training programme. A workshop was arranged at the end of the fellowship scheme to share the project's findings. This workshop was titled 'Active Travel to School - The Effectiveness of School-based Travel Interventions' and was attended by a varied audience of over 50 people (http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/active-travel-to-school-the-effectiveness-of-school-based-travel-interventions/). |
| Collaborator Contribution | As part of the fellowship agreement, Francesca provided presentations at two of our seminar events. The first was specifically to share the project results (http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/active-travel-to-school-the-effectiveness-of-school-based-travel-interventions/) and the second, to speak at a larger active travel event (http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/data-challenge-demo-day/). The collaboration also let to a data sharing agreement with UBDC planning to host Sustran's iBike, HUSS and cycle counter data via the UBDC Data Service. |
| Impact | Sustrans are producing a case study for the UBDC website to show the impacts of certain interventions relating to active travel to school in Scotland, as a follow up to the collaboration via the SASNet fellowship and their SASNet seminar in October 2017. This is due to be published in March 2018. These results will help to select and refine successful schemes for to encourage improvements to health and transport infrastructure. This collaboration has also led to a blog on gender and active travel, which is planned for late March and ongoing dialogue through events and the data sharing agreement. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | SASNet Fellowship Programme: John Dunning, New Brunswick |
| Organisation | Rutgers University |
| Country | United States |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The Business and Local Government Data Research Centre hosted John Dunning for a 2 day visit in May 2017. We arranged for him to present a seminar entitled 'Movement of Scientists and Measurement of Innovative Activities' to academics within the business school and extended the invitation to the wider regional development network. Further to this we arranged individual and group meetings for him, offered access to the centre's facilities and made the necessary logistical arrangements for his trip. |
| Collaborator Contribution | During John Dunning's visit, he presented at a well-attended seminar to a mixed audience. He devoted much of the rest of his visit to meeting senior and junior academics within Essex's business school to discuss research ideas and potential future collaborative projects. |
| Impact | As a result of the visit, arrangements were made for a junior researcher from the Essex Business School to visit John Dunning's research centre in Brunswick on a 3 week placement in April 2017 to work on a paper on regional growth. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | SASNet Fellowship Programme: Marco Giarratana, University Carlos Tercero |
| Organisation | Charles III University of Madrid |
| Country | Spain |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Arrangements were made for Dr Marco Giarratana to visit for 2 days from Madrid to present to a seminar to an invited audience of economists. Further to this we arranged individual and group meetings for him, offered access to the centre's facilities and made the necessary logistical arrangements for his trip. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Dr Marco Giarratana presented an academic audience-focused seminar entitled 'The Appriability Probability Strategy with Big Data' to around 30 attendees. He dedicated the rest of the time on his visit to meeting with researchers from the BLG and business school to exchange ideas and develop plans for future research. |
| Impact | Following the visit, progress is underway on a joint paper relating to informal appriability strategies using Big Data. He will return in May 2018 to present at another BLG seminar. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | SASNet Fellowship Programme: Prof Pedro Martins, Nova Universidad |
| Organisation | New University of Lisbon |
| Country | Portugal |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | The BLG hosted Prof. Pedro Martins' 2 day visit from Portugal. Prior to his arrival, arrangements were made for him to present a seminar entitled 'Big Data and Counterfactuals' to a mixed academic audience selected from BLG's internal research networks. Further to this we arranged individual and group meetings for him, offered access to the centre's facilities and made the necessary logistical arrangements for his trip. |
| Collaborator Contribution | Prof. Pedro Martins' Presented a seminar and engaged in discussion with researchers from BLG throughout his 2 day visit. |
| Impact | Initial plans were made to jointly pursue this area of research and for future visits to the centre. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | SASNet Fellowship Programme: Rachel Aldred, University of Westminster |
| Organisation | University of Westminster |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | Dr Rachel Aldred, a reader in Transport at the University of Westminster, visited UBDC via the SASNet Fellowship Programme to talk about her research insights into cycling injury risk through a series of meetings that were arranged for her and a seminar. Arrangements for travel and accommodation were made for her for her 3-day visit and 5 meetings were scheduled to allow her to meet with interested parties within UBDC, Glasgow City Council, Sustrans and Glasgow Centre for Population Health. Mark Livingston, a RA at UBDC introduced he to many people actively working in similar research areas and chaired her seminar. |
| Collaborator Contribution | There was a mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and research ideas throughout Rachel's meetings at UBDC and she provided a very well attended seminar. The seminar was titled 'Using Cycling Flow Data to Analyse Injury Risk', attracting an audience of around 60. Active travel and work with Strava data has proven to be a popular topic within UBDC's contact network so the seminar was an excellent opportunity for engagement and to promote UBDC's data service. |
| Impact | Following on from Rachel Aldred's visit Mark Livingston visited the University of Westminster to talk about his UBDC work using Strava Metro data to evaluate cycling interventions. Current collaborative work includes pursuing Strava data for London from TFL to increase UBDC's overall UK coverage for Strava data and UBDC are also in the process of developing some joint research proposals with her. |
| Start Year | 2017 |
| Description | SASNet Fellowship Programme: Steven Ramage, World Meteorological Organization |
| Organisation | World Meteorological Organization |
| Country | Switzerland |
| Sector | Public |
| PI Contribution | The SASNet fellowship scheme not only provides a resource to allow the Urban Big Data Centre to offer a range of training an capacity-building events to our networks and wider community of social scientists, it also provides time for the fellow to engage and interact more closely with the centre's research and services. During Mr Ramage's visit, we made several arrangements for him to meet various members of the centre and some key stakeholders to discuss his variety of advisory roles and future ambitions to broaden the knowledge and use of open geospatial data standards. Additionally, we arranged and advertised a training workshop for him to deliver. The workshop was titled 'An Introduction to Open Geospatial Standards' and attended by approx. 40 people with interests ranging from data security to tourism (http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2016/an-introduction-to-open-geospatial-standards/). |
| Collaborator Contribution | During Steven Ramage's 3-day fellowship in Glasgow, he met with 3 different groups, arranged according to their research interests. Future collaborative projects were discussed and in particularly, one whereby UBDC could expand their open data portal offerings by linking with the data available via the WMO and OGC portals. Discussions relating to the technical delivery of this are ongoing. Following the training, a training resource was made publicly available for download from the UBDC website. |
| Impact | The outcome from this collaboration to date has been in the form of improved capacity within the field of data analytics covered in the training. Additionally through meetings and networking opportunities that were provided during the visit, more tangible outputs would be expected in the fullness of time. As mentioned above, collaboration between our data management team and Mr Ramage in ongoing with a view to consolidating geospatial datasets on our open data portals. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | UBDC research collaboration with Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences (WUELS) |
| Organisation | Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences |
| Country | Poland |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| PI Contribution | UBDC researcher Dr Katarzyna Sila-Nowicka has a research collaboration where she is involved in a set of research projects related to human mobility analysis using big data such as mobile phone records, mobile apps' data etc. They have applied for two grants together, with success on the second one (recorded under Further Funding). |
| Collaborator Contribution | Early findings from the research collaboration were presented at a health conference in Bristol in January 2018 (http://architecturemps.com/bristol-2018 - in Engagement). |
| Impact | Climate-KIC Pathfinder grant (see under Further Funding). Dr Jan Kazak was then invited for a four-month SASNet Fellowship at UBDC in 2017 (in Internships / Fellowships section), where he carried out research using UBDC's iMCD data and presented a workshop and wrote a blog post on his findings. Future publications expexted. |
| Start Year | 2016 |
| Description | Active Travel to School - The Effectiveness of School-based Travel Interventions |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Francesca Hogg from the Sustrans Research and Monitoring Unit presented a seminar of the methodology and findings of research that has been carried out by Sustrans to investigate the relationship between behaviour change interventions and small-scale infrastructure delivery on how children travel to school. The talk focused on research based on active travel to school and on data from primary schools in Scotland using The Hands Up Scotland Survey (HUSS) alongside three years of data on the delivery of interventions by Sustrans and partners, Scottish government data on deprivation and rural/urban categorisation and geo-spatial data. The talk was very well attended and generated considerable interest in her research from local planners and cycling organisations engaged in improving cycling infrastructure. Francesca was subsequently invited back to present at a larger event based on work with Strava data. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/active-trav... |
| Description | An Introduction to Open Geospatial Standards |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Capacity-building workshop delivered by Steven Ramage, an independent advisor to organisations including Ordnance Survey Great Britain, the United Nations and the World Bank on location strategy, policy, innovation and standards. The 4hr workshop discussed topics including: The problem of interoperability, Business value of open standards, Technical approaches for implementing standards and The open standards global community. This event was attended by people from local government, tourism a security company and university researchers and students. As well as providing the audience with a greater understanding of international geospatial standards, the course also led to plans for UBDC to work with the speaker in making more open data streams available through the UBDC data portal. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2016/an-introduc... |
| Description | An Introduction to Social Network Analysis |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In this webinar, Dr Marianna Marra, a lecturer in Management Science at Essex Business School, introduced participants to social network analysis (SNA). It highlighted the importance of SNA in mapping relationships and detecting data patterns in economic and knowledge networks. The webinar is available to view here: https://vimeo.com/194504429 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/socialnetworkwebinar/ |
| Description | Association of American State Highway Transportation Official Joint Policy Conference. Mobility Analytics in the COVID Era: Prospects and Challenges with New Forms of Data and AI. Keynote Address AASHTO 2020 Joint Policy Conference |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This is the keynote address given to the major policy conference of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). The AASHTO is a nonprofit, nonpartisan association representing roads agencies in all 50 US states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. It represents all transport modes, including air, highways, public transportation, active transport, rail, and water. Its primary goal is to foster the development, operation, and maintenance of an integrated national transport system. I had an opportunity to showcase the work done in the Urban Big Data Centre to during my keynote. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Big Data Can Series - Big Data Can Empower Society |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Professor Julien Forder, Director and Professor of Economics of Social Policy at the University of Kent, and co-lead on the supporting vulnerable people research stream at BLG, led this session and was joined by Abraham George, Consultant in Public Health at Kent County Council. The session was to highlight the value of the work carried out by researchers, local authorities, and private sector organisations to make better use of data to improve our day to day lives in areas such as education; healthcare; social care; public sector services, among others. The session can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/242080092 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/bigdatacan/ |
| Description | Big Data Can Series - Big Data Can Enhance the Environment |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Andrew Lovett, Professor of Environment Sciences at the University of East Anglia, and lead on the mapping public access to green infrastructure research stream at BLG, led this session to discuss the large role Big Data are playing in the areas of green infrastructure; agriculture; waste management and renewable energy. The session can be viewed here: https://vimeo.com/236743959. He was joined by: • Mike Rose, WorkSmart programme lead at Defra • Andrew Gadd, Company Manager at Footprint Services • Jo Judge, Chief Executive Officer at National Biodiversity Network |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/bigdatacan/ |
| Description | Big Data Can Series - Big Data Can Evolve Business |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | Jerry Coakley, Professor of Finance at Essex Business School, and deputy Director and co-lead on the local economic growth stream at BLG, led this session and was joined by other experts in this field to discuss their views and experiences on the ways that Big Data can evolve business. Presentations were made available to download via: http://www.blgdataresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/BDC-Event-2-Slides-to-share.pdf |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/bigdatacan/ |
| Description | Big Data Visualisation Tools and Techniques |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | In this seminar, Dr Kamaran Fathulla, Senior Lecturer in Software Development at the University of Chichester Business School, discussed various data visualisation techniques for big data processing, including using Python programming and its Panda data structure to access Twitter data. Attendees gained an understanding of the various tools and techniques with specific insight into the power of Python as a Big Data manipulation tool. The event was attended by people from businesses, local authorities and students and was additionally broadcast University's Southend campus to allow attendees to watch from there. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/sasnet-datavis/ |
| Description | Big Data and Counterfactuals |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Prof. Pedro Martins' seminar, Big Data and Counterfactuals was keenly attended by an audience of around 30 from BLG's close research network. He presented a recent paper on using big data to evaluate counterfactual impact and how the methodologies are applied to regional and economic policy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Competitive Cash Flow |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Apollo Thankeh presented 2 seminars geared individually to faculty and students within the Essex Business School on the subject of competitive cash flow. He demonstrate IBM's AI business platform Watson and how it is utilised to handle complex cash flow and balance sheet problems. Keen discussion resulted in successful networking and plans for future working relationships. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Complex Networks Approaches to Supply Chain Management |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The half-day workshop delivered by Dr Guven Demirel and Professor Vania Sena from the Business and Local Government Data Research Centre gave an introductory overview of supply chain management, and then provided an introduction to basic network concepts and measures, illustrating how these can be used on real-life data. Discussions followed around how complex networks approaches can provide insights on the relationships between the supply chain network structure and the response to disturbances and disruptions. The audience of around 38 was made up largely of university researchers and students but also included interested outside parties from energy and urban planning organisations. Reading materials and guidance for using the demonstrated Gephi visualisation software was provided to attendees. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/complex-net... |
| Description | Data Management for Urban Transport Operations |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The half-day workshop introduced data management methods and modelling for urban transport planning, using specific case studies to illustrate the use of sensors and high-performance computing. The workshop was delivered by renowned leaders in the field of urban informatics, in two focused sessions: 'Macroscopic traffic flow modelling and control of heterogeneous cities with multi-sensor data' and 'Traffic Management Enabled By High Performance Computing'. This event was attended by people from transportation organisations and university researchers and students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2016/data-manage... |
| Description | Data Requirements within International Businesses |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The purpose of this workshop was to bring together academics and people from industry and the public to discuss the benefits of Big Data to businesses worldwide. Six leading academics from across the words (Temple University, Thunderbird (both US), Erasmus (NL), Bremen (DE) and Pretoria (ZA) visited the Essex Business School and led the workshop aiming to raise awareness of how analytics can be used when working in a multinational. It covered specific sessions including: How big data can be used to track the performance of subsidiaries within multinationals and how to develop supply chain management techniques to track performance of a supply chain. The workshop set up several personal contacts as well as developing the international reach of the network as follow-up research proposals are developed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Decision Support Systems in Urban Planning |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dr Jan Kazak, Lecturer in the Department of Spatial Economy, Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences provided a workshop covering Decision Support Systems (DSS)'s use of principles, assumptions and limiting factors in forecasting the future in aspects of spatial planning. Two different tools were presented: Metronamica (based on cellular automata) and CommunityViz (an extension for ArcGIS) in order to compare the different mechanisms of calculations that are used. Jan conducted a series of group exercises allowing attendees to consider the competing factors at play in determining building sites and compared group responses with the DSS algorithm's optimal placements. Jan visited the Urban Big Data Centre for four weeks via the SASNet fellowship programme and worked with UBDC's iMCD data on a short project to study aspects of land use, accessibility and neighbourhood attributes with a focus on lifestyles of elderly people. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/news/2017/november/urban-design-patterns-to-support-independent-living-for-older-p... |
| Description | Discrete Choice Modelling |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Capacity-building seminar delivered by Prof Chandra Bhat, Director of the Center for Transport Research (CTR), Professor of Engineering and Economics at the University of Texas at Austin, and a world-renowned expert in the area of transportation and urban policy design. The seminar was made up of two 1-hour presentations, a general 'Introduction to Discrete Choice Modelling' training lecture followed by presentation of recent research on 'Cause-Effect Relationships in Residential, Auto Ownership, and Activity Choices'. This event was attended by people from transportation organisations and university researchers and students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2016/discrete-ch... |
| Description | EFIc Conference in Banking and Finance |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This 2-day conference was based around the theme of 'Banks and Financial Markets in Times of Uncertainty'. It brought together leading academics, practitioners and policy makers from across banking and finance to hear state-of-the-art research, exchange ideas and network. A symposium provided a forum to reflect on trends in financial and banking markets nearly 10 years since the start of the global financial crisis. BLG Senior Data Manager, Richard Skeggs, held a training session on Python packages for finance and a parallel session titled 'Big data and local economic growth' gave an opportunity for invited researchers to discuss their recent papers on the subject. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/event-efic-conference-in-banking-and-finance/ |
| Description | Engagement with Sheffield City Region, SY Transport Executive and University of Sheffield |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Fortnightly meetings with Sheffield City Region, SY Transport Executive and University of Sheffield to discuss use of analytics for transport policy, Sheffield, June 2021-June 2022. (V Sena) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| Description | International Expert Committee for the Canada Foundation for Innovation (Smart Cities) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | The Canada Foundation for Innovation was created by the Government of Canada to increase capacity of Canadian institutions to carry out world-leading science and innovation. It carries out a merit-review process that relies on experts from across Canada and around the world to ensure that only the best projects receive funding. The smart cities panel which I chaired evaluated several proposals led by leading Canadian universities in collaboration with large national and international companies and government agencies to establish smart cities projects. Other panelists were from Canada, EU and Australia. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | International Statistical Institute (ISI) Panel |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Talk and discussion at panel at International Statistical Institute (ISI) Annual Meeting. I was am invited speaker and discussant, 63rd World Statistics Congress. The title of my talk was "Partnerships with official statistical agencies: an academic perspective on experimental statistics." The panel was organized by Statistics Netherlands, with participation of Mexican National Statistical Office. The panel met on June 22, 2021. The outcome was a discussion on better ideas of how official statistical agencies can better engage with universities, |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Introduction of the use of Big Data (Finance) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This workshop was delivered by Neil Kellard, professor in Finance from the Essex Business School. The session was part of the The Essex Big Data and Analytics Summer School 2016. The Summer Schools aims were to provide a research training event and forum for knowledge exchange and networking for graduates, postgraduates, researchers, academics and business professionals in the emerging fields of Big Data, Data Science and Analytics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.brclasssoc.org.uk/EssexBigDataAnalyticsSummerSchool_Sept2016.pdf |
| Description | Keynote address at Annual meeting of the International Association of Chinese Planners. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Keynote address at Annual meeting of the International Association of Chinese Planners. The title of my keynote was "Urban Informatics and Aspirations for Evidence-Based Decision Making and Community Engagement in a Post-Pandemic World." The keynote address was given virtually to over a thousand attendees worldwide on September 10, 2021. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| Description | Logistics and Big Data |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This was a workshop for execs from the logistics industry. Around 30 attendees: 20 from the industry and 10 from academia. Work for the Felixtowne Port was presented by researchers from BLG. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2008,2016 |
| Description | Michael Keith Seminar: The Future of the Future City? |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This capacity-building seminar was provided by guest speaker Michael Keith, Director of COMPAS, Co-ordinator of Urban Transformations (The ESRC portfolio of investments and research on cities), and Co-Director of the University of Oxford Future of Cities programme. The talk considered the historical contingency of claims made around urban futures and the manner in which we might measure the 'future city' with its deterministic dimensions, emergent forms and ethical dilemmas. There were requests from Glasgow City Council to engage further with Michael Keith on his views of the future of urbanisation. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/michael-kei... |
| Description | Modelling City Centres - LGA event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This was a workshop for reps from local governments (60 attendees from LGA and 20 from academia). Work relating to modelling the growth of the high street was presented by researchers from BLG. This workshop led to the development of a project with Cambridge City Council re town planning and smart cities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| Description | Mortality Estimation and Forecasting With Smoothing and Overdispersion |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Peter W. F. Smith, Professor of Social Statistics at the University of Southampton, delivered this seminar detailing proposals of a comprehensive mortality modelling framework, which overcomes several of the limitations associated with existing approaches.This seminar was aimed at attendees interested in estimating and forecasting mortality rates as well as statistical modelling or population processes more generally. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/sasnetseminarmortality/ |
| Description | Movement of Scientists and Measurement of Innovative Activities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | The seminar was attended predominantly by around 30 senior and junior academics within the business school with particular research interests in regional development. Q&A and general discussion followed. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | National Science Foundation Workshop on Sustainable Urban Systems, NSF and Ohio State University, Portland State University, University of Minnesota |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Urban Informatics and Smart Mobility in Future Cities: Prospects and Challenges with New Forms of Data and AI. Keynote speech. July 16, 2019. The keynote led to questions on building smart and socially-just cyberinfrastructure activities that supports regional planning on transport, economic development, labour markets and other areas. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2019 |
| URL | https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1929927&HistoricalAwards=false |
| Description | New Alternative Finance Funds for SMEs: A Breakfast Event |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | A breakfast event to spread awareness of new funding sources was organised to coincide with a time when many successful SMEs were struggling to raise funds from traditional sources. Professor Jerry Coakley from the Essex Business School and Deputy Director of the BLG Centre introduced the session, and was joined by Max Harvey from MarketInvoice, a market leader in invoice trading and Dan Jones from SyndicateRoom, representating market leading organisations in the area of alternative finance. . They outlined their respective offerings and provided attendees with details on steps and information needed for successful funding applications.The audience included SMEs, accounting and law professionals, business organisations, LEPs and local councils. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/financebreakfast/ |
| Description | New Sources of Data for Social Science Research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | SASNet helped bring together the major UK ESRC data and methods services to host an event in Glasgow aimed at researchers interested in updating their knowledge about social science research using these new forms of data. These services included: The Administrative Data Research Network, BLGDRC, CALLS-Hub, Centre for Longitudinal Studies, CDRC, CLOSER, NCRM, UBDC, UK Data Service and Understanding Society. After introducing the audience to these services and their specialisms, there were 3 themed interactive sessions that covered new data advancements in Administrative, Biomarker and Big Data. Following the success of this popular event, it was repeated in the same format in London in early 2018. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/new-sources... |
| Description | Princeton University, Princeton. Aspirations for a Better Post-Pandemic World. Princeton-Panelist Remarks Princeton-Mellon Foundation, Oct 21, 2020 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | An invited presentation for an international scholarly audience in Princeton University. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Real-time Optimisation of Mobile Facilities in Public Service Delivery |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Capacity-building seminar delivered by Dr Soheil Davari, Lecturer in Supply Chain Management at Hertfordshire Business School on 'Real-time Optimisation of Mobile Facilities in Public Service Delivery'. The hour-long seminar presented the speaker's research into how mobile communication devices such as smartphones improve real-time decision-making and response rates using examples from healthcare and security public services. This event was attended by people from transportation organisations and university researchers and students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2016/sasnet-semi... |
| Description | SASNet Training Seminar:Complex Networks Approaches to Supply Chain Management |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | In this training course, Dr Guven Demirel and Professor Vania Sena gave an introductory overview of supply chain management, and provided an introduction to basic network concepts and measures, illustrating how these can be used on real-life data. They discussed how complex networks approaches can provide insights on the relationships between the supply chain network structure and the response to disturbances and disruptions. They investigated dynamical as well as structural properties of supply chain networks and their implications for stability. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/sasnetseminarsupplychain/ |
| Description | SHAPING DATA STANDARDS FOR FUTURE CITIES - Urban Transformations Event report |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Urban Transformations featured this detailed report by UBDC Business and Communications Offcier Rhiannon Law on their blog. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.urbantransformations.ox.ac.uk/blog/2017/shaping-data-standards-for-future-cities/ |
| Description | Seminars and meetings with SY Office for Data Analytics, with Sheffield City Region, Sheffield |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Weekly seminars and meetings with the SY Office for Data Analytics, with Sheffield City Region, Sheffield, June 2021-June 2022, by V Sena. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| Description | Shaping Data Standards for Future Cities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Policymakers/politicians |
| Results and Impact | the Urban Big Data Centre, in collaboration with the British Standards Institution (BSI) - hosted a workshop event to highlight how data standards can support the widespread adoption of common approaches to the implementation of products and services in future cities. The audience at 'Shaping Data Standards for Future Cities' heard presentations on how standards are developed, the new data sharing framework for UK smart cities, and the role of the citizen in guiding smart city standards. There were also case studies from Peterborough, Glasgow, Eindhoven and Helsinki. The presentations sparked lively discussions on topics such as data sharing and access, the role of citizens, smart city leadership and the Internet of Things. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/news/2017/june/shaping-data-standards-for-future-cities/ |
| Description | Smart Mobility and Smart Cities - Access and Opportunities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Carla Bailo, Assistant Vice President of Mobility Research and Business Development at Ohio State University, gave a talk introducing her leading work on sustainable mobility and transport innovation with particular focus on OSU's role in the huge $140M City of Columbus project. The presentation detailed the vast future policy, legal and wider societal implications of these advances in Smart technology for mobility with reference to the Columbus project's ongoing pilot testing of autonomous vehicles. Following the presentation there was discussion among the varied group of attendees (including postgraduate students, councillors and transportation company representatives) over potential UK impacts on these advances. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/smart-mobil... |
| Description | Statistics and Data Science in the Digital Age Seminar Series |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This regular seminar series covered a multitude of subjects relating to big data and modern advances in data science. Examples of the sessions included 'A new method for data linkage and analysis of linked data' presented by Professor Harvey Goldstein; 'Making sense of big healthcare data - analysing longevity' and 'Forecasting with Social Media: Evidence from Tweets on Soccer Matches'. Sessions were held at the University of Essex's Colchester Campus and the University of East Anglia. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/event-seminar-series-statistics-and-data-science-in-the-digital-age/ |
| Description | Survival Benefits of Statins: An overview of the Research |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In this webinar, Lisanne Gitsels, postdoctoral researcher in Statistics at the University of East Anglia, discussed her research into the effects of statin prescription on mortality in the population of England and Wales, explaining the reasons for carrying out the study, how the research was conducted, as well as the findings and how these can be applied in "real-life" scenarios.The webinar is available to view online at: https://vimeo.com/218448645 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/statinswebinar/ |
| Description | The Alternative Finance Revolution |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In this webinar Professor Jerry Coakley, Professor at the Essex Business School and Deputy Director of the Business and Local Government Data Research Centre, discussed new approaches to banking (challenger banks) and digital currencies as he analysed the 'alternative finance' phenomenon and argued that it marks the beginning of a revolution in the financing of small businesses in the UK. The webinar is available to view online at: https://vimeo.com/219689038 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/financewebinar/ |
| Description | The Appriability Probability Strategy with Big Data |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dr Marco Giarratana presented an academic audience-focused seminar entitled 'The Appriability Probability Strategy with Big Data' to around 30 attendees. The seminar illustrated strategies used to protect the IP of innovative ideas in Big Data. The seminar was well received and a follow-up was planned for 2018. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| Description | Transforming Data into Actionable Intelligence: Health and Social Care |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Regional |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This workshop was designed to explain and showcase NHS Scotland's Information Services Division (ISD) and their innovative ways of utilising data and information to support operational and strategic areas and to empower and increase health and well-being for the people across Scotland. A large attendance including academics, healthcare professionals and statisticians from the Scottish Government learn how ISD are linking data and information from a variety of sources both locally and nationally to support the improvement of health and well-being. Discussion followed where examples were cited from data used by attendees from the session and how they could better link and make use of ISD's resources. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/transformin... |
| Description | Transport Data Modelling, Simulation and Big Data |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Capacity-building seminar consisting of two 1-hour sessions presented by Devrim Kara, Director, PTV Group UK, covering the use of 'Big Data' for improving transport networks and research into the implications of autonomous vehicles in cities and the value of transport simulations. Dr Wei Liu, Lecturer in Transportation Engineering at the University of Glasgow then presented his research into use of parking simulations to demonstrate possible improvements in efficiency and strategic planning. This event was attended by approximately 35 people from transportation organisations, urban planners, an energy provider and university researchers and students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2016/transport-d... |
| Description | UBDC and CBDS Research Collaboration Seminar |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Mirela Causevic, who visited UBDC for a 3 week fellowship, presented a session where she discussed work being carried out at Statistics Netherlands, mainly in the context of the CBDS - the Centre for Big Data Statistics. She described the findings from the exploratory project that she was engaged in during her visit leading to some comparisons of UBDC's UK-based travel and mobility data with official statistics and data resources available to CBDS in the Netherlands. The talk then provided the opportunity for more general discussion on possible directions for collaboration between CBDS and UBDC, and potential mutual research interests based on her knowledge gained through her brief visit here. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.cbs.nl/en-gb/corporate/2017/46/urban-big-data-center-glasgow-and-cbs-sharing-expertise |
| Description | UK Office of National Statistics Data Science Campus |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Connected work as Associate Editor of Harvard Data Science Review to the ONS Data Science Campus and raised awareness of a potential contribution by the campus of an article on capacity-building towards data science competencies for non-statistical or computational professionals. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2020 |
| Description | Understanding Local Modelling |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Capacity-building training seminar on the concepts and processes for local modelling of spatial data. 'Understanding Local Modelling' was provided via our SASNet Fellowship Programme and consisted of two presentations from Stewart Fotheringham, Professor of Computational Spatial Science in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. The seminar began with 'Local Modelling' - A short course introducing the importance of local modelling and when to choose such models and was followed by 'My model's bigger than yours' a lecture describing the speaker's ongoing research using two similar modelling types. An audience of around 30 were in attendance made up of transport and city planners as well as university researchers and students. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2016/understandi... |
| Description | University of Essex Summer School in Analytics: An Introduction to Agent Based Modelling (ABM) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In this session, as part of the SASNet-sponsored data analytics summer school, Dr Peter Barbrook-Johnson, from the Policy Studies Institute at the University of Westminster, and Dr Kavin Narasimhan, from the University of Surrey, provided attendees with a basic understanding of agent based modelling, and then allowed attendees to explore the NetLogo modelling software for themselves with several short lab exercises. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/blgsummerschool2017/ |
| Description | Urban Informatics and Cities |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This 90 minute capacity building course was delivered by Prof Vonu Thakuriah, Director of UBDC to an audience at the Business and Local Government Data Research Centre in Essex. The course described emerging sources of urban Big Data, and their use in Urban Informatics, along with the challenges that arise. It was attended by an audience of university researchers and students who were subsequently provided with research papers and further reading materials in the days following the course. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2016/urban-infor... |
| Description | Using Big Data to Inform Care Policy |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Professor Julien Forder delivered a training seminar discussing the main methodological and practical issues relating to the information governance of social care policy. The presentation covered examples of what can be done using secondary analysis of big data in this field. It seminar was aimed at Local Authorities and Academics to provide an understanding of what can be done using secondary analysis of big data to inform policy regarding social care. Julien Forder is Professor of the Economics of Social Policy and Deputy Director of PSSRU at the University of Kent and a Principal Research Fellow at the London School of Economics. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2016 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/sasnet-care/ |
| Description | Using Cycling Flow Data to Analyse Injury Risk |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Dr Rachel Aldred, a reader in Transport at the University of Westminster, visited UBDC to talk about her research insights into cycling injury risk using data such as Strava. Rachel introduced the use of the case-control method to study cycling injury risk, comparing this to case-crossover approaches. After outlining some examples, she described her pilot case-control study of cycling injury risk in London in 2013-4, including dataset issues and results and then discussed strengths and weaknesses of the methods. Following the seminar, Rachel stayed in Glasgow to meet with research groups within UBDC and with UBDC's collaborators including the Centre for Population Health, Glasgow City Council and MRC to discuss possible next steps in the expansion of this research. Current plans are to develop some joint research proposals and pursue access to London Strava data via TFL. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://ubdc.ac.uk/outreach-plus-training/events-workshops-training-more/past-events-2017/using-cycli... |
| Description | Using Python to Access and Manipulate Big Data |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In this webinar Dr. Kamaran Fathulla, Senior Lecturer at the University of Chichester Business School, demonstrated the power and versatility of the Python programming language to access, manipulate, and visualise Twitter data. Those who attended gained an understanding of the programming constructs and techniques used to tap into Twitter data. The webinar is available to view online at: https://vimeo.com/218448452 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2017 |
| URL | http://www.blgdataresearch.org/pythonwebinar/ |