Opportunities in Citizen Science research

There are three PhD studentships and a postdoc position that have opened recently here at the Chorley Institute where I work, specifically in the newly started:

… ‘Extreme Citizen Science’ (ExCiteS) research group. The group’s activities focus on the theory, methodologies, techniques and tools that are needed to allow any community to start its own bottom-up citizen science activity, regardless of the level of literacy of the users. Importantly, Citizen Science is understood in the widest sense, including perceptions and views – so participatory mapping and participatory geographic information are integral parts of the activities.

more information at the original post on Muki’s blog: A postdoctoral position and 3 PhD studentships in Extreme Citizen Science « Po Ve Sham – Muki Haklay’s personal blog.

Manifold GIS – a year on

About one year ago, I posted a crude analysis of the forum participation numbers here, along with a brief analysis of what this might mean in terms of Manifold’s future business development. I argued that Manifold as a company was stuck in a limbo with stagnating growth while supposed release dates for the new Version 9 were coming and going.

One year on, I reran the analysis on forum participation, and to my regret, not much has changed with a continued fall in user form posts. Forum contribution numbers have now in March 2011 reached the level of mid-2006. 2006 of course marked the release of  Manifold 7.0, which first introduced significant entreprise level features into the product, and which the graph reflected in an impressive spike in forum participation numbers.

Apart from the near stasis in which Manifold 8.0 now is, with some intermittent bug fix updates still provided, other developments have also impacted community participation. Significantly, after a period in January 2011 of intense discussion on the forum, Manifold introduced a new set of forum posting rules that effectively now limit the discussion on technical issues, precluding any discussion of Manifold’s business practices and company developments. Also, copyright infringement claims were logged against various individuals that set up independent Manifold community hubs on sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn (disclosure: I am the administrator of the LinkedIn Manifold user group), resulting in the closure of the Facebook page.

These tightening of business practices interestingly coincided with the apparent transferral of Manifold’s business address from CDA International, based in Carson City, Nevada, to a new company, Manifold Software Limited, with headquarters in Hong-Kong.

What can be a conclusion from all this? As it stands, not much has changed, and although Manifold 8.0 is still as good a product as four years ago, one can only wonder if there will ever be another significant update? Manifold’s competitors are also catching up, and significantly offering new developments in web-based services, an area which Manifold has left to third-party developers to further develop so far. Also some of the key technical advantages of Manifold are eroding, for example true 64bit operation in ESRI’s ArcGIS 10.1, weakening Manifold’s claims of technical superiority.

WhereCampEU London – a great success

First day back in the office after an exhausting weekend attending the WhereCampEU unconference here in London.  The conference was really well organised, with great venues and food, and all that at zero cost thanks to very generous sponsors and a great bunch of volunteers! Also thanks for the free beer at Smithy’s sponsored by Axon Active, I thoroughly enjoyed the pub evening.

Attendants came from over 13 different countries, with public and private sector attendants, web2.0 startups, core OpenStreetMap people and a strong presence of academics, specifically UCL!

Slowly, people seem to be uploading their presentations to the wiki, allowing a more complete view of the content presented. Altough in retrospect, I might have made some bad decisions regarding which sessions to attend, my conference highlights included definitely the Skobbler presentation, the Zen of Map Quality , and Steven Feldman’s business model workshops. On the Saturday afternoon, Bob Barr passionate analysis of the current and future state of the Ordnance Survey made for a great closure to the conference. I didn’t make it to the post conference drinks on Saturday.

Overall, I would have wished for less Openstreetmap presentations, at times it felt like a dress rehearsal for the SOTM2010 !!! But, I will definitely return to WhereCampEU 2011, as it is a great opportunity to network with a wide array of relevant players in the geoweb industry and OSM community.