Papers by Vyron (Byron) Antoniou
Proceedings - Academy of Management, Aug 1, 2020
Citizen Science (CS) projects involve members of the general public as active participants in res... more Citizen Science (CS) projects involve members of the general public as active participants in research. While some advocates hope that CS can increase scientific knowledge production ("productivity view"), others emphasize that it may bridge a perceived gap between science and the broader society ("democratization view"). We discuss how an integration of both views can allow Citizen Science to support complex sustainability transitions in areas such as renewable energy, public health, or environmental conservation. We first identify three pathways through which such impacts can occur: (1) Problem identification and agenda setting; (2) Resource mobilization; and (3) Facilitating socio-technical co-evolution. To realize this potential, however, CS needs to address important challenges that emerge especially in the context of sustainability transitions: Increasing the diversity, level, and intensity of participation; addressing the social as well as technical nature of sustainability problems; and reducing tensions between CS and the traditional institution of academic science. Grounded in a review of academic literature and policy reports as well as a broad range of case examples, this article contributes to scholarship on science, innovation, and sustainability transitions. We also offer insights for actors involved in initiating or institutionalizing Citizen Science efforts, including project organizers, funding agencies, and policy makers.
Citizen science, 2023
This paper focuses on two prominent efforts tackling global problems, namely the UN Sustainable D... more This paper focuses on two prominent efforts tackling global problems, namely the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework (SF). To achieve the aims sought by these initiatives or to observe and measure their effectiveness and progress, accurate and up-to-date information is needed. An important part of this information refers to geographic information (GI). GI is the fundamental underpinning element that spans the globe, captures time, and functions as the common denominator of many variables and data from other domains. Herein, several enabling factors related to GI are highlighted, and their intertwining impact is examined relative to the aims of SDGs and SF. These factors are Earth observation (EO) imagery enhanced with the advances in machine learning (ML), citizen science (CS), and volunteered geographic information (VGI). The synergy of these factors can be used to bring, on the one hand, the high-level policies and discourse from a theoretical level down to more practical implementations, and on the other hand, enable individual and localized efforts to scale up easily in both developed and developing countries and produce the desired results.
European Handbook of Crowdsourced Geographic Information, 2016
This contribution starts from the assumption that volunteered geographic information is a technol... more This contribution starts from the assumption that volunteered geographic information is a technological, cultural and scientific innovation. It therefore offers first some general background on the context that has fuelled the development of VGI and the lively scientific debates that have accompanied its success. The paper then focuses on the nature of this data by describing the main elements of VGI: the geographical reference (coordinates, geotag, etc.), the contents (texts, images, etc.) and the producers' profiles. The opportunities and the criticalities offered by this data are described with examples drawn from recent literature and applications to highlight both the research challenges and the current state of the subject. The chapter aims to provide a guide to and a reference picture of this rapidly evolving subject.
WG5 Deliverable 1 – Citizen-science ontology. A WG5's specific objective was to help develop ... more WG5 Deliverable 1 – Citizen-science ontology. A WG5's specific objective was to help develop an ontology of citizen-science projects (including a vocabulary of concepts and metadata) to support data sharing among citizen-science projects. WG5 coordinated with activities on data and service interoperability carried out in Europe, Australia and the USA (e.g., the CSA's international Data and Metadata Working Group [http://www.citizenscience.org/association/about/working-groups/data-and-metadata-working-group/]), and took into account existing standards.
Mapping and the Citizen Sensor, 2017
Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) are a special category of data hubs that involve technologica... more Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDIs) are a special category of data hubs that involve technological and human resources and follow well defined legal and technical procedures to collect, store, manage and distribute spatial data. INSPIRE is the EU's authoritative SDI in which each Member State provides access to their spatial data across a wide spectrum of data themes to support policy-making. In contrast, Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is one type of user-generated geographic information (GI) where volunteers use the How to cite this book chapter:
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 2016
Geo-tagged photographs are used increasingly as a source of Volunteered Geographic Information (V... more Geo-tagged photographs are used increasingly as a source of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI), which could potentially be used for land use and land cover applications. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the feasibility of using this source of spatial information for three use cases related to land cover: Calibration, validation and verification. We first provide an inventory of the metadata that are collected with geo-tagged photographs and then consider what elements would be essential, desirable, or unnecessary for the aforementioned use cases. Geo-tagged photographs were then extracted from Flickr, Panoramio and Geograph for an area of London, UK, and classified based on their usefulness for land cover mapping including an analysis of the accompanying metadata. Finally, we discuss protocols for geo-tagged photographs for use of VGI in relation to land cover applications.
Mobile Information Systems Leveraging Volunteered Geographic Information for Earth Observation, 2017
Volunteered geographic information (VGI) eloquently sums a wide variety of activities that genera... more Volunteered geographic information (VGI) eloquently sums a wide variety of activities that generate geospatial content. While this content has taken many forms this chapter focuses on data sets that are used in the context of geographical citizen science projects. Citizen science covers a wide range of activities which in essence empowers communities to act on available or newly gathered data. However, there are issues of concern when it comes to the volunteers’ capacity to support a sustainable flow of appropriate data. In this context, this chapter immerses into one of the major factors that play a crucial role in the development of geographical citizen science: data quality. We first discuss the characteristics of VGI and then use this experience on citizen science project that has as a basic component the collection of geographic information. We present the quality challenges that such projects can face, and we discuss in a step-by-step mode best practices that can enhance data quality.
The appearance of OpenStreetMap (OSM) in 2004 sparked a phenomenon known as Volunteered Geographi... more The appearance of OpenStreetMap (OSM) in 2004 sparked a phenomenon known as Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). Today, VGI comes in many flavours (e.g. toponyms, GPS tracks, geo-tagged photos, micro-blogging or complete topographic maps) and from various sources. One subject that has attracted research interest from the early days of VGI is how good such datasets are and how to combine them with authoritative datasets. To this end, the paper explores three intertwined subjects from a quality point of view First, we examine the topo-semantic consistency of OSM data by evaluating a number of rules between polygonal and linear features and then paying special attention to quality of Points of Interest (POIs). A number of topo-semantic rules will be used to evaluate the valididy of features’ location. The focus then turns to the use of geo-tagged photos to evaluate the location and type of OSM data and to disambiguate topological issues that arise when different OSM layers overlap.
This chapter explores growing and important trends within citizen sensing, especially those linke... more This chapter explores growing and important trends within citizen sensing, especially those linked to major initiatives that form citizens' observatories and address novel ways to engage citizens in science and environmental policymaking. On the basis of providing an overview of existing and planned citizen science and citizens' observatories programmes, this chapter identifies areas where citizen science and citizens' observatories have actively contributed to, and can be expected to see further development in, the formation of various policies in Europe. Furthermore, this chapter considers the motivations for developing citizen science and citizens' observatories and how these initiatives can contribute to awareness raising and decision support systems. We address key challenges and development needs for policy-and decision-making within the context of widespread and accessible citizen science and of the activities of citizen observatories.
Remote Sensing, 2020
This paper presents an end-to-end methodology that can be used in the disaster response process. ... more This paper presents an end-to-end methodology that can be used in the disaster response process. The core element of the proposed method is a deep learning process which enables a helicopter landing site analysis through the identification of soccer fields. The method trains a deep learning autoencoder with the help of volunteered geographic information and satellite images. The process is mostly automated, it was developed to be applied in a time- and resource-constrained environment and keeps the human factor in the loop in order to control the final decisions. We show that through this process the cognitive load (CL) for an expert image analyst will be reduced by 70%, while the process will successfully identify 85.6% of the potential landing sites. We conclude that the suggested methodology can be used as part of a disaster response process.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2019
Citizen Science (CS) projects involve members of the general public as active participants in res... more Citizen Science (CS) projects involve members of the general public as active participants in research. While some advocates hope that CS can increase scientific knowledge production ("productivity view"), others emphasize that it may bridge a perceived gap between science and the broader society ("democratization view"). We discuss how an integration of both views can allow Citizen Science to support complex sustainability transitions in areas such as renewable energy, public health, or environmental conservation. We first identify three pathways through which such impacts can occur: (1) Problem identification and agenda setting; (2) Resource mobilization; and (3) Facilitating socio-technical co-evolution. To realize this potential, however, CS needs to address important challenges that emerge especially in the context of sustainability transitions: Increasing the diversity, level, and intensity of participation; addressing the social as well as technical nature of sustainability problems; and reducing tensions between CS and the traditional institution of academic science. Grounded in a review of academic literature and policy reports as well as a broad range of case examples, this article contributes to scholarship on science, innovation, and sustainability transitions. We also offer insights for actors involved in initiating or institutionalizing Citizen Science efforts, including project organizers, funding agencies, and policy makers.
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 2017
Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is a growing area of research. This Special Issue aims t... more Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) is a growing area of research. This Special Issue aims to capture the main trends in VGI research based on 16 original papers, and distinguishes between two main areas, i.e., those that deal with the characteristics of VGI and those focused on applications of VGI. The topic of quality assessment and assurance dominates the papers on VGI characteristics, whereas application-oriented work covers three main domains: human behavioral analysis, natural disasters, and land cover/land use mapping. In this Special Issue, therefore, both the challenges and the potentials of VGI are addressed.
ISPRS Annals of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, 2015
This contribution has been peer-reviewed. The double-blind peer-review was conducted on the basis... more This contribution has been peer-reviewed. The double-blind peer-review was conducted on the basis of the full paper.
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 2017
With the opening up of the Landsat archive, global high resolution land cover maps have begun to ... more With the opening up of the Landsat archive, global high resolution land cover maps have begun to appear. However, they often have only a small number of high level land cover classes and they are static products, corresponding to a particular period of time, e.g., the GlobeLand30 (GL30) map for 2010. The OpenStreetMap (OSM), in contrast, consists of a very detailed, dynamically updated, spatial database of mapped features from around the world, but it suffers from incomplete coverage, and layers of overlapping features that are tagged in a variety of ways. However, it clearly has potential for land use and land cover (LULC) mapping. Thus the aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the OSM can be converted into a LULC map and how this OSM-derived LULC map can then be used to first update the GL30 with more recent information and secondly, enhance the information content of the classes. The technique is demonstrated on two study areas where there is availability of OSM data but in locations where authoritative data are lacking, i.e., Kathmandu, Nepal and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The GL30 and its updated and enhanced versions are independently validated using a stratified random sample so that the three maps can be compared. The results show that the updated version of GL30 improves in terms of overall accuracy since certain classes were not captured well in the original GL30 (e.g., water in Kathmandu and water/wetlands in Dar es Salaam). In contrast, the enhanced GL30, which contains more detailed urban classes, results in a drop in the overall accuracy, possibly due to the increased number of classes, but the advantages include the appearance of more detailed features, such as the road network, that becomes clearly visible.
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 2017
With the development of location-aware devices and the success and high use of Web 2.0 techniques... more With the development of location-aware devices and the success and high use of Web 2.0 techniques, citizens are able to act as sensors by contributing geographic information. In this context, data quality is an important aspect that should be taken into account when using this source of data for different purposes. The goal of the paper is to analyze the quality of crowdsourced data and to study its evolution over time. We propose two types of approaches: (1) use the intrinsic characteristics of the crowdsourced datasets; or (2) evaluate crowdsourced Points of Interest (POIs) using external datasets (i.e., authoritative reference or other crowdsourced datasets), and two different methods for each approach. The potential of the combination of these approaches is then demonstrated, to overcome the limitations associated with each individual method. In this paper, we focus on POIs and places coming from the very successful crowdsourcing project: OpenStreetMap. The results show that the proposed approaches are complementary in assessing data quality. The positive results obtained for data matching show that the analysis of data quality through automatic data matching is possible but considerable effort and attention are needed for schema matching given the heterogeneity of OSM and the representation of authoritative datasets. For the features studied, it can be noted that change over time is sometimes due to disagreements between contributors, but in most cases the change improves the quality of the data.
ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 2016
A protocol for the collection of vector data in Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) projects... more A protocol for the collection of vector data in Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) projects is proposed. VGI is a source of crowdsourced geographic data and information which is comparable, and in some cases better, than equivalent data from National Mapping Agencies (NMAs) and Commercial Surveying Companies (CSC). However, there are many differences in how NMAs and CSC collect, analyse, manage and distribute geographic information to that of VGI projects. NMAs and CSC make use of robust and standardised data collection protocols whilst VGI projects often provide guidelines rather than rigorous data collection specifications. The proposed protocol addresses formalising the collection and creation of vector data in VGI projects in three principal ways: by manual vectorisation; field survey; and reuse of existing data sources. This protocol is intended to be generic rather than being linked to any specific VGI project. We believe that this is the first protocol for VGI vector data collection that has been formally described in the literature. Consequently, this paper shall serve as a starting point for ongoing development and refinement of the protocol.
European Handbook of Crowdsourced Geographic Information, 2016
The paper presents empirical research on the quality of the toponyms that can be retrieved from O... more The paper presents empirical research on the quality of the toponyms that can be retrieved from OpenStreetMap (OSM) under the purpose of enriching authoritative toponymic databases and gazetteers. An analysis on the volatility of places and points-of-interest (POIs) is presented. We examine how named features behave and change in terms of type, name and location. The challenge is to understand the behavior and consequently the fitness-for-purpose of OSM data when it comes to a possible use and integration with authoritative datasets. We show that, depending on the OSM feature type, the volatility can vary considerably and we elucidate which feature types are consistent, and thus could be used in authoritative gazetteers despite their grassroots nature and if there are spatial patterns behind the location changes of features during their lifespan.
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Papers by Vyron (Byron) Antoniou