For anyone heading to the 2012 Canadian Association of Geographers Annual Meeting in Waterloo (May 28 – June 2), I am co-hosting (with Dr. Rob Feick) two sessions on VGI and GIScience 2.0. The session are called “TECHNOLOGY, SCIENCE AND CITIZENS: GIScience 2.0 and the role of volunteered geographic information”. The first session is from 1:30-3:00 on Wednesday May 30th, and the second is from 3:30 – 5:00 on the same day. Both sessions are being held in the Peters building, room 1013, on Laurier University campus. Here is a list of abstracts being presented:

Session One

Wednesday 1:30 to 3:00, Peters 1013

1. Shayne Wright, University of British Columbia Okanagan, “Access, Engagement and Change: Characteristics for Indentifying Community Participation on the Geospatial Web.”

2. Michael G. Leahy, ESRi Canada, “The influence of Participation Format on VGI Creation and Collaboration in a PPGIS.”

3. Jonathan Cinnamon, Simon Fraser University, “Volunteered Geographic Information and the data- divide.”

4. Michael Martin, University of British Columbia, “Online Volunteerism, Geographers and the Global South: Recognizing Opportunity and Reality with Mapping across Borders.”

Session Two

5. Samantha Brennan, University of British Columbia Okanagan, “Igniting Interest in Online Participatory Mapping: VGI and Forest Fire Impacts.”

6. Richard Kelly, University of Waterloo, “The Snowtweets Project: crowdsourcing snow information using social media.”

7. Peter A. Johnson, McGill University, “How Sustainable is the Geoweb?”

Hope to see you there!