Date/Time
Date(s) - 01/09/2016
11:10 am - 12:50 pm
Categories No Categories
The Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) will host a panel session at this year’s prestigious Royal Geographical Society Annual International Conference.
The panel session will explore some of the challenges and opportunities associated with the use of traditional and new forms of data for understanding human activities. Increasingly, researchers are considering the possibilities offered by large ‘informal’ datasets such as Twitter feeds as alternatives or complements to large scale survey data sources such as the Census. In addition, data sources collected by non-governmental organisations (for example, retailers) are being used to capture diverse aspects of human behaviour such as spending patterns. More ‘traditional’ approaches to quantitative population geography have focused on large scale ‘official’ datasets which are generally considered to be of high quality.
However, issues of spatial aggregation, change through time, and the common focus on residential geographies have limited the kinds of questions which researchers have asked. Newly available data sources may have, for example, a high temporal and spatial granularity and thus may overcome some of these problems, but there remain major issues of bias and lack of quality assurance. This session will seek to consider how this rich array of data sources can best be used and how far integration of these sources could properly capture the ways in which individuals live their daily lives. Possible questions include: How far do ‘alternative’ sources tell us something useful about the population collectively? What role will official survey data play in a context of rich purpose-specific large spatial data sets? How far will new data sources overcome the problems associated with more traditional forms of data?
The panel session will coincide with the CDRC’s big data network exhibition, which will take place in the main hall throughout the duration of the day. For more.
Confirmed panel:
David Manley (University of Bristol, UK)
Christopher Lloyd (University of Liverpool, UK)
Michelle Morris (University of Leeds, UK)
Guy Lansley (University College London, UK)
Martin Squires (Boots / University College London, UK)