Novel data sources for accessibility modelling – Henrikki Tenkanen’s PhD course

November 2017 – Geography Master’s Programme

Course description

This course builds around Henrikki Tenkanen’s PhD-thesis titled “Dynamic Analysis of Accessibility and Mobility – Novel Approaches to Support Planning with Open Data and Tools“.

It will offer a possibility to be a part of the PhD defense process and to learn a lot about state of the art accessibility modelling and mobility analyses. The course consists of several meetings, course readings and discussions. In the kick-off meeting the course practicalities will be introduced. Minisymposium on accessibility brings together researchers and planners to discuss accessibility modelling using novel data sources. Shadow Defense works as a final rehearsal for Henrikki following the structure of the actual defense but with students being the opponents. The culmination of the course will be the actual defense with prof. Robert Weibel from the University of Zurich working as the opponent. Thoughts and ideas will be wrapped up in the last meeting of the course on the following week of the defense.

Schedule:

• 3.11. klo 10-12 (Physicum D112), Introduction to the course 
• 9.11. klo 12:30-16 (Physicum D101) Mini-symposium on Accessibility analyses using novel data sources

• • See the event page and register here

• 14.11. 12-16 (Physicum A115), Shadow defense with students making questions to Henrikki
• 17.11. 12-16 (Physicum D101), The PhD defense 
• 21.11. at 10-12 (Chemicum A128), Wrap up & discussion

Credits

This 2 credit point pop-up -course can be included to the course GEOG-328 Topical issues in geoinformatics (5 cr), or it can be one task in the GEOG-406GIS in Society course. Individual pieces (shadow defense, symposium, defense) can also be included in the GEOG_G338 Advanced Seminar of Geoinformatics. Please note, however, that participation can be counted only in one course!

Registration 

The registration to the course is done by enrolling to this Moodle area: https://moodle.helsinki.fi/course/view.php?id=26393#section-0

The registration key is “Henkasta_tohtori!”

Course completion

Participation to every course meeting is obligatory. Students will also need to read the provided course materials (Henrikki’s thesis, including a summary part and 5 scientific articles + 4-5 other scientific articles by the opponent and the presentators of the minisymposium).

Before the shadow defense students form journal groups. Each group chooses 2 articles from the thesis of which they discuss together and form questions that are presented to Henrikki in the shadow defense. The group reports their questions and findings how these questions were answered.

Evaluation

The course is evaluated on a scale pass-fail

Course Teachers

Henrikki Tenkanen, Tuuli Toivonen, Elias Willberg, and all participants!

Contacts  

tuuli.toivonen@helsinki.fi & elias.willberg@helsinki.fi

Welcome to a minisymposium on urban accessibility modelling on 9th November in Kumpula Campus. The symposium aims to bring together researchers and planners working with urban accessibility and mobility from Finland and abroad. 

The symposium is part of the Science workshops on novel and open data sources and approaches to study urban accessibility and mobility project funded by Finnish Cultural Foundation. It also links to the PhD defense of Henrikki Tenkanen, who defends his thesis  “Capturing time in space – Dynamic analyses of accessibility and mobility to support spatial planning with open data and tools” on 17th November.

See the program and register here!

Accessibility Research Group and SoMeCon project is actively present in this years Mobile Tartu Conference. Tuuli gives a keynote on the use of social media data on mobility studies, Henrikki presents our works in Kruger National Park (SA) with social media data and Olle tells about dynamic accessibility modelling in urban environments. Vuokko is our guerilla poster representive! Greetings from Tartu!

Kuntaliitto has published a report on the use and impact of the Finnish libraries. Chapter 8 with the title “Kirjaston vaikuttavuuden ulottuvuuksia lainausdatan ja kyselytutkimusten valossa” presents results by Jaani Lahtinen and Jouni Juntumaa, featuring also our data. See the full report (in Finnish) from here.

The Helsinki Region Travel Time Matrix for 2015 is now ready thanks to the efforts of Henrikki and Vuokko in particular! We are still testing the data and will make the official release in January 2016. If you need the data urgently during the holiday season, please contact Vuokko!

Our group got, in collaboration with conservation scientists Enrico Di Minin and Anna Hausmann, a considerable funding to study the potential of social media data in spatial planning, mobility research and conservation science. With this funding we can hire one PhD student and one post-doc for 3-4 years. We are grateful and happy!

Helsinki Metropolitan Region Urban Research Program granted us continuation for our MetropAccess project for 2016. With this continuation we are able to advance our accessibility and mobility research in the Helsinki region. PhD Maria Salonen and PhD Olle Järv will be working with the funding during 2016.

We are grateful for the funding!

ProGIS foundation awarded the best theses of the year and Maria Salonen got the price for her PhD “Analysing spatial accessibility patterns with travel time and distance measures: novel approaches for rural and urban contexts“! Congratulations!

Maria Salonen will be defending her thesis  “Analysing spatial accessibility patterns with travel time and distance measures: novel approaches for rural and urban contexts” on 7th November at 12 o’clock noon in the lecture hall 5 of the main building of the University of Helsinki, Rein Ahas acting as the opponent and Tommi Inkinen as custos. Her thesis summary is available in the e-thesis service.

Henrikki received the best thesis of the year price from the national GI association ProGIS ry, with his thesis “Geographic knowledge discovery from sparse GPS-data – Revealing spatio-temporal patterns of Amazonian river transports“. The price was divided between four theses.