On Friday, 9 July 2021, MDPI and the Journal IJGI organized the 1st webinar on IJGI, entitled "Social Computing for Geographic Information Science: Which Data, Tools, and Methods for Analyzing Mobility?".

The introduction was held by one of the Chairs of the webinar, Dr. Arianna D’Ulizia. She received her Master degree in Computer Science Engineering from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Science and Automation from the University of “Roma Tre”. She is currently a Researcher with the Institute of Research on Population and Social Policies at the National Research Council of Italy. She is editor-in-chief of the “Endorsed Transactions on Cognitive Communications” journal and an associate editor of the “IEEE Access” journal.

The first speaker to quick off this webinar was Dr. Ludovico Boratto, with his presentation “Data Collection on People Mobility and Transportations: Current Solutions, Open Challenges and New Opportunities”. He is a researcher at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science of the University of Cagliari (Italy). His research interests focus on recommender systems and their impact on the different stakeholders, both considering accuracy and beyond-accuracy evaluation metrics. Dr. Boratto is an editorial board member of the “Information Processing & Management” journal (Elsevier) and “Journal of Intelligent Information Systems” (Springer), and guest editor of several journals’ special issues. In 2012, he got his Ph.D. at the University of Cagliari (Italy), where he was a research assistant until May 2016. From May 2016 to April 2021, he joined Eurecat as Senior Research Scientist in the Data Science and Big Data Analytics research group. Additionally, he is a member of ACM and IEEE.

The second presentation with the title " Big Social Media Data to Measure Place Connectivity and Human Mobility Dynamics" was held by Dr. Zhenlong Li. He is an Associate Professor of Geography at the University of South Carolina (USC), where he established and leads the Geoinformation and Big Data Research Lab (http://gis.cas.sc.edu/gibd). His primary research field is GIScience with a focus on geospatial big data analytics, spatiotemporal computing, and cyberGIS with applications to disaster management, human mobility, and public health. Dr. Li is recognized as a Breakthrough Star by USC in 2020 and is listed as one of the Geospatial World 50 Rising Stars by the Geospatial Media and Communications in 2021.

The presentations were followed by a Q&A and a discussion, moderated by the Chair Prof. Dr. Patrizia Grifoni. She received the degrees in Electronic Engineering at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. She is senior researcher and works at the National Research Council of Italy since 1990. From 1994 to 1999 she was contract professor of “Elaborazione digitale delle immagini” in the course for Cultural Heritage professionals with the University of Macerata. She is professor of “Software Engineering and Object-Oriented Programming” at the telematic International Uninettuno University.

The closing of the webinar was moderated by the Chair Prof. Dr. Fernando Ferri. He received the degrees in Electronic Engineering in 1990 and the PhD in Medical Informatics from the University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1993. He is Director of Research with the National Research Council of Italy. He is also professor of “Algorithms and data structures” and of “Information Systems and Databases” at the telematic International Uninettuno University. He was the Coordinator of some European and national projects.

The webinar was offered via Zoom and required registration to attend. The full recording can be found here on Sciforum website. In order to stay updated on the next webinars on IJGI be sure to sign up for our newsletter by clicking on “Subscribe” at the top of the page.

Social Computing for Geographic Information Science
Guest Editors: Dr. Arianna D'Ulizia, Dr. Patrizia Grifoni & Dr. Fernando Ferri
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 July 2021