CI-TEAM Demonstration Project: Enhancing Stakeholder Participation in Environmental Planning with Visualization Tools that Support Complex Systems Learning and Spatial Thinking

CI-TEAM 示范项目：利用支持复杂系统学习和空间思维的可视化工具增强利益相关者对环境规划的参与

• 批准号: 1135572
• 负责人: Moira Zellner
• 金额: $ 25万
• 依托单位: University of Illinois at Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1135572&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CI; TEAM; Demonstration; Project; Enhancing

This proposal brings together urban planners and environmental scientists, experts in complexity modeling and spatial analyses for science and policy applications, learning scientists studying how technology enhances cognitive and decision-making processes, and computer scientists concerned with visualizations and visual analytics. The aim is to enhance existing visualization tools and the social processes in which they are embedded to better support participatory planning addressing complex environmental problems. The complexity of such problems makes it hard to trace causal impacts through the web of interactions, including the effects of individual decisions on the quality of shared natural resources. While visualization tools have been designed to assist stakeholders to plan for these problems, they are usually very elaborate, requiring trained facilitators to manage their inputs and interpret their outputs. Similarly, an increasing amount of relevant sensor and simulation data exists, but in a form that is not accessible or usable for this community. As a result, stakeholders are insulated from the very information they need for their decisions, basing them instead on invalid knowledge and unexamined assumptions. This study will allow us to design tools that bring forward the spatial relationships and interactions that are hidden in the complexity of environmental problems, yet making them accessible to stakeholders for routine use in the planning decisions shaping the environmental future of places across the U.S. To achieve these aims this team is working with existing agent-based modeling and geographic information systems software, applying Design-Based Research and Participatory Design methods to create software and evolve the collaborative learning structures needed for its use in this context. They are distilling stakeholder needs and preferences to propose and test alternate user interfaces to support stakeholders? input of specialized knowledge and values, interpretation of outputs, and collaborative use of the tools in the social context of participatory planning. They are also exploring ways to capitalize on the data- and opinion-sharing potential of social networking technology to enhance stakeholders? collective learning and planning with these tools. Engaging actual stakeholders in the design process thus greatly increases the chance that the software and learning structures will be ultimately adopted by the target demographic upon deployment. A by-product of this research includes the assessment materials to examine how each one of these tools supports different aspects of visual thinking about complex environmental problems, and how they inform planning judgments to address them. This is of interest to researchers evaluating similar processes. Approaching environmental issues from across these fields provides the appropriate scope for creating infrastructure for the public and for planning practitioners in a way formerly limited to specialists. Broader Impacts The main goal is to train citizens with the ability to engage in spatial and complex systems conceptualization of the environmental issues they face, and empower them to chart their own future with a fuller understanding of the impacts of their decisions. By definition, participatory planning seeks different voices to be heard in defining a problem and in suggesting solutions. This work is developing guidelines for effective participatory visualization software and learning activities so that stakeholders are active constructors and engaged users of the tools needed for critical deliberation around complex environmental problems. By empowering diverse representatives to take part in the production of relevant information and recommendations, the project aims to counteract the power imbalances that tend to plague policy and plan making, where only a few have access to key information. A second goal is to develop the curricular and pedagogical materials to train Computer Science students to create effective visualization software and interfaces for this purpose, and Urban Planning students to conduct participatory processes with these tools. A future implementation stage will build on this work to deploy the software, accompanying social practices and supporting cyber-infrastructure in other stakeholder communities dealing with a variety of complex environmental problems, and to incorporate the training modules in the Urban Planning and Computer Science curricula at UIC, which serves one of the most diverse student bodies in the US

该提案汇集了城市规划师和环境科学家，科学和政策应用的复杂性建模和空间分析专家，研究技术如何增强认知和决策过程的学习科学家，以及关注可视化和可视化分析的计算机科学家。其目的是加强现有的可视化工具及其所嵌入的社会进程，以更好地支持参与性规划，解决复杂的环境问题。这些问题的复杂性使得很难通过相互作用的网络来追踪因果影响，包括个人决定对共享自然资源质量的影响。虽然设计了可视化工具来帮助利益攸关方规划这些问题，但这些工具通常非常复杂，需要经过培训的协调员管理其投入并解释其产出。类似地，存在越来越多的相关传感器和模拟数据，但其形式对于该社区来说是不可访问或不可用的。因此，利益攸关方无法获得决策所需的信息，而是将决策建立在无效的知识和未经检验的假设之上。这项研究将使我们能够设计工具，提出隐藏在环境问题复杂性中的空间关系和相互作用，但使利益相关者能够在规划决策中日常使用，塑造美国各地的环境未来。应用基于设计的研究和分解设计方法来创建软件，并发展在这种情况下使用所需的协作学习结构。他们正在提取利益相关者的需求和偏好，以提出和测试替代用户界面来支持利益相关者？专业知识和价值观的投入，产出的解释，以及在参与性规划的社会背景下协作使用工具。他们还在探索如何利用社交网络技术的数据和意见共享潜力，以增强利益相关者？利用这些工具进行集体学习和规划。因此，在设计过程中让实际的利益相关者参与，大大增加了软件和学习结构在部署时最终被目标人群采用的机会。这项研究的一个副产品包括评估材料，以研究这些工具中的每一个如何支持复杂环境问题的视觉思维的不同方面，以及它们如何为规划判断提供信息以解决这些问题。这对评估类似过程的研究人员很有意义。从这些领域着手处理环境问题，为公众和规划从业人员创造基础设施提供了适当的空间，而以前这种方式仅限于专家。更广泛的影响主要目标是培养公民参与空间和复杂系统概念化他们所面临的环境问题的能力，并使他们能够更充分地了解他们的决定的影响，规划自己的未来。顾名思义，参与性规划寻求在界定问题和提出解决办法时听到不同的声音。这项工作正在为有效的参与性可视化软件和学习活动制定准则，以便利益攸关方成为围绕复杂环境问题进行批判性审议所需工具的积极建设者和参与使用者。该项目旨在通过增强不同代表参与编制相关信息和建议的能力，消除往往困扰政策和计划制定的权力不平衡现象，因为只有少数人能够获得关键信息。第二个目标是开发课程和教学材料，以培训计算机科学专业的学生为此目的创建有效的可视化软件和界面，以及城市规划专业的学生使用这些工具进行参与式过程。未来的实施阶段将在这项工作的基础上部署软件，伴随社会实践，并支持其他利益相关者社区处理各种复杂的环境问题的网络基础设施，并将培训模块纳入UIC的城市规划和计算机科学课程，该课程为美国最多样化的学生团体之一提供服务。