Workshop on Spatio-Temporal Constraints on Social Networks

关于在互联网上激增的社交网络的地理分支，存在两个相互冲突的概念框架。一方面，人们普遍认为互联网使社会交流不受地理位置和时间的限制——“距离已死”和“地球是平的”。另一方面，地理学家长期以来一直使用距离和各种替代距离，如成本和旅行时间，来理解和解释人类在迁移中的空间行为，以及通过电话数量和旅行模式表达的社会互动。许多观点都支持这样一种观点，即现实将这两者结合在一起——社交网络仍然受到位置和距离的限制，尽管与互联网出现之前相比，这种限制的程度要小得多。在文化、宗教和语言归属的空间影响下，面对面的互动在某些情况下仍然是必要的或首选的。此外，在许多地方，上网受到严重限制。为了解决这个问题，将于2010年12月13日至14日在加州大学圣巴巴拉分校举办一个关于社会网络时空约束的研讨会。研讨会将汇集来自学术界、私营部门和政府机构的大约40位专家，他们从定量地理学家到社会网络分析师，一直在研究这一问题的各个方面。它还将包括计算机科学家、空间统计学家和许多其他相关领域的专家。自1988年以来，加州大学圣巴巴拉分校空间研究中心及其前身组织了大约40次关于地理信息科学前沿主题的专家会议，这次研讨会将遵循这一模式。它将包括关于最新技术状况的背景介绍、全体会议和小组讨论，以及最后的全体会议讨论，以确定研究议程并确定其优先顺序，并规划下一步行动，以确保研讨会创造的势头不会失去。本次讲习班将推进概念框架，以处理自愿或群众来源的地理信息以及与当代电信技术改变空间和地点有关的相关问题。讲习班的成果将通过网络以及一系列后续活动，包括会议和出版物的特别会议传播。对讲习班主题的研究以及讲习班和随后的活动所激发的研究将产生对许多社区具有重大价值的成果，包括越来越依赖联网志愿者和情报界所产生的VGI的制图机构和公司。

Two conflicting conceptual frameworks exist regarding the geographic ramification of social networks that have proliferated on the Internet. On the one hand, there is a widespread belief that the Internet allows social communication without respect to geographic location or time -- that "distance is dead" and "the Earth is flat." On the other hand, geographers long have used distance and various surrogates for distance, such as cost and travel time, to understand and explain human spatial behavior in migration as well as social interaction expressed in volumes of telephone calls and travel patterns. Many arguments support the contention that reality now combines the two -- that social networks still are constrained by location and distance, although to a much smaller extent than before the advent of the Internet. Face-to-face interaction still is necessary or preferred in some contexts, with cultural, religious, and linguistic affiliation spatially influenced to some extent. Furthermore, access to the Internet is severely constrained in many places. To address this topic, a workshop will be conducted on the topic of Spatial and Temporal Constraints on Social Networks at the University of California-Santa Barbara on December 13-14, 2010. The workshop will bring together about 40 experts from academia, the private sector, and government agencies who have been working on all aspects of this issue, from quantitative geographers to social network analysts. It also will include computer scientists, spatial statisticians, and specialists in many other relevant areas. The workshop will follow the model of roughly 40 previous specialist meetings organized on cutting-edge topics in geographic information science by the Center for Spatial Studies and its precursors at the University of California, Santa Barbara since 1988. It will include context-setting presentations on the state of the art, plenary and small-group discussions, and a final plenary discussion to identify and prioritize a research agenda, and to plan next steps to ensure that the momentum created by the workshop is not lost.This workshop will advance conceptual frameworks for addressing volunteered or crowd-sourced geographic information (VGI) as well as related issues associated with the transformation of space and place by contemporary telecommunications technologies. The results of the workshop will be disseminated via the Web as well as a range of follow-on activities, including special sessions at conferences and publications. Research on the topic of the workshop and stimulated by the workshop and subsequent activities will produce results that will be of significant value to a number of communities, including mapping agencies and companies that increasingly rely on VGI generated by networked volunteers and the intelligence community.