My main research focus is in collaborative online communities with a geographic component. The projects I am involved in each provide some kind of service to the people of Minnesota in addition to serving as platforms for research.
- Cyclopath
Cyclopath is a computational geowiki for bicyclists in the Twin Cities area. In addition to providing personalized, bike-centric routes and directions, the wiki enables the community to share knowledge and even interactively improve the map layout directly.
Cyclopath is a project of the GroupLens research group.
- River Watch
River Watch is a citizen-based water quality monitoring program for the Red River basin in northwest Minnesota (as well as North Dakota and Manitoba). riverwatch.umn.edu serves as an online repository of stream data collected by volunteers. Robust error-checking and graphing mechanisms make this site a useful tool for data analysis and watershed education.
I am the primary software architect for this website.
- LocalFoods.umn.edu
LocalFoods.umn.edu is an online community of local food growers and processors in Minnesota. Starting as a project of the NW Minnesota RSDP, the site has expanded to cover most of the state and continues to grow along with the local foods movement as a whole.
I am the primary software architect for this website.
