Week 8 round-up

In Week 8, we began to explore how big data might help reduce the impact of disasters, and how new data sources can help us understand how people move around.

Here’s a brief summary to help you prepare for the final week of the course.

You heard from Federico Botta about a paper we published with him last year on determining crowd sizes using data from mobile phones and Twitter. Mirco Musolesi also talked to us about using smartphone data to understand people’s mobility patterns. You also heard how delivery of aid in Haiti following an earthquake was supported by rapid crowdsourced updates to OpenStreetMap, and considered other examples of how new data sources might help avoid and mitigate disasters.

By the end of last week, you’d also used R to analyse Google Trends data and calculate the Future Orientation Index for 45 different countries around the world. Keep up the great work!

We hope you enjoy your final week!